'Illuminating and thought-provoking' Irvine Welsh, Guardian

In a Victorian mansion hotel on a Scottish island, a group of English Literature lecturers and students from Glasgow gather for a residential weekend. The weekend proves to be a major turning point in the emotional lives of several people - just not quite in the way any of them expected.

"The great McIlvanney themes - class, guilt, the power of the book, the difficulty of goodness - are all there, seething under the surface" - * Daily Telegraph *

"Remarkable . . . everything in the novel is illuminated by the play of a subtle, sceptical and yet affirmative intelligence" - * Scotland on Sunday *

"Wonderfully witty and wistful" - * Daily Mail *