This book is a fictionalization of my great-grandmother, Mette Hansdatter set in Sogn, Norway, with some real and some imagined characters.  The Norwegian landscape is strong and almost serves as a character: harsh and beautiful, exerting a life-long gravitational pull against the allure of immigration. When those who stay behind come to the shore to wave off those who will depart, the homesickness is palpable: "Another one gone."  The heart of the book is about this unsolvable conflict: a young couple in love, yet one needs to leave and the other, to stay. The choices Mette and Finn make will create a lifetime of understated regret. Mette, a simple farm girl, is uneducated, superstitious, but her rich interior life is expressed through what she weaves. At her loom, she finds an outlet for the stories in her head, a bit of freedom from her life's dark hardships, restrictions, multiple losses and yet she carries on.  Mette’s journey unfolds from her humble beginnings as a dairymaid to her demise.