Katarina Elg is young and free. She adores falling in love, but lasting closeness frightens her and she cannot accept being tied down. Independence is more precious than anything else. Then she becomes pregnant and decides, surprisingly perhaps, to keep the baby. Her mother, Elisabeth, is supportive, but her lover reacts violently, beating her because he thinks her pregnancy no accident and that she was trying to trap him. Katarina remembers her childhood, how she watched her mother being systematically abused, and feels that her experience is part of a pattern. She wonders, can violence be inherited? If so, can it be inherited by victims as well as perpetrators? These thoughts lead her to approach her mother, and the two women open up to each other as the past is confronted and explored. In her new novel, Marianne Fredriksson explores how personalities are shaped by experience; the deep bonds between mothers and daughters; and how we can only grow through our relationships with others.