Eternal Summer: A Novel

(Paperback)

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Set in a German spa town wracked by climate change, this intense, enthralling debut explores trust, abuse, and solidarity through the unexpected bond between two women. Set in a German spa town wracked by climate change, this intense, enthralling debut explores trust, abuse, and solidarity through the unexpected bond between two women. When Iris took over the family hotel from her grandfather, Bad Heim was still a popular spa town. But now fierce forest fires rage in the area, spewing smoke into the air. The summers are dry and hot and never seem to end. Guests have become a rare sight. But suddenly, a young mother shows up with her small daughter and asks for a room. Something doesn't seem right about her. Does she need help Or even pose a threat Franziska G nsler's debut conjures up the heat of the fires, the ashes falling on skin, and the all-pervading smell of smoke. Yet you will want to stay with these women in this inhospitable place as they draw closer together and prepare to fight for their freedom.

Reviews

As Franziska Gnsler devised her debut novel, she was informed by images of people trapped indoors in smoke-filled cities from the U.S. to ThailandIts a work of psychological suspense, but Gnsler also wanted German readers who escape en masse each year to the good air of their southern mountains to imagine a world that no longer offered such respite. Publishers Weekly

I loved this book. Exploring the unsettling tension between individual lives and the collective upheaval of the climate crisis, it questions what we owe one another. Its haunting is subtle, slow and flickering from page to page until it catches. The two women stayed with me for days afterward. Sarah S. Grossman, author of A Fire So Wild

Gnslers language is calm and unerring. Parallel to the fatal consequences of the climate crisis, she also narrates the story of women.Der Spiegel

A feminist climate-fiction novel that gets under the skin in many different ways.Berliner Zeitung

Author Bio

Franziska G nsler was born in Augsburg in 1987. She studied art and English in Berlin, Vienna, and Augsburg. In 2020 she was shortlisted for the Blogbuster Prize and was a finalist at Berlin's 28th Open Mike competition. G nsler lives in Augsburg and Berlin. Eternal Summer is her debut novel. Imogen Taylor was born in London in 1978 and has lived in Berlin since 2001. She is the translator of Sascha Arango, Dirk Kurbjuweit, and Melanie Raabe, among others. Her translation of Sasha Marianna Salzmann's Beside Myself (Other Press, 2020) was short-listed for the 2021 Helen & Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize and the 2020 Schlegel-Tieck Prize.