The story of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes is one of the best-known, well-documented and controversial in the annals of poetry, romance and tragedy, yet the sequence of poems in Plath s volume Ariel, which seems to work inexorably towards her suicide, was rearranged and reselected for publication by Hughes, while the record of the period when she wrote it is fragmentary. Inspired by Plath s original order, which has never been published, this deeply felt novel recreates her version - a tale of one woman s survival and triumphant renaissance after the death of her marriage, which captures her profoundly poignant, courageous struggle to balance motherhood, artistry and shattered faith. Written with lyrical grace, it is a remarkably imaginative, empathetic response to the voice and spirit that blaze forth from Plath s masterpiece.