Description

Read this masterful, generation-spanning love story, set in Austria as it recovers from one war and awaits the coming of another.

‘Wistful, yearning and wise’ Elizabeth Day

1914: Aspiring journalist Anton arrives in Vienna where he meets Delphine, a woman of deep secrets. Anton is entranced by the light of first love, until his country declares war on hers.

1927: For Lena, life in a small town has been cosseted and cold. When her love affair with a young lawyer crumbles, she leaves to take a post at the snow-capped sanatorium, the Schloss Seeblick.

1933: Anton is sent to write about the mysterious Schloss Seeblick. In this place, on the banks of a silvery lake where the roots of human suffering are laid bare, two people will see each other as if for the first time…

‘Fascinating… A rich, dark story’ The Times

Sebastian Faulks, Sunday Times bestseller, September 2023

Publisher Review

A fine and profoundly intelligent novel, written by an author who balances big ideas with human emotion. Wistful, yearning and wise. -- Elizabeth Day Faulks's most poignant love story yet -- Antony Beevor What we're reading on holiday. * The Times * Sebastian Faulks' latest novel is beautifully written, shot through with a sense of the frailty of love that is at times reminiscent of William Faulkner's The Wild Palms... This is a superb novel * Spectator * A 5* masterpiece that I devoured in a day * New Books Magazine *