Best Seller
Hardcover
$31.00
Available on Sep 15, 2026 | 288 Pages
Two women from different generations connect over their shared need to recover from trauma as they attempt to heal and begin their lives anew, from the bestselling author of The Dressmaker’s Gift and The Beekeeper’s Promise
2001: Overwhelmed by grief in the wake of losing her twin sister, Ruby Reid has come to Scotland to escape. Her new job as companion to Hanna Kristiansen, an elderly woman living on a rugged homestead in the wild and remote Shetland Islands, offers plenty of challenges and a welcome distraction from the devastating choice Ruby has to make.
1940: Hanna’s quiet life on the fjords of northern Norway is overturned when her hometown is attacked and her country falls into the hands of Nazi occupiers. But the Norwegians are a people as resilient as the ancient bedrock of their land. With her twin sister Hanna becomes involved in the resistance movement, fighting to end the war that has taken so much from her. She’s sent to Scotland for training, where she falls for a charismatic member of the shadowy special forces supporting Norway’s fight for freedom. Though she’s eager to stay and fight, Hanna must return to her homeland, leaving her new love behind, and face the dangerous underground work that lies ahead.
As Hanna shares her story, Ruby begins to navigate the path of her grief. Hanna in turn finds comfort in discovering that confiding in her younger friend is helping them both heal. Ruby also learns that, like the beautiful untamed land of Hanna’s rural croft, there is strength to be found in fragility, as well as hope for new life, in the wildness of an island at the end of the world.
2001: Overwhelmed by grief in the wake of losing her twin sister, Ruby Reid has come to Scotland to escape. Her new job as companion to Hanna Kristiansen, an elderly woman living on a rugged homestead in the wild and remote Shetland Islands, offers plenty of challenges and a welcome distraction from the devastating choice Ruby has to make.
1940: Hanna’s quiet life on the fjords of northern Norway is overturned when her hometown is attacked and her country falls into the hands of Nazi occupiers. But the Norwegians are a people as resilient as the ancient bedrock of their land. With her twin sister Hanna becomes involved in the resistance movement, fighting to end the war that has taken so much from her. She’s sent to Scotland for training, where she falls for a charismatic member of the shadowy special forces supporting Norway’s fight for freedom. Though she’s eager to stay and fight, Hanna must return to her homeland, leaving her new love behind, and face the dangerous underground work that lies ahead.
As Hanna shares her story, Ruby begins to navigate the path of her grief. Hanna in turn finds comfort in discovering that confiding in her younger friend is helping them both heal. Ruby also learns that, like the beautiful untamed land of Hanna’s rural croft, there is strength to be found in fragility, as well as hope for new life, in the wildness of an island at the end of the world.
Author
Fiona Valpy
FIONA VALPY is an acclaimed bestselling author of eleven novels, with worldwide sales totaling over three million copies. Her novels have been #1 bestsellers in the USA, UK, and Australia, and been listed as Washington Post and Wall Street Journal bestsellers. Valpy is a patron of the Women’s Prize for Fiction, Birnam Book Festival, Teapot Trust and The Little Sherpa Foundation. Through donations from royalties, she’s raised £12,000 (and counting) for the global charity Médecins Sans Frontières and The Little Sherpa Foundation. When not writing, she enjoys daily dips in the River Tay and walking in the hills around her home in Scotland.
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