The surprise French best seller - a brilliant contemporary twist on the historical novel.

I can’t go with you. Spring 1897: Anna Charlier farewells her fiancé Nils, the explorer, as he sets off to conquer the world. She will endure many years of waiting and the unknown, will marry and move continents, but will never be able to forget.

Summer 1930, Svalbard, Norway: A walrus-hunting boat sets sail for White Island, one of the last lands before the North Pole. The melting ice has revealed terrain that is usually inaccessible. As they move across the island, the men discover bodies and the remains of a makeshift camp. It is the solution to a mystery that has hung in the air for 33 years: the disappearance in July 1897 of Salomon August Andrée, Knut Frænkel, and Nils Strindberg as they tried to reach the North Pole in a hot-air balloon. Among the remains some rolls of negatives are found, and 100 images are retrieved.

Based on these lunar-like black-and-white photographs and the expedition logbook, Hélène Gaudy retraces and reimagines this great adventure that was blown off course, weaving in the painfully beautiful love affair of Nils and Anna. From the conquest of the skies to the exploration of the poles, this haunting and brilliant award-winning novel, set in the ethereal landscape of the Arctic, reflects on the human need to discover, describe, conquer, and ultimately shrink the world.

For fans of Anna Funder, Maggie O’Farrell, Eleanor Catton, and W. G. Sebald.