First published 2026
Agnes receives an impossible phone call from local police. Her Aunt Colette is dead. But Agnes buried Colette three years ago in Gueugnon cemetery. She visits the morgue anyway and confirms the identity. The woman lying there is definitely her father's sister, her beloved Tatá. Agnes stares at an unsolvable puzzle. If Colette died yesterday, who lies beneath the headstone bearing her name? Why would her aunt stage her own death and disappear for three years? Agnes begins digging into her family's past, uncovering layer after layer of secrets. Each revelation leads to new questions about the woman she thought she knew. The investigation becomes a journey through time, revealing the complex web of choices and deceptions that shaped Colette's hidden life. Agnes must reconcile the aunt she mourned with the stranger who lived in shadows.
Genres: fiction, mystery, contemporary, thriller
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Gueugnon, France
Period: 21st-century
627 pages · Kindle Edition · Europa Editions