'A beguiling and human tale that sweeps us through the years' Daily Mail

'Exquisite. . . Readers will be rapt' Publishers Weekly

Haru, a successful Japanese art dealer, appreciates beauty, harmony, balance and good saké.

One evening at a party he meets Maud, an enigmatic Frenchwoman, and after a brief, intense romance he learns that she is pregnant with his child. But Maud issues him a heartbreaking warning: if he ever tries to see her or the child, she will take her own life.

Quietly devastated, Haru resigns himself to loving his daughter from afar, and Rose grows up on the other side of the world, without ever knowing her father. Is it too late to change things?

From international bestseller Muriel Barbery, this is a stunning tale of friendship, secrets and a father's enduring love.

"Told in poised and heightened prose that has an almost mythic resonance. . . it's a beguiling and unusual tale that sweeps us through the years" - Daily Mail

"Exquisite. . . Readers will be rapt" - Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"A zigzag journey through Haru's life, rewinding and fast-forwarding from chapter to chapter, leaving us a bit dizzy but thoroughly delighted. . . It's rare these days for a novel to be devoted to beauty, much less present a philosophy, and that's precisely why Barbery's uniquely stand out" - Boston Globe

"Unravels in poetic ways" - i-D, Fiction to be Excited for in 2024

"If Muriel Barbery's sentences were stones, her books would be cathedrals. . . A magnificent novel" - Le Figaro Littéraire

"Magical, infused with poetry. . . A touching story about life's trials, encounters, and friendships" - Mademoiselle Lit

"A book of great beauty, imbued with poetry and melancholy" - RTL

"An extremely gentle, extremely poetic book. Sad, luminous, and dark too. . . a marvel" - France Info