The woman on the stairs

For decades, the art world believed a painting was lost. A creative and enchanting novel from the bestselling author of The Reader.

In a museum in Australia, a man comes across a painting depicting the woman he risked everything for long ago, who then mysteriously disappeared from his life. As a young lawyer, he was drawn into a complicated and destructive relationship, a love triangle formed by a painter, the woman whose portrait he had painted, and her husband. The three ensnared him in a web of obsession, intrigue, and betrayal. Now, faced with the painting that triggered it all, the lawyer must come to terms with his past and what his life has become. And when he manages to locate the woman, he is forced to confront the true meaning of his love for her and the influence that feeling has had on his entire life.

Bernhard Schlink's The Woman on the Stairs is an intricate, moving, and enchanting novel about creativity and love, about the effects of the passage of time, and, above all, about the regrets that accompany us throughout life.