It is Midsummer in the forest of Northern Jutland in Denmark. Seven friends meet up once again to spend seven days together in a summer cottage. The weather is beautiful, and the backdrop of the forest and lake exude lush anticipation at the height of this Scandinavian summer. It is a creative group of well-educated individuals in their early thirties who get together, some with steady jobs and on the threshold of marriage and children. Others are somewhat hesitant about their life going forward and still tripping on some of life’s obstacles. Five are friends who have known each other from a younger age, during their years of studying modern culture and literature. Two are ex-boyfriends who have moved on from the carefree lives of their twenties.
The host couple in the cottage are Karen and Esben. Esben is a writer and in a relationship with Karen, a journalist. Sylvia is bisexual and in a relationship with Charlie, who is a lesbian and identifies as female but acts masculine. Sylvia has polyamorous tendencies. Adam is a government official and his partner Gry is a scientist. Adam and Gry are a heteronormative couple with two small children, Vera and Sejr. The only single guest is Kvaede who has changed both name and gender, transitioning from female to male and currently going through hormonal treatment. Kvaede is now entering into his second adolescence due to these medical treatments. The group find their comfort zones in the forest and for the first time in a very long time, the friends can spend close-knit time together for a full week. Their attention is intensely focused on sexuality, gender issues and relationships with long discussions on these topics, hot sexual encounters and long dinners into the bright summer nights. Their common aim is to relax, sunbathe, party together and to have uninhibited sex.
The plot of the novel turns out to be a wedding intrigue when Esben and Karen announce that they are getting married on the seventh day at the summer house, with their friends present. This announcement creates great joy but also mixed feelings. The news awakens Sylvia’s old and unrequited crush on Esben and she now wonders if she should object to the marriage or forever hold her silence. Instead, Sylvia holds her longing hidden for the moment and dreams up a utopian plan for all seven to live a polyamorous life together. She focusses her attention instead onto Adam who she also has her eyes set on. Though Sylvia has full support from her partner Charlie and they have great, rough sex, Sylvia is still restless and uncertain of her relationship direction. Charlie, on the other hand, only wants a monogamous and stable relationship, and would like to get married and have a house, pets and children, but Sylvia holds back. Sylvia tells Kvaede in confidence about her feelings and he suggests that any possibility is available for her going forward and that maybe a three-way partnership might even be considered. Sylvia’s love for Esben stands out in the palpable tension amongst the friends where sexual desire rules and almost everyone fantasizes about someone else. Sylvia does open up to Esben and finally talks about her feelings with him on the day before the wedding. Esben counters that her feelings for him are all based on unrealistic fantasies. Would she even want a life with him? She realizes then in that moment that she really just wants a life that can hold room for several separate lives. In the meantime Adam is seduced by Kvaede in the forest, completely surprising himself. It seems he has also become titillated by the excitement of sexual ambiguity.
On the morning of day seven, the day of the wedding, Karen awakens rested and ready to soon return to reality.