Amanda McKenzie Stuart

Ali is a young Egyptian screenwriter determined to succeed in London, where he has been a student. He loves the artistic and political freedom, the colours, the music, the individualism. But he has little money, his student visa is about to expire and he has been thrown out of his lodgings. And so Ali moves in with a succession of eccentric and colourful London flatmates: Mark, a photographer with a very individual style, Linda, a young, blonde, very sexy model and Marilyn Monroe impersonator, and Miss Stevenson who is convinced that Ali is the reincarnation of her long dead Egyptian lover.

A chef seeks reconciliation with her brother by helping him run a decaying resort and health spa.

Edinburgh 1963: Alice is 11 and fascinated by sex. But her mother's involvement with Francois introduces Alice to more facts of life than she had bargained for.