A novel celebrating a magical setting of both encounter and anonymity. At a classic café in the French provinces, Jean-Philippe Blondel, author of the bestselling The 6:41 to Paris, presents a moving fresco of intertwined destinies portrayed with humor, insight and tenderness. In less than twenty-four hours, a medley of characters resumes normal life patterns after a long disruption from Covid--a mother and son in heated conversation, a man and his childhood friend with whom he covertly fell in love, and a woman who crosses paths with the ex who abandoned her in Australia seventeen years earlier. The café's customers, waiters, and owners past and present, examine the threads of their existence, exposing the reader to their inner selves, their failed dreams and how they envisage moving forward in the uncertain future that awaits us all.
