Description

Listed on Financial Times Best Summer Books of 2022

A mysterious female figure keeps on appearing under a landscape painter’s brush. A woman addresses letters to an absent loved one. Directing her reader and characters with the deftness of the Master of Suspense, Lucie Paye dramatises the power of unconditional love and the role of the unconscious in artistic creation.’In this remarkable debut, the story of a painter fixated with a ghostly female figure becomes entwined with the story of a woman seeking to connect with a long-lost son. A delicate tale of artistic obsession and creation, and a moving meditation on longing and loss.’ – Financial Times

‘Enigmatic and magnetic? Its oscillations are at first intriguing, then captivating, and finally mesmerising.’ – Le Matricule des Anges

‘In this romantic epic, Lucie Paye choreographs a ballet of clues in a world where people take time – to write letters, to linger in a museum, to be absorbed by a detail that transforms their perception of a painting, of life…A novel that joins the eternal literary quest to uncover the mysteries of art.’ – AirFrance Madame