First published 2026
Iris celebrates New Year's Eve with her current boyfriend and old friends. The mood feels good as midnight approaches and fireworks begin lighting up the sky. Then a message arrives from her ex, her very first boyfriend, someone she hasn't seen in years. Iris doesn't want to open it, but she does. The message contains just one sentence asking if she remembers whether he was ever violent toward her. This single question forces Iris to confront the physical and psychological violence that exists in intimate relationships. Strømsborg examines the absolute insecurity that women live with because they cannot know if they are truly safe with their partners, in their own homes, in their own beds. The novel reveals how the responsibility for truth gets shifted from perpetrator to victim when he asks her to remember how things were and whether he really did anything wrong. The story captures something both devastating and ordinary, devastating precisely because it happens every day.
Genres: literary-fiction, domestic-fiction, feminism, contemporary, social-issues, psychological-thriller
Vibes: dark, devastating, intimate, introspective, thought-provoking, unsettling
Tropes: confronting-the-past, emotional-manipulation, unreliable-memory, victim-blaming
Period: New Year's Eve
223 pages · Hardcover · Flamme forlag
Content warnings: domestic-violence, emotional-abuse, gaslighting, physical-abuse