A PAPERBACK ORIGINAL

A luminous debut novel following a biologist intent on finding the elusive hermit beetle, whose life is upended by the eccentric elderly woman she encounters while deep in the Norwegian woods

Thirty-four-year-old biologist Eva Wist is on track for a PhD when she experiences a deep loss and her life unravels. Heartbroken, she leaves her boyfriend behind in Oslo and heads for a summer job in rural Vestfold County with only her black Labrador and her sorrow as companions. Her mission: to confirm sightings of the rare hermit beetle, a species thought extinct in Norway. Her hope: to find her way back to life.

In the thousand-year-old oak forest outside the village of Midtstranda, Eva finds herself drawn not only to the untouched natural beauty, but also to her eccentric neighbor. Seventy-six-year-old Olga Frøyshov is a cantankerous woman, more at home forest bathing and climbing trees with her cat than talking to people. She has spent her life in this forest, tending her garden and guarding her solitude—until Eva stumbles into her yard. Reluctantly forced together by their pets, they find unexpected affinity in a shared loss. While one woman runs from her present, the other is frozen in a past deeply haunted by the legacy of World War II. Can they harness the power of nature and human connection to heal together?

In this irresistible story of finding meaning in a world that seems to have lost it, Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson has written a warm and hopeful novel about the fragile bond between humans and nature, and how we must learn to love, to lose, and to belong—together.