The Seduction

Unspoken tensions simmer between two women under the heat of a Catalan summer in this internationally bestselling, erotic, and quietly radical portrait of queer desire.

In a sun-drenched house on the Catalan coast, a young, queer photographer arrives to capture the portrait of a celebrated writer. But what begins as a professional collaboration slowly unravels into something more intimate and unsettling—a charged exchange of glances, silence, and shifting emotional boundaries.

The photographer, unnamed and quietly observant, is drawn to the writer’s enigmatic presence, her self-possession, her power. Over shared meals and quiet routines, the difficulty of understanding the desire of the other begins to obsess the narrator. As the summer heat thickens, so too does the unspoken tension between them, heightening the photographer’s insecurities and her perception of her own flaws. When a third woman arrives, an old friend with blurred boundaries, the fragile connection begins to unravel. Is this seduction, or projection? Intimacy, or illusion?

Told through lyrical, introspective prose, The Seduction is a poetic, slow-burn exploration of the complexities of seduction between women, intimacy, queer longing, and the quiet ache of unfulfilled connections.

Sara Torres is a Spanish poet and novelist. In 2014, she won the Gloria Fuertes Poetry Prize. For her first novel, Lo que hay (X Is Where I Am), she received the Javier Morote Prize, awarded by the Spanish Confederation of Booksellers’ Guilds and Associations for the best new author in 2022. She holds a PhD, specializing in theories of lesbian queer desire and fetish.