Eva Schep writes quiet speculative literary fiction
The Cartography of What Remains
Two years after her partner’s death, Lena has made her life manageable: the chipped cup on the left side of the sink, the bread folded twice in its bag, the keys in the bowl by the door.
“A life could be held together by objects if the hands moved correctly among them.”
Two years after her partner’s death, Lena has made her life manageable: the chipped cup on the left side of the sink, the bread folded twice in its bag, the keys in the bowl by the door. She scans and catalogues photographs at a city archive and labels what cannot be known, date unknown, man unknown, life unknown.
Then she discovers she can go back. Not remember, return. Stand in the old kitchen. Watch Tomas ask her a question she didn’t hear the first time. But memory is not a room, it is a map drawn in pencil: every visit erases a detail of him, and Lena is running out. A short novel about grief, the archives we make of the people we love, and the harder journey, the one back to the living.
Within a few paragraphs, I felt the same way as I did when I first read Hemingway. Eva Schep's mastery of prose and pacing captivated me so totally that I had to keep reminding myself not to tear through the entire book in one sitting.
Jaye D. Hutchings, Goodreads
I can feel the guilt washing off her like the rain outside on her coat.
Veronika Jordan, Goodreads
Healing here is not forgetting. It is finally allowing the past to remain the past. A beautifully written, deeply introspective and quietly heartbreaking novel.
Eva Schep writes about the spaces between people — and the ones left behind when someone is gone.
The fiction lives where the literary and the quietly impossible meet, circling a single stubborn question: what do we owe the version of ourselves that remembers? These stories trade in the unreliable comfort of memory, the weight of ordinary objects — a chipped cup, a borrowed screwdriver, bread on a plate — and the small rooms of a canal city where lives quietly come apart and, sometimes, begin again.
The Cartography of What Remains is the first short novel in The Going Back Series, coming August 2026.
— Eva
47k
Words
01
Of The Going Back Series
2026
Coming August
Questions
Questions readers ask
What kind of books does Eva Schep write?
Eva Schep writes quiet speculative literary fiction about grief, attention, memory, and imperfect repair.
What is The Cartography of What Remains about?
The Cartography of What Remains follows a woman who discovers she can return to the partner she lost, but every visit erases a little more of him. It is literary fiction about grief, memory, and the harder journey back to the living.
When is The Cartography of What Remains published?
The Cartography of What Remains is published on 25 August 2026 in Kindle ebook, Paperback, Hardcover.
Is The Cartography of What Remains part of a series?
Yes. The Cartography of What Remains is Book 1 of The Going Back Series.
Can readers sample the book or read it with a book club?
Yes. Readers can open an excerpt on this page. Book clubs can also request free digital reading copies, a discussion guide, and a written author Q&A on the book-clubs page.
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Occasional letters from the road to publication, including book fragments and release news — never more than twice a month, never anything else.
