Ida Hegazi Høyer's third book 'Forgive Me' tells an unusual, dark love story. A young woman meets a young, charming man who impresses her deeply with his intellectual talk of individualism and his free spirit. It is love at first sight; they get engaged immediately and move in together, without really knowing anything about each other. In the days and weeks and months to come they become completely engulfed by one another. But it does not take long before she starts harbouring feelings of unease and pretty soon the first signs that things are not quite right start to appear. As time passes, it turns out that he is quite manipulative and not who he pretends to be. As a sub-plot of the book, Hegazi Høyer tells a story of his past, of growing up in a violent home and learning to lie as his way of coping with it.

‘Forgive Me’ explores the darker sides of everyday life, in a realism that borders onto the dreamlike and absurd, with a language that entices and surprises the reader, using black comedy. It is an intense love story about a love that goes straight to hell, but also a novel about repression. It deals with the self-defence turning into self-deception as well as with the impossibility of really knowing another person.

 

'Forgive Me' is an intense novel about love, denial and dangerous secrets, rendering a detailed description of a whirlwind of emotions present in the state of romantic infatuation.