Résumé

"This quirky Swedish love story is the antidote to all of those Hallmark movies you've been bingeing." -- Elle Canada

For readers of quirky Scandinavian fiction comes this charming and witty debut novel by Emmy Abrahamson--perfect for fans of Jonas Jonasson.

Love stinks. Or maybe it just needs a shower . . .

Vienna: famous for Mozart, waltzes, and pastry; less famous for Julia, a Swedish transplant who spends her days teaching English to unemployed Austrians and her evenings watching Netflix with her cat or club hopping with a frenemy. An aspiring novelist, Julia's full of ideas for future bestsellers: A writer moves his family to a deserted hotel in the dead of winter and spirals into madness! A homely governess loves a brooding man whose crazy wife is locked up in the attic! Fine, so they've been done. Doesn't mean Julia won't find something original.

Then something original finds Julia--sits down next to her on a bench, as a matter of fact. Ben is handsome (under all that beard) and adventurous (leaps from small bridges in a single bound). He's sexy as hell and planning to shuffle off to Berlin before things can get too serious. Oh, and Ben lives in a public park.

Thus begins a truth stranger than any fiction Julia might have imagined: a whirlwind relationship with a guy who shares her warped sense of humor and shakes up the just-okay existence she's been too lazy to change. Ben challenges her to break out; she challenges him to settle down. As weeks turn to months, Julia keeps telling herself that this is a chapter in her life, not the whole book. If she writes the ending, she can't get hurt.

But what if the ending isn't hers to write?