Charlotte Krauss

Presents: most of us look forward to them. Others dread them, or even forget about them. With two days to go before Christmas, the Stain family is full of ideas, but they are far from all good.

Sarah, in her forties, is on the verge of exhaustion. Her children, ages 9 and 5, take up all her time and her husband is constantly on business trips. After disappearing on the beach for a few minutes, Simon becomes strange. He spends hours in his bathroom and seeks contact with water at the slightest opportunity. Sarah's life will change when her son confesses the truth...

Émilie lives in a world of surveillance: her camgirl work; the camera phone lingering on a crush from afar; the headset affording her a drone’s perspective. The same drone that stalks each move she makes, offering inspiration, noting rivals. An unsolicited companion is conspiring with or against her. A financially strapped transplant now living in the Paris suburbs, Émilie is thrust into a high-powered world when she is chosen for a renovation workshop with a prestigious architect. Her classmates come mostly from “filthy rich” backgrounds, like cocky Olivier, who wants Émilie as his conquest. But Émilie has shy eyes only for self-sufficient Mina, whose music builds like a “helicoid.” A drone—unlike any known model—is watching her all along waiting for her next move and paying handily for the privilege.