When a writer googles the name of her first love and discovers he committed suicide years ago, she is deeply shaken. Memories of Petrus begin to flood into her mind, followed by the memories of other loves, one after another. What exactly is love?  How does it come and go?  She begins to search her personal history for answers. Twelve men. Twelve chapters in a novel.  Melancholy Petrus, handsome actor Jakob, Simon with his pet rat, gay Nathanael, a student, her brother. Her husband's story is supposed to be the last.  But as story after story unfolds, the past and present entangle until her orderly search is interrupted by present-day complications of love and by a startling event overlooked at home that begins to seize the plotline of both her art and life.