This month's sizzling fiction wafts us from a German lakeside farm to an Irish village with a stopover in Paris and strife on the ocean wave.
THE FIRE Daniela Krien
The mountain holiday cabin they were to rent burnt down, so Rahel and Peter agree instead to house-sit for old friends and to care for their animals (horse, cats, chickens, a stork) on the German farm where Rahel spent dreamy childhood summers. All the air has gone out of their marriage. Their sex life is kaput. Daughter Selma visits, bringing resentment and two small feral sons. It could be three weeks of purgatory, but wild swimming in the lake, alfresco meals, and honest conversation works its magic in this perfectly paced, nuanced, forgiving story of good, flawed people, with a family secret at its heart.
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