A NOVEL
A Northern Light
in Provence
A woman leaves her coastal Greenland village to translate the works of an elderly Provençal poet and finds her life irrevocably changed in this tender, romantic, and evocative novel set in a French village.
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Praise for A Northern Light in Provence
“Beautifully written, deeply immersive, touching, and intellectually challenging. The detailed descriptions of the history and contemporary culture of such different places would have been enough to enrich many tales, but the additional exploration of how language, original and translated, shapes people adds another fascinating dimension, with each savored page a gift. Readers who enjoy armchair travel, generational family connections, small-town familiarity, and transportive writing will find Birkelund's novel utterly compelling and completely satisfying.”
— Stacey Hayman,
Booklist
About A Northern Light in Provence
Ilse Lund is a translator who lives in a beach house on stilts off the west coast of Greenland.
Isolated in her world by the sea, and restless, she convinces her publisher to send her to France, a country whose language she translates but has never visited. Her mission: to translate the verse of Geoffrey Labaye, an elderly poet known as “the last living troubadour of Provence.”
Praise for A Northern Light in Provence
“A charming and beautifully written novel about self-discovery, the power of language, and yes, love!”
— Sarah Gruen,
author of Water for Elephants
About A Northern Light in Provence, Continued
Upon arrival in the medieval village of Beau Rivière, Ilse falls under the spell of the Provençal way of life and the charming French poet.
She becomes captive to the air, the sun, the vibrant spring colors, and the dulcet sounds of the Provençal dialect. And soon enough, she is captive to the poet, too, as a daily rhythm develops between Labaye and his translator. Their warm camaraderie is disturbed, however, when the poet’s son Frey shows up. Though he has a fiancée back in Paris, Frey turns his attention on Ilse, and suddenly she is forced to learn another language, one her translation skills have not prepared her to decode. With whom and where does her future lie?
With an eye and ear attuned to the sensibilities of French life, Elizabeth Birkelund has created a love story about a woman forced to choose between the security of her quiet northern home and possibly the life of her dreams.
Praise for A Northern Light in Provence
"This sweeping, gorgeous novel is more than just a love story—it's a life-affirming tale about finding who and where you're meant to be. Birkeland has the uncanny ability to transport you with her prose to both the charming (and cold!) Greenlandic village and then the warm, idyllic French countryside, but her real gift lies in laying bare the truth of the human heart. I loved it."
— Colleen Oakley,
the USA Today bestselling author of
The Invisible Husband of Frick Island,
You Were There Too, Close Enough to Touch, and Before I Go.
“They say people who live on the specks of islands off Greenland are of two minds: they are social when the sandbars join them to the mainland and misanthropic when they are set apart.”
Isle Lund, A Northern Light in Provence.
About the Author
Photo: Sigrid Estrada
Elizabeth Birkelund has life-long experience of France and the French. She has Danish ancestry, which sparked her interest in Greenland.
Elizabeth Birkelund is the author of two previous novels, The Runaway Wife and The Dressmaker. She started her career in the editorial department at European Travel & Life magazine, then turned to freelance writing as a monthly personal finance columnist for Cosmopolitan magazine.
She has written for numerous national publications, including Glamour, Self, Working Woman, and Victoria. You may follow her work and travels on Instagram and Facebook.
Other novels by Elizabeth Birkelund
Elizabeth has written two novels set in Europe, one in Paris and the small French town of Senlis, the other set in the Swiss Alps.
The Dressmaker
In this romantic novel, a provincial French dressmaker falls head over heels in love—with a woman who has hired him to create her wedding gown…
The Runaway Wife
Three concerned French sisters entrust an American hiker with the mission of rescuing their mother high in the Alps. But what if she doesn’t want to be found?