A beautifully layered story of quiet resilience, chosen family, and healing generational trauma, set in a remote Icelandic fjord in 1969.

Paralysed by isolation and a severe stutter, twenty-something Hinrik is pushed by his domineering father to manage a rundown hotel in the isolated East Fjords. He unknowingly hires staff shaped by his own family’s sins: Kalmann, a steady chef, and Agneta, a pregnant maid fleeing a girls’ home Hinrik suspects his father once visited. When winter cuts the village off and his staff leave for seasonal work, Hinrik is left entirely alone.

What follows is a story of quiet endurance. Hinrik learns to run the hotel, bonds with the village’s eccentrics, and draws inspiration from a mysterious guest restoring drained wetlands by hand. When Agneta abandons her baby son and flees abroad, a fierce  protectiveness awakens in Hinrik. With Helena, a schoolteacher who helps him find his voice, he fights to secure the child’s custody and finds a hard-won love of his own.

“There is no doubt that Benny Sif is among our most intriguing authors, and all her books are pure and unadulterated pleasure to read.”
STEINGERDUR STEINARDOTTIR, LIFDU NUNA

“[Benny’s] books are masterworks—seamlessly crafted, brilliantly polished, deep, and delightful.”
SKALD.IS