"Sunley's debut novel is an intricate family travelogue, based in the present of Icelandic-Canadian life and the half-mythical world of her grandparents' Iceland. Sunley gives narrative reins to the granddaughter of a famous Icelandic poet, young Freya, whose memoir begins with the summer she first meets her mom's family in the Icelandic-Canadian village of Gimli.... Icelandic words are tricksters. Acrobats. Masters of disguise. Shape-shifters. Equally capricious are Sunley's characters who, over twenty years of family storms and mental illnesses, pull Freya across the globe, landing her more than once in beautiful, beguiling Iceland itself. This grand coming-of-age-novel boasts a dynamic set of characters and a rich bank of cultural and personal lore, making this dark, cold family tale a surprisingly lush experience." —Publishers Weekly (starred)
"High-spirited and precocious Freya is the only child of her late-in-life, widowed mother, who waits until Freya is a coltish seven to finally return to Manitoba , Canada , to visit her mother and her sister, wild and beautiful Birdie. Freya’s grandfather was a revered poet, and her family is proud of their Icelandic heritage, especially Birdie, who insists that her niece learn Icelandic and memorize the ancient sagas, a mission that turns disastrous.... Steeped in the highly symbolic mythology, complex language, and otherworldly landscape of Iceland, and the little-known story of the nineteenth-century Icelandic diaspora, Sunley’s astonishingly accomplished debut is a bewitching tale of volcanic emotions, cultural inheritance, family sorrows, mental illness, and life-altering discoveries." —Booklist
