Slanting Towards the Sea

Ivona, a 38-year-old Croatian woman, lives with her elderly father in her childhood bedroom in Zadar, a coastal city in Croatia's Dalmatia region. She is single, underemployed, and quietly obsessed with her ex-husband Vlaho, whose social media she scrolls compulsively. One image haunts her: Vlaho sharing an intimate look with his wife Marina, a look Ivona recognizes as one he once gave her. She reminds herself that leaving him was her own decision.

Ivona's family is deep in debt from Lovorun, a heritage hotel her father began building on her maternal grandmother's estate after Ivona's mother died. He poured his grief and ambition into the project, but a stroke left him unable to manage it, and the unfinished renovation fell to Ivona. She meets with the bank alongside Vlaho, who works there in internal audit. The banker confirms the loan cannot be extended. Vlaho gently suggests selling, but Ivona knows her father would never agree.

The narrative moves fluidly between Ivona's present struggles and extended flashbacks. She recalls meeting Vlaho at 19 in Zagreb, where she was studying biology, at her best friend Tara's birthday party. A stranger changed the bar's music to a song by the band At the Drive-In, and when they sang the refrain together, the room seemed to still. She had a boyfriend and turned Vlaho down but broke up with the boyfriend that night. When they finally met for their first date, he kissed her, and she felt her world reorient toward him, as though he were the sea itself.

Their early years were marked by radical honesty and consuming closeness. Ivona confided about her parents' volatile fights and the year her high school friends shunned her. Vlaho revealed that his sister Ane died at three from a botched appendicitis during the wartime shelling of Dubrovnik, and that his mother Frana became emotionally absent afterward, leaving him feeling second best. Both recognized in each other the same desperate striving to be seen.

After graduating, they moved to Zadar. Vlaho found a bank job easily, but Ivona discovered that Croatia's post-war economic transition had gutted the labs where she expected to work. Years of fruitless interviews followed, each position going to a connected candidate. In college, a professor had invited Ivona to a student competition in New York that could have led to international research positions, but she declined out of fear that distance from Vlaho would break their bond. She came to see this as one of the defining decisions of her life.

When they tried for a baby, Ivona learned she had uterine hypoplasia, an extremely rare condition in which the uterus is too underdeveloped for pregnancy. The diagnosis devastated her. Adoption could take decades in Croatia, and surrogacy was illegal. She sank into depression while Vlaho gave her space, a kindness she both appreciated and resented.

Her mother's sudden death from a fall compounded the grief. At the funeral wake, Frana asked Ivona directly to set Vlaho free, arguing he was too kind to leave on his own but would never accept life without children. The demand was cruel in its timing, but Ivona recognized in it a painful relief. She began withdrawing from Vlaho, feigning indifference, telling him she no longer loved him. When he surprised her with plane tickets and she refused, he stabbed himself in the thigh with a pen in anguish. Horrified, Ivona packed and left that evening.

Nearly two years later, Ivona met Marina at an Italian-language course. Marina was a sailing instructor, straightforward and uninterested in romance. When Ivona introduced her to Vlaho at a Christmas market, a connection formed. Months later, Vlaho called to say Marina was pregnant and they were getting married. The news shattered Ivona, but over time Marina drew her back into their lives, maneuvering her into holding baby Maro on the town bridge. Ivona became a fixture in their household.

In the present, an olive oil conference in Split rekindles Ivona's passion for biology when a young Italian scientist lectures on repurposing olive residue. The scientist hints at a future job opening. Through Tara's husband, Ivona also meets Asier Henry, an investor scouting heritage hotels for a fund. She impresses him with her olive oil expertise, and a mutual attraction develops.

When the bank sends a default notice, Ivona confronts her father and her brother Saša about selling Lovorun. Her father refuses, offering his last savings instead. Ivona delivers an ultimatum: She will not run the hotel, and if Saša does not take over, she will sell. Saša eventually concedes.

Asier arrives to view Lovorun and is impressed. In the olive grove, Ivona guides him through the sensory experience of its seasons, and they kiss. Their intimacy deepens over the following days. But Asier's formal purchase offer includes plans to demolish the grove for an infinity pool. Ivona is devastated. She eventually accepts the sale and begins planning a sole proprietorship as an olive oil sommelier.

Asier returns for a longer visit. They spend August at secluded beaches, and he tells her he is falling in love with her. Marina arranges a birthday dinner where Vlaho and Asier cautiously warm to each other. At Zadar's Night of the Full Moon, a street music festival in the old town, Ivona is squeezed between both men in a dense crowd when she feels Vlaho's hand grasp hers. They hold on hard, hidden by the throng. That night, she goes home with Asier and has sex for the first time in nine years.

In the early hours, Vlaho is waiting in the rain outside her house. He reveals that his marriage to Marina is platonic: Marina is aromantic, meaning she does not experience romantic attraction, and they married as friends to provide a stable home for their children. Marina has always known Vlaho still loves Ivona. They make love in Ivona's narrow bed. When Vlaho asks why she stopped loving him, Ivona tells him part of the truth: She never stopped. She left because of his mother's demand and her own unbearable sense of being a burden. Vlaho later confronts Frana, who admits what she said at the wake. He tells his mother that she, not Ivona, kept him hostage his whole life, and blows out the candles beside his dead sister's photo.

Marina arranges a sailing trip to Kornati National Park, an archipelago off Croatia's coast. While Marina and Asier snorkel, Vlaho and Ivona have sex on the boat. Marina catches the aftermath and confronts Ivona below deck, demanding she leave Vlaho where he is for the children's sake.

Ivona returns home to find her father unconscious after a second massive stroke. He dies that night. She arranges the funeral alone and receives a rejection from Croatia's employment services, but also an email from the Italian scientist inviting her to apply for a lab position in Florence. She recognizes that Croatia has been rejecting her all her life.

The morning before the funeral, she drives to Lovorun and cuts down the olive trees herself, arranging for them to be transplanted to an island estate. Asier arrives, holds her as she weeps, and asks her to come to London. She declines, telling him the truth about Vlaho. That evening, Vlaho brings homemade soup and they cook together with the choreography of their old life. She asks him to come back to her. He says he cannot: His children need both parents together. Ivona is devastated but recognizes his refusal as the first real boundary he has ever set. They spend the night holding each other. By morning, he is gone.

The novel's final section finds Ivona six months later in Florence, working in a lab. Asier passes through occasionally; they share dinners and an uncomplicated warmth. Each morning, she opens Instagram to find Vlaho's stories: photos of olive trees, the sea, handwritten notes about longing. Stories intended for one, viewed only by one. Her world tips ever so slightly in his direction, as it always does.