White Shadow
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4.2 • 13 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
The highly anticipated sequel to International Booker and Dublin Impac Award-shortlisted The Unseen
No-one can be alone on an island . . . But Ingrid is alone on Barrøy, the island that bears her name, and the war of her childhood has been replaced by a new, more terrible present: the Nazi occupation of Norway. When the bodies from a bombed vessel carrying Russian prisoners of war begin to wash up on the shore, Ingrid can’t know that one will not only be alive, but could be the answer to a lifetime of loneliness—nor can she imagine what suffering she will endure in hiding her lover from the German authorities, or the journey she will face, after being wrenched from her island as consequence for protecting him, to return home. Or especially that, surrounded by the horrors of battle, among refugees fleeing famine and scorched earth, she will receive a gift, the value of which is beyond measure.
The highly anticipated follow-up to Roy Jacobsen’s International Booker and Dublin Impac Award-shortlisted The Unseen, a New York Times New and Noteworthy book, White Shadow is a vividly observed exploration of conflict, love, and human endurance.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Jacobsen's vivid sequel to The Unseen (shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize) picks up nearly a decade later, in 1944, as the tiny island of Barrøy in Northern Norway is confronted by German occupation. Ingrid Barrøy, 35, born and raised on the remote island, lives there in solitude, as the rest of her family has dispersed across the country. After bodies begin to wash ashore from a prisoner transport ship, Ingrid discovers a lone Russian survivor, Alexander. As she nurses Alexander back to health, the two fall in love and she determines to help him escape Norway. But when Ingrid finally reports her discovery of the dead, as is compulsory, the Germans become suspicious. Soon, Ingrid awakens in a hospital, the victim of a brutal attack she can't recall. Though readers will get the most of this by starting with the first book, which established a view of the cloistered Barrøy family, this stands alone by finding its drama from the intrusion of the external world onto the island. In terse but lyrical prose, Jacobsen unfolds Ingrid's engaging and intimate story while evoking the devastating effects of WWII on refugees, citizens, and a stoic community of islanders. This series is one to invest in.
