Young Elfride falls in love for the first time with an architect who is sent to make plans to renovate the local church. She supposes Stephen to be a profession

Blue-eyed and high-spirited, Elfride Swancourt has little experience of the world beyond her remote parish, and becomes entangled with two men: the boyish archi

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner—a powerful examination of our obsession with beauty and conformity that asks questions about rac