An exhilarating debut novel about a life-changing romance in the long shadow of European history, inspired by the author's real discovery

‘Stunningly good’ Julia Boyd
‘You won’t be able to put it down’ Samantha Rose Hill
‘Worthy of reading and rereading’ Bookpage

Harvard, 1996. Anna is about to graduate when she falls in love with Christoph, a German student visiting campus. As she visits Christoph in Germany and tries to understand the young, elegant man who fascinates her, he reveals his country to her.

Germany is still reckoning with the Holocaust and its pretty new squares belie the war’s destruction. Anna wants to believe in Christoph and the future he promises her but as their relationship becomes increasingly unsettling, she must face up to everything she has been unwilling to see, and everything Christoph has chosen to ignore.

'As if a Sally Rooney novel merged with Richard Linklater's film, Before Sunrise' Booklist

'A swiftly-moving, molecularly perceptive, singular portrait of intoxicating young love' Aube Rey Lescure

'An elegant, unsettling novel about the burden of history and the illusions of love' Sana Krasikov

'A masterpiece' Rebecca Donner

"An ambitious, stirring debut" - People

"Clark, in prose at the same time richly philosophical and light of touch, accomplishes a double feat. She has written both an aching love story and an incisive examination of the politics of memory" - Literary Review

"An incredibly smart novel, with an intricate and perfectly paced depiction of a delicate and intense relationship. It's as if a Sally Rooney novel merged with Richard Linklater's film, Before Sunrise" - Booklist

"Clark uses her first novel to explore a highly literary and highly troubled relationship... At once a rich historical novel and a philosophical study of how much influence past generations have on our affections" - Los Angeles Times

"Phenomenal... Worthy of reading and rereading" - Bookpage

"Offer[s] a flying tour of literary representations of the Holocaust and its legacy—a lightly annotated reading list that includes fiction writers such as Tadeusz Borowski and W. G. Sebald—as well as a meditation on the cost of political crimes to a nation’s trustworthiness and honor, even generations later" - New York Times

"It’s a wonderful novel; highly literary, yet page turning... It’s the sort of book you press on everyone you know, and spend hours discussing, once they’ve read it too" - Irish Examiner

"A revelation" - Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Clark has achieved an impressive feat in this beautiful and powerful novel examining the nature of intergenerational trauma, inherited guilt and all consuming love" - Jewish Chronicle

"In her elegant, calmly unsettled debut novel, Heather Clark illustrated how the cold shadow of German history bleeds constantly into the present, even in the most intimate spheres… a novel of beautiful surfaces and uneasy depths" - Times Literary Supplement

"Clark grapples with history, latching onto inspiration from her grandfather’s World War II scrapbook. This intense story explores first love between American and German university students who must uncover and reconcile the past to forge a future" - Boston Globe

"Immersive... Clark is interrogating whether past misdeeds implicate future generations—and whether they should" - Washington Post

"Finely wrought... The Scrapbook is a fascinating tangle of yearning, history, and legacy" - Shelf Awareness

"Examines the moral implications of the past for those living in the present... Anna and Christophe’s restlessly intelligent conversations raise juicy questions about the extent to which individuals are complicit with a nation's history" - Daily Mail

"Gripping from the start, written with confident concision and directness" - The Herald

"A full and interesting story of the generational reverberations of the Holocaust. It is a mediation on what it means to be a good person in the face of a national crime; something our own children will no doubt be thinking about in years to come" - Lit Hub

"Stunning... the poignant love story between the proud granddaughter of an American G.I. who witnessed the liberation of Dachau and the inscrutable grandson of two Wehrmacht soldiers" - Washington Independent Review of Books