The Journey Home

By R.Z. Sheppard

A strong, instinctive stoicism draws a woman called Disa back to her Icelandic homeland to die. "Hope is the sister of self-deception," she says, knowing she has only one year to live. Yet this is not a morose novel but one lifted by love, friendship and cooking, an art Disa has spent much of her life perfecting at an English country inn. Hers is a hard, unflinching life, and one skillfully revealed in a steady stream of memories that accompanies Disa on a last migration back to her Arctic nest.

--By R.Z. Sheppard