Ten summers. One secret. And a final countdown before everything changes forever.
Since she was eight years old, Léa has met Mathis every July on the same beach, at the same blue house with green shutters—their unchanging ritual: ice cream, the dock, a playlist built note by note. This year, though, something has shattered in the natural order of things: a secret no one dares name already hangs over their reunion, even before the sun rises on this tenth summer.
Before her stand two boys who couldn’t be more different. Mathis, the childhood friend whose silences run too long, hiding a four-year-old confession beneath a casualness he can no longer control. And Liam, the seasonal worker at the ice cream shop, easygoing and bright, who asks nothing more than to make her laugh—a lightness that feels like both an escape and a promise.
When Léa discovers that Mathis sealed their “normal summer pact” by hiding his imminent departure for Montreal, the betrayal hits hard: are ten years of friendship enough to forgive a carefully maintained lie? And what if the blue house itself, set to be sold on August 31st, holds a secret just as heavy as the one she holds against Mathis?
Only a few days remain before a plane takes one away and moving boxes the other. Time for one last summer lived out in the open, with nothing packed away in boxes or hidden notebooks—or to lose everything in silence, like every summer before.
Will Léa choose the quiet safety of an uncomplicated love, or the dizzying prospect of a truth that could shatter everything?
What to expect: friends to lovers – love triangle – first love – last summer before college – family secret – feel-good, nostalgic novel – French new adult romance
