This debut novel is set in Berlin in the early 2000s. Tatiana is a young Mexican who, in her mid-20s, escapes a stifling family environment and seeks her freedom in Berlin’s abundant bar and music scene. Years pass in a pleasurable haze, but self-discovery isn't necessarily a correlative, of course. When Tatiana takes on a job for an elderly historian, transcribing his dictated essays on various aspects of the Cold War years in Berlin, she is for the first time exposed to the city's underbelly, discovering the hidden histories of familiar buildings for instance, or learning the stories of former citizens of the East through research interviews she does on his behalf.

Many episodes in the book are reminiscent of Anna Funder's superb Stasiland. Of course, this is fiction – but many aspects of Book of Clouds exhibit a verisimilitude that all readers with a knowledge of the city will find finely observed and convincing. Possibly her most significant achievement is the sensitivity with which Tatiana is drawn – her emotional honesty is something that quickly charms the reader, and her experiences, from the ghostly to the romantic, never fail to captivate.