'Enchanting' Telegraph 'Miraculous' Isabella Tree 'Exquisite' FT From the No.1 bestselling
author of The Shepherd's Life an unforgettable story of friendship redemption and a
life-changing voyage of discovery on a remote Norwegian island How far do you have to go to
find yourself? One afternoon many years ago James Rebanks met an old woman on a remote
Norwegian island. She lived and worked alone on a tiny rocky outcrop caring for wild Eider
ducks and gathering their down. Hers was a centuries-old trade that had once made men and women
rich but had long been in decline. Still somehow she seemed to be hanging on. Back at home
Rebanks couldn't stop thinking about the woman on the rocks. She was fierce and otherworldly -
and yet strangely familiar. Years passed. Then one day he wrote her a letter asking if he
could return. Bring work clothes she replied and good boots and come quickly: her health was
failing. And so he travelled to the edge of the Arctic to witness her last season on the
island. This is the story of that season. It is the story of a unique and ancient landscape
and of the woman who brought it back to life. It traces the pattern of her work from the rough
isolated toil of bitter winter to the elation of the endless summer light when the birds
leave behind their precious down for gathering like feathered gold. Slowly Rebanks begins to
understand that this woman and her world are not what he had previously thought. What began as
a journey of escape becomes an extraordinary lesson in self-knowledge and forgiveness.
