Actually, it was tulip bulbs Louise Sorenstam, born Granström, had intended to spend the day getting into the earth this beautiful October day, not her husband Konrad. With neat letters she had already in early September written “tulip Wednesday” in her calendar and then bought almost everything in the store’s range.
Louise did not shed a single tear when she saw her husband’s coffin lowered into soil of Roslagen. Thirty-five years of being a loyal and faithful wife is over and for the first time in decades, she dares to dream of resuming her art studies and create a new life for herself. But Konrad was unfortunately a man of spacious conscience and it is not long before Louise discovers that the only thing she inherited after him is a tangle of debts and problems. When the local newspaper shows an overly intrusive interest in her husband’s affairs, Louise leaves Sweden, fleeing to Carina, the sister that already at a young age moved to Paris to work as a fashion model and they had not had any contact since their parents’ death, twenty years ago.
Although Carina’s modeling career is running out and she now lives in the small village Sainte Marie sur Mer, she is still stunningly beautiful. The sisters’ reunion is anything but cordial, and the forced living arrangements curls up secrets, memories and unresolved conflicts to the surface.
While Louise is trying to understand why Carina not wanted to have anything to do with her all these years, she encounters Boy too often. Boy that is all that Konrad was not, and for Louise this attention gets increasingly difficult to resist. But what does he want from her, anyway? The days goes by, one after another, and Louise is forced to examine the marriage with Konrad as well the life she lived all those years. When everything comes into the clear air, she has to choose between revenge and forgiveness.
All those secrets is a warm story about sisterhood with obstacles, about making up with the past and taking responsibility for the future. With this novel, Annika Estassy consolidates her position as the sharp-eyed and tender portrayer of tangled relationships.