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'An absolute scorcher'

Evening Standard

'The book about infidelity that has shaken up Italy'

The Times

'Intimate and ultimately moving... completely absorbing'

Daily Mail

'A gripping novel exploring the tensions in an apparently idyllic marriage'

Financial Times

'A must-read'

Sydney Morning Herald

'Devotion thrilled me, made me think and moved me deeply... Irresistible'

Jonathan Safran Foer

Carlo, a part-time professor of creative writing, and Margherita, an architect-turned-real estate-agent: a happily married couple in their mid-thirties, perfectly attuned to each other's restlessness. They are in love, but they also harbour desires that stray beyond the confines of their bedroom: Carlo longs for the quiet beauty of one of his students, Sofia; Margherita fantasises about the strong hands of her physiotherapist, Andrea.

But it is love, with its unassuming power, which ultimately pulls them from the brink, aided by Margherita's mother Anna, the couple's anchor and lighthouse - a wise, proud seamstress hiding her own disappointments.

But after eight years of repressed desires and the birth of a son, when the past resurfaces in the form of books sent anonymously, will love be enough to save them?

A no. 1 international bestseller
Winner of the Premio Strega Giovani
Shortlisted for the Premio Strega

'Powerful, delicate, exquisite'

Claudio Magris

'Masterful... The ending is just as good as that of Joyce's The Dead'

Corriere della Sera

'You'll feel like taking refuge in this book and never leaving its confines'

La Stampa

'With all-encompassing writing, Marco Missiroli opens the rooms of his characters and the streets of Milan, the thoughts and the concealed desires, makes dialogue and silences reverberate with the spontaneity of great narrators'

Il Foglio