A Novel of Icebergs and Amber.
It begins in mist. Far up on the top of the world, where no one sees, the ice splits with a crack that rings out over white fjords. The sea shows blue between the floes; the night that has lasted half the year; with the sun lying below the horizon, is over.
It is the summer of 1912 in a fishing village on the Danish coast. For twelve year old Malte it is a summer of freedom and discovery. But one day he trips over a salt-eaten coffin and finds inside the body of a dead sailor. Soon the voice that whispers secrets in Malte's ear takes on a life of its own and tells the story of the amber collector who made his fortune combing the beach for sea gold.
An epic tale of love and adventure at sea, a tender portrait of a small, eccentric community, a magical evocation of childhood, this is a novel of seductive contrasts. Past meets present, summer becomes winter, the real melts into the fantastical. It is an astonishing modern fairy tale that takes a voyage into the realm of the imagination, across the world and into the past, holding you spellbound.
