Elinor lives in a small village in southern Sweden. She writes on her dating profile: I am thirty-six years old and I am looking for a tender, but not too tender man. But the men she meets are not what she hoped for. And love remains a distant dream.

Max dreams of a multilingual lover, a woman who will understand him in whatever language he speaks. His search brings him to Italy, where he meets a marchesa on the brink of economic collapse.

There is also Lucretia, a witness to her grandmother's ultimate downfall in an abandoned palace, facing the shadow of the world where she grew up.

A manuscript enters and exits their lives, bringing them closer, evoking feelings of love and hatred, leaving indelible marks on them.

Three people chase love in a beautiful novel, awarded the August Prize.