England, 1937. In the village of Blacknowle on the Dorset coast, fourteen-year-old Mitzy Hatcher has endured a wild and lonely upbringing. Shunned by her neighbours, the arrival of renowned artist Charles Aubrey, along with his exotic mistress and their daughters, is like a breath of fresh air. As Charles's muse, Mitzy develops a deep and abiding bond with the Aubrey household over the course of the following three summers. Gradually, Mitzy begins to perceive a future she had never thought possible, and a powerful love is kindled in her. A love that will grow as she does: from innocence to obsession; from childish infatuation to something far more complex. It will be almost seventy-five years before the consequences of this potent desire are fully played out, as a young man in an art gallery looks at a hastily-drawn portrait and wonders at the intensity of it. The questions he asks will lead him back to Blacknowle, and draw him to the truth about those fevered summers in the 1930s. Moving from the wilds of the Dorset coast to the intoxicating heat of a Moroccan summer, A Half Forgotten Song explores the quixotic nature of memory - and the perils of obsessive love.
