Of Love and Gravity’ unravels the tangled alliances made between men and Woman, Nature and Art. A passionate young painter, Laurie McPhee, is so engrossed in trapping the moments of wonder on the Hebridean islands of his home that Valerie, his new wife of barely a year, leaves him alone with his little pieces of land, eventually to marry her tutor, the mature and urbane Iain Stewart, the painter’s mentor and agent.

Iain is nervous in his possession, especially when he sees the Island Books, a vivid account of the Eden-like existence lived by his young wife and his protégé on the tiny island of Oronsay. Anxious that he must have been a disappointment to Valerie, Iain seeks the truth in their shared pasts and possible futures but finds only contradiction and illusion.