Evaristo possesses enough ball-busting originality to create whole novels for each of the historical characters she resurrects . . . [she creates] funky yarns so tantalising you want to devour them GuardianMeet Stanley Williams: Single, in his thirties, grieving the death of his Jamaican father and wondering if there is more to life than his nine-to-five banking job in a sky-high glass menagerie.Enter Jessie ODonnell: barmaid, former singer-cum-comedienne, and desperate to get into her rusty old Lady Niva and hit the freeway across Europe.The unlikely pair begin an electrifying odyssey that weaves in and out of history, colliding with the forgotten heroes of Europes past. Shakespeares mysterious Dark Lady of the Sonnets, Pushkin and his Ethiopian great-grandfather and the mixed-race Allessandro de Medici of Florence are all ready to have their voices heard, and Stanley and Jessie do what they can to hang on for the ride . . .A bouncy. . . touching novel about the search for love and belonging The Times