Apprentice Georg Rohrs isn't the sharpest tool in the box. But he has a dream: he wants to be the elevator boy in a seaside hotel, wants to escape on the night train with his first love Marlies and escape the confinement of his life at home. When Georg happens upon a dead body and accidentally steals his boss's suitcase full of dirty cash, his life begins to unravel: within a single weekend Georg loses his job, his apartment, his parents, his friends, his money, his love and maybe a piece of his sanity – and yet, at the end of this neck-breaking tour-de-force, an unknown sense of freedom awaits him... Martin Lechner's fast-paced debut novel is a whirlwind adventure where provincial comedy meets literary genius. Nominated for the German Book Prize 2014 (Longlist)

Karin lives with her boyfriend Alexander in a house by the woods. Her foster-sister Lisa once lived there too, along with her parents August and Inge, sister Margarethe and brother Peter. Back then Karin and Lisa were happy; they grew as fast as the brambles, dived to the bottom of the lake hand in hand, and hid in the tiny caves formed by tree roots. Then something happened; August died and the foster child was banished. Years later Karin fetches Lisa back, and the two women become entangled in a game as destructive as it is seductive, sucked into a whirlpool of addiction, attraction and repulsion which holds us enthralled till the final page.