Day after day, Leïla leans over her needlework, her masterpiece, her paper dress: she is carefully assembling the fifty-six letters she received from Dan, to whom she had pledged her troth, who has gone off to a distant land crushed by the sun. As each chapter adds an element to her creation (a post-it note, a card, a wrinkled scrap of paper), the story takes shape: their first encounters, their bond, their daily life, all those sweet nothings that give each love story its own texture. They both came from modest backgrounds. Dan isn’t very talkative, Leïla doesn’t like to write. Every character counts, every sound is as round as a reassuring cocoon.

The text hugs the curves of that paper dress made up of the vestiges of their love affair, offering readers a last, beautiful tribute to the beloved.

A love story that unfolds to the tune of brief notes, like haiku versions of letters, from a lover who is gone. A delicate first novel in which we follow the needle that stitches up the disarray of a young fiancée’s bleeding heart.