For readers of psychological thrillers set in evocative European landscapes—where obsession, desire, and the act of writing itself blur the boundaries between fiction and reality.

Naked, gagged, and handcuffed, Barbara mentally reconstructs the story of which she has become the unwilling protagonist, while she listens to her executioner insert the key into the lock and asks herself, again and again, how she ended up there.

After the death of her mother and the collapse of a passionate love affair, Barbara de Banlievre settles into an apartment overlooking the Esplanade des Invalides, one of the most iconic sites in the City of Light. There, increasingly withdrawn and suspended between memory and invention, she begins to write a novel. But as the act of writing deepens, reality itself begins to fracture. Unexpected encounters, unsettling coincidences, and the growing sensation of being watched draw her into the unfolding of a possible crime—one that seems both imagined and real.

As Barbara writes, she becomes entangled in a disturbing convergence between the story she is creating and the life she is living, until the distinction between author and character, observer and victim, dissolves completely.

With an intimate, psychologically charged voice and a precise blend of suspense and erotic tension, Claudia Marcucetti Pascoli unfolds the story of a writer who moves to Paris to surrender fully to her literary vocation.

A psychological thriller of erotic intensity and literary depth, Les Invalides explores obsession, authorship, and the dangerous territory where narrative ceases to be fiction and becomes fate.