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#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A Fallon Book Club Pick
WINNER OF THE 2025 GOODREADS CHOICE AWARDS FOR BEST FICTION
A Most Anticipated Book of 2025: Goodreads • USA TODAY • Marie Claire • BookPage • Literary Lifestyle • Book Riot • Sunset Magazine • Totally Booked with Zibby Owens

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Anxious People returns with an unforgettably funny, deeply moving tale of four teenagers whose friendship creates a bond so powerful that it changes a complete stranger’s life twenty-five years later.

Most people don’t even notice them—three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. Most people think it’s just a depiction of the sea. But Louisa, an aspiring artist herself, knows otherwise, and she is determined to find out the story of these three enigmatic figures.

Twenty-five years earlier, in a distant seaside town, a group of teenagers find refuge from their bruising home lives by spending long summer days on an abandoned pier, telling silly jokes, sharing secrets, and committing small acts of rebellion. These lost souls find in each other a reason to get up each morning, a reason to dream, a reason to love.

Out of that summer emerges a transcendent work of art, a painting that will unexpectedly be placed into eighteen-year-old Louisa’s care. She embarks on a surprise-filled cross-country journey to learn how the painting came to be and to decide what to do with it. The closer she gets to the painting’s birthplace, the more nervous she becomes about what she’ll find. Louisa is proof that happy endings don’t always take the form we expect in this stunning testament to the transformative, timeless power of friendship and art.

About the Author

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Fredrik Backman is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Man Called Ove, My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry, Britt-Marie Was Here, Beartown, Us Against You, Anxious People, The Winners, and My Friends, as well as two novellas and one work of nonfiction. His books are published in more than forty countries. He lives in Stockholm, Sweden, with his wife and two children. Connect with him on Facebook and X @BackmanLand and on Instagram @Backmansk.

Praise For…

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"Fredrik Backman, the talented Swedish novelist, is a witty writer and a keen observer. Golden Voice narrator Marin Ireland grandly performs this story of art, friendship, and what it means to be a teen. Ireland replicates the snarky tone of Louisa, who has just released herself from foster care to go see the work of art that is the fulcrum of the plot. Ireland captures the spirit of four teenagers—Kim Kim, Joar, Ali, and Ted—whom we see 25 years earlier in flashbacks. She beautifully delivers Ted’s slightly different accent and his melancholy mood as he and the chattering Louisa take a cross-country train ride to the quartet’s homeplace. Backman has created indelible characters and laugh-out-loud moments. Ireland is simply splendid."
— Winner of an AudioFile Earphones Award, AudioFile magazine

Praise for Fredrik Backman

“Backman captures the messy essence of being human...clever and affecting, as likely to make you laugh out loud as it is to make you cry.” —Washington Post        

“The perfect balance of heartwarming and heart-wrenching…Fredrik Backman has a way of simply yet elegantly describing relationships. We can all be idiots, but we’re still all human beings worthy of connection and love.” –NPR

“Everything Backman’s pen touches oozes with insight and heart.” —Amazon Book Review

“Backman is a masterful writer, his characters familiar yet distinct, flawed yet heroic.”—Kirkus Reviews

“As popular Swedish exports go, Backman is up there with Abba and Stieg Larssson.” —The New York Times Book Review                 

“Backman is the Dickens of our age, and though you'll cry, your heart is safe in his hands.”—Green Valley News (Arizona)