From one of Norway's leading writers, translated into English for the very first time, comes a transatlantic novel of dreams, sacrifice, and transformation set at the turn of the twentieth century. The year is 1874. Nesje is a recent widower with a young son, working as a haymaker on an estate in the town of Molde and steadily clearing his own small holding. Then he meets Serianna--an outsider, looking for work, who takes him fishing and smokes a pipe and is thoroughly unlike anyone he's met before. Soon the two fall in love and marry, and Nesje begins to dream of a prosperous future. But prosperity is hard to come by. Some Norwegians--including Serianna's spirited sister, Gjertine--have begun to immigrate to the American West, attracted by the glimmer of land and commerce. One of Nesje's sons follows, while another moves to the city and becomes a wealthy merchant, and another is adopted by Serianna's childless brother and sister-in-law. In Norway and in America, however, the turn of the century is approaching: mechanization is superseding skilled labor, the moneyed classes are growing ever more powerful, and sacrifices don't always deliver what was promised. Haymaker in Heaven is a sprawling saga--drawn from Edvard Hoem's own family history--and a vivid portrait of two countries at a critical moment of intersection.

A masterful concoction of history and intrigue, referred to by critics as "the Norwegian "Da Vinci Code"" A golden relic, containing an ancient manuscript that could change the course of history, has been hidden in a monastery, but nobody knows where. One determined man sets out to find this sensational artifact and to trace its origins. His quest takes him to a scientific intelligence organization in London, a Middle Eastern outpost, and a Crusaders' castle in a French village, as layer by layer he reveals the religious mysteries inside the Shrine of Sacred Secrets.