Frances had read of a man who painted with only the colour yellow. He lived in the north of Norway. In the beautiful, barren landscape of the Far North, under the ever-present midnight sun, Frances and Yasha are surprised to find refuge in each other. Their lives have been upended - Frances has fled heartbreak and claustrophobic Manhattan for an isolated artist colony; Yasha, a Russian immigrant raised in a bakery in Brighton Beach, arrives from Brooklyn to fulfill his beloved father's last wish: to be buried 'at the top of the world'. They have come to learn how to be alone. But in Lofoten, an archipelago of six tiny islands in the Norwegian Sea, ninety-five miles north of the Arctic Circle, they form a bond that fortifies them against the turmoil of their distant homes, offering solace amidst great uncertainty. With nimble and sure-footed prose enriched with humour and warmth, Rebecca Dinerstein's enchanting debut reminds us that no matter how far we travel to claim our own territory, it is love that gives us our place in the world.

Frances seeks refuge at a Norwegian artist colony that's offered her a painting apprenticeship. Yasha must carry out his father's last wish to be buried 'at the top of the world'.And so Frances's and Yasha's paths intersect in Lofoten. Their unlikely connection and growing romance fortifies them against the turmoil of their distant homes, and teaches them that to be alone is not always to be lonely, and that love and independence are not mutually exclusive.

Extraordinarily captivating . Lyrical, often darkly funny . All this is told against the extraordinary backdrop of sun-filled, endless Norwegian days, of the unique and striking colours that seep out and shine through Dinerstein's vibrant, precise, sun-splashed prose . This is a compassionate novel