I walked out into the autumn morning and smelt a bonfire behind the exhaust fumes. I only had to cross the road to walk into the tall glass cube that would be my art school for the next three years.

Evie has left her father, her life in Cornwall and her childhood behind her to begin a very different sort of life in London. At first the great city provides her with a world of inspiration. Her imagination is fired by the history, and the scenes of London. With Rob, Bianca and 'the ballerina', Evie discovers the ancient and ever-changing city and her paintings are filled with colour and fantasy as she indulges her need to escape.

This new life seems safe and peaceful until the moment her alcoholic father arrives and spins this new world around so that the past is again her present. Evie struggles to carry on with the life she has been building but her fears and memories are never far away. The dreams and the nightmares come together on the canvas of Evie's young life and it is her new friends, the city she has fallen in love with, and most of all, her growing friendship with a talented young sculptor, that must hold her together.

This is the story of a daughter, an artist and the moment when you realise your life is your own. Helena McEwen draws together the themes of art, love, friendship and memory with a painter's skill, in a story filled with hope.