A Girl named Lotta

By Isabella Buchfink

Finn never expected his twentieth birthday to end with him staring at a stranger's face in the mirror - a face that was, impossibly, his own. His friends had handed him a small, bitter pill as a joke, daring him to swallow it "just to see what happens." Half amused and half stubborn, Finn did exactly that. When he woke the next morning, he was gone - and in his place was Lotta: a young woman with his memories, his voice buried somewhere underneath, and exactly twenty-four hours to figure out how to survive being someone else entirely.

What begins as a prank spirals into the strangest day of Finn's life. His roommate Hannah is the first to piece together the truth, and between panic and disbelief, she becomes Lotta's reluctant guide - teaching her how to walk in unfamiliar shoes, how to answer to a new name, how to get through a university lecture without unraveling. Nathalie, one of Finn's closest friends, doesn't recognize "the new exchange student," but something about her feels instantly familiar - and the friendship that forms between them, one-sided as it is, catches Finn off guard with how easy and honest it feels.

But it's at the outdoor pool, under a wide summer sky, that everything shifts. Julian, confident and unexpectedly kind, starts talking to Lotta by the pool, and before Finn fully understands what's happening, he - she - has agreed to a date that evening. It should be simple: smile, get through the day, let the pill wear off, go back to being Finn. Instead, the date in the Old Town Square becomes something neither of them planned for. Julian is funny and attentive in a way that makes Lotta forget, for whole stretches of time, that she isn't supposed to exist. And Finn, watching it all from somewhere inside himself, starts to wonder what it says about him that he feels this way at all.

As the hours run out, cracks begin to show. A slipped memory here, an odd reaction there - people are starting to notice that something about "Lotta" doesn't add up. With the clock working against her and Julian growing more invested by the minute, Lotta is forced to choose: keep the lie going until the pill wears off, or tell him the truth and risk losing something that, impossibly, has come to matter.

By the time the transformation fades at dawn and Finn wakes up in his own skin again, the day has left its mark. He carries with him a new understanding - of Lotta, of Julian, of the friends who thought they were only pulling a harmless prank, and of himself. A story about identity, first love, and the courage it takes to be honest - even when you're not entirely sure who you are, "A Girl named Lotta" is a warm, funny, and surprisingly tender coming-of-age tale about discovering yourself by becoming, however briefly, someone else.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0H8MNRWST
• ISBN13: 9798187004966
• Release Date: July 2026
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 134 Pages
• Weight: 0.31 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.0" x 8.0"