The Promise — Anne-Lise Boge

The Original Sin Saga is the product of best-selling author Anne-Lise Boge, and follows the dramatic life of Mali Buvik in early twentieth century Norway. A peasant girl born on a small, struggling farm, Mali dreams of finding true love in a world where so few women are allowed to follow their hearts. Her family's farm is failing, though, and she is forced to marry the son of a wealthy landowner to save her family from a life of poverty â€" or worse. Life at Stornes has settled into a comfortable routine since the wedding of HÃ¥vard and Mali in November. Another summer is coming, heralding the arrival of a new baby into the family. Meanwhile, six-year-old Sivert is beginning to look more and more like his true father with every passing day, much to Mali's joy and terror. How much longer can she keep his true parentage hidden from the world â€" and from him? One day, a gypsy tabor arrives at Stornes, and Sivert is utterly enchanted by the colors, the sounds, the smells, and most of all, the music. He falls in love with the violin, and announces that he's not going to inherit Stornes after all. No, he says he's going to run away with the gypsies when he grows up, and travel the country playing the violin, wild and free. Mali is horrified. Though she knows she shouldn't take the word of a child so seriously, her son has inherited one trait from his mother that she knows all too well: a stubborn will. In a fit of desperation, she makes a promise to secure his loyalty to Stornes. It seems like a small thing at first, but it may very well become the thing that brings Mali's carefully-crafted house of cards and lies crashing down. Originally published in Norwegian by Cappelen Damm, under the title Løftet (Arvesynd, #6). Translated to English with permission of both author and publisher.