Book Description

As a little girl Sigga lifted calves on the farm. Why? To get strong enough to smash the men whose fingers reached for her in the dark. One day she'd get her revenge. As a farm worker in Iceland 100 years before the #me too movement, Sigga was angry and eager to strike out on her own. Her struggle for independence plays out against the backdrop of Iceland's fight to free itself from the colonial power, Denmark. A newspaper advertisement for a corset making workshop sparks her imagination. She'd flee to Reykjavik. Corsets would make her free. But in the capital city, she faces poverty harsher than on the farm and a political turmoil she considers ridiculous. An unwise marriage, combined with the economic depression, forces her to become a fishwoman. Instead of stitching corsets, she washes, salts, and sells fish to support her family. But evenings, with swollen fingers, she embroiders horseflies and butterflies on underwear sets to sell in The Corset Shop-anything to gain a foothold in the corset business. Her desire for adventure outpaces her quest for security and poses a danger to her and her family. As a young widow she's intrigued by the arrival of Jewish refugees from Germany. When Fritz, a handsome intellectual from Berlin, is threatened with deportation back to Hitler's Germany, Sigga decides to save him. Is Fritz's life worth Sigga's humbling herself to the desires of an anti-Semitic official? Or can she channel her simmering anger to rescue Fritz?But Sigga's ultimate challenge comes when up to 50,000 Allied soldiers arrive in Iceland as part of the World War II occupation. The soldiers bring more money, more jazz, more lust, and more fun than Sigga ever thought possible. She's thrilled and her financial problems are over. But the conflict she faces is unbearable. Can she exploit the occupation as part of her struggle to survive while at the same time protecting her beautiful, red-headed teenage daughter from soldiers? The father of her child, the man she didn't marry, says No.