There is an Icelandic folk tale of a girl who went on foot out on the heath with her brother in foul weather and never made it back. Disa, as she was called, died out there in the highlands and her fate provided material for a cruel folk tale.

Disa was born in a small turf cottage in the east of Iceland in the 18th century, a time steeped in superstition, and had to work hard from an early age to survive. It’s building up to a blizzard the day she and her brother, Bjarni, head up the mountain, but duty calls. They are farmhands and must do as they are told. Out on the ice-cold heath the forces of nature and night await them. Bjarni is forced to leave his sister behind and go for help. Meanwhile Disa sits alone in the relentless darkness, the endless void, for several days and nights – and the monsters start coming.

Kristin Steinsdottir received critical acclaim for her last novel, the immensely popular Brightness. Now she delves again into the past giving voice to a woman who, until now, has never had a voice of her own.

“There’s a person behind every ghost.”
MORGUNBLADID DAILY

“It touches the reader in a powerful way…
Here nothing is redundant and nothing is missing.”
VIDSJA, ICELANDIC NATIONAL RADIO