Islands of Mice
The Islands of Mice lie off the coast of Norway. Beautiful. Tranquil. Or, at least, they were until the Nazis invaded. In the winter of 1942, Solveig Eik is a young woman who lives with her family in a lighthouse. While tending the light, her family also farms. Solveig tends to her sheep, has no problem getting down and dirty and doing the hard work required of her even in time of war. Her family, like most of her neighbors, is virulently anti-Nazi. So is Solveig. Until Liv Sunde arrives.
Liv is Oslo-cosmopolitan, refined, elegant, while Solveig is the quintessential country girl. Aloof, yet calculatingly flirtatious, Liv knows how to attract attention. She has come to the Islands of Mice as a teacher. Harmless, except that she is a collaborator, one of those Norwegians courting Nazi friendship.
Islands of Mice is a romance set in a time of great paranoia and violence. Can one even trust one’s neighbors not to turn them in to the Nazi regime? As Solveig is drawn into the resistance movement, she is more powerfully drawn to the newcomer.
This is a wonderfully descriptive novel filled with dirt and blood, tension and the constant threat of being discovered. Is it possible, under such circumstances, for two such seemingly different people to fall in love? The novel is told from Solveig’s perspective, which may be the one problem I had. I didn’t quite believe that Solveig would fall in love so quickly with the unrepentant collaborator Liv. Both do terrible things during the novel, with little heartfelt remorse. Perhaps if I knew more of Liv’s backstory, understood her motivations better, I would have accepted the intense emotions the two women have for one another. Solveig’s story dominates, creating an imbalanced romance.
