She vanished eleven years ago. Every year, on her daughter’s birthday, her mother received a letter: ‘You will never see each other again.’ For eleven years, few people believed she was still alive. And now, she has returned. Maxime Monceau—a gendarme by profession, a synergologist and non-verbal communication specialist by training, and, by birthright, a former member of a sect he loathes...

An atmospheric drama about a heroine’s return to the heart of Karelia—a place where time flows more slowly than elsewhere, and the boundary between past, present, and future becomes blurred. – A poignant parable-novel exploring the clash between the old and the new, and the lives of those who stayed behind when everyone else left. – For admirers of contemporary social fiction set in the...