A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERBOOK OF THE YEAR 2023 ACCORDING TO FINANCIAL TIMES GUARDIAN INDEPENDENT TIME MAGAZINE Levy s lyrical pitch perfect prose is an exploration of our reasons for living the forces that drive us and the inner music that controls the rhythms of our dance through life and love IndependentThe mesmerising new novel from the twice Booker shortlisted author of Hot Milk and Swimming HomeAt the height of her career concert pianist Elsa M Anderson former child prodigy now in her thirties walks off the stage in Vienna mid performance Now she is in Athens watching as another young woman a stranger but uncannily familiar almost her double purchases a pair of mechanical dancing horses at a flea market Elsa wants the horses too but there are no more for sale She drifts to the ferry port on the run from her talent and her history So begins a journey across Europe shadowed by the elusive woman who bought the dancing horses A dazzling portrait of melancholy and metamorphosis August Blue uncovers the ways in which we seek to lose an old story find ourselves in others and create ourselves anew Deborah Levy writes like a dream and I mean that quite literally Stuart Kelly The Scotsman A virtuosic novel of identity and breakdown i