‘When I used to be twelve years old God spoke to my father for the very first time. God didn’t say much. He told my father to be a painter and left it at that . ‘ So begins Niall Williams’ magical tale about love and destiny.

Nicholas Coughlan and Isabel Gore had been made for one another — but fate doesn’t always take the easiest or the most obvious route to real love. For a start, Nicholas and Isabel have never met and nor are they more likely to, without some kind of divine treatment. But simply because God, ghosts, a series of coincidences and seemingly chance events and encounters conspire to create the couple jointly, other — frequently more individual — forces try to keep them aside. ‘What will be, will be,’ obviously, but that doesn’t guarantee a happy-ever-after finishing, nor answer fully the question ‘Will they, won’t they?’

Written in a lyrical, lilting tone, Four Letters of Love can be a glorious, uplifting story about trust, about seizing as soon as, believing inside your intuition and acting on impulse — and about pursuing your heart, irrespective of where it may business lead.