Chiaroscuro
[Book]

Chiaroscuro is the story of Jamie Makepeace, an artist, and Ben Gallagher, a baker, and how they discover, misplace, mistake and rediscover love in San Francisco. The prose is witty without being high-handed and easy without being simplistic. And it makes me want to visit San Francisco (as opposed to just sort of waving as I drive by). (I think this is a trait a lot of great books have in common. They make you want the things described in them. The Redwall books made me want mushroom pasties and dandelion juice, and Lawhead's books always make me want to go to Wales.)

Despite the wonderful descriptions of San Francisco, Chiaroscuro is fundamentally very much a character-driven book. These people are real, deep and flawed, no two-dimensionals here. By the end of the book you care about all of them (even the ones you don't like very much), and you want to know more about their lives and each character's individual story.