The paper palace - Miranda Cowley Heller

“And I thought: now there is no turning back. No more regrets for what I haven’t done. Now only regrets for what I have done.”

On a perfect August morning, Elle Bishop heads out for an early swim in the freshwater pond below ‘The Paper Palace’—her family’s gently decaying summer camp in Cape Cod. Breaking the surface of the freezing water, she remembers the sudden, passionate encounter she had the night before, up against the wall outside the house, while her husband and mother chatted to the dinner guests inside.

So begins a story that unfolds over twenty-four hours and across fifty years. Decades of family secrets and one unspeakable childhood incident will force Elle to decide between her much-loved husband and the life she imagined with her first love if tragedy hadn’t changed the course of their lives.