He is Bernard Eliot: a poet; passionate, gregarious, a force of nature.

She is Frances Reardon: a novelist; wry, uncompromising and quick to skewer.

In the summer of 1957, Frances and Bernard meet at writer's colony. Afterwards, he sends her a letter, and with it begins an almost holy friendship told through an absorbing correspondence that chronicles - and changes - the course of their lives.

Frances is hesitant where Bernard is insistent, cynical where he is quixotic, but in each other they find the audience they've been searching for. From their witty, early missives to dispatches from the long, dark nights of the soul, Frances and Bernard tussle over faith and family, literature and creativity, madness and devotion - and before long, they are writing the account of their very own love story.

Inspired by the real-life friendship between two giants of American letters, Flannery O'Connor and Robert Lowell, yet with a warm charm and fierce intelligence entirely its own, Frances & Bernard is a sparkling tribute to the wonder of kindred spirits and bittersweet romance.