Circle of Stones

Nik is an eccentric art student obsessed with painting his dancer girlfriend, Jennifer. When one day she inexplicably disappears, Nik's world is shattered. Determined to find her, he embarks on a cross-country journey following a trail of scant clues. He doesn't anticipate how far he'll have to travel, or that an intimidating stranger from Jennifer's past is looking for her, too.

Nik and Jennifer fade into the background of their own tale, surfacing now and again like ghosts as the rest of their mysterious story unfolds through a series of chance encounters with intricately linked strangers: An English professor coping with a dying mother, a rebellious teenage girl, a debt- ridden civil servant, a disillusioned ex-anarchist documentary filmmaker, and others.

*Circle of Stones* reveals as much about the grief and the grinding frust- rations of contemporary life as it does about the pursuit of love at all costs.