A masterpiece of historical fiction by the Nobel Prize-winning Norwegian

A masterpiece of historical fiction by the Nobel Prize-winning Norwegian novelist. Set in fourteenth-century Norway, the story traces the life of the daughter of a good-hearted landowner and farmer, centering on her love for and marriage to a well-born but disgraced nobleman. The wealth of historical detail is seductive in its authenticity, the whole atmosphere of medieval Catholic piety, with its deeply sacramental experience of nature, time, and culture and lingering overtones of pagan folk wisdom and superstition is vividly pervasive, creating a rich, multilayered universe with some of the most unforgettable and full-blooded characters in literature. Much is here that is incommunicable in poignance and beauty, creating a reading experience of rare transcendence. We daresay that any who allow themselves to be drawn into it will never be the same again. Volume 2 of 3.