Olaf Olafsson

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

Connecticut

A Novel

The haunting, vivid story of a nun whose past returns to her in unexpected ways, all while investigating a mysterious death and a series of harrowing abuse claims

A young nun is sent by the Vatican to investigate allegations of misconduct at a Catholic school in Iceland. During her time there, on a gray winter's day, a young student at the school watches the school's headmaster, Father August Franz, fall to his death from the church tower.

Two decades later, the child--now a grown man, haunted by the past--calls the nun back to the scene of the crime. Seeking peace and calm in her twilight years at a convent in France, she has no choice to make a trip to Iceland again, a trip that brings her former visit, as well as her years as a young woman in Paris, powerfully and sometimes painfully to life. In Paris, she met an Icelandic girl who she has not seen since, but whose acquaintance changed her life, a relationship she relives all while reckoning with the mystery of August Franz's death and the abuses of power that may have brought it on.

In The Sacrament, critically acclaimed novelist Olaf Olafsson looks deeply at the complexity of our past lives and selves; the faulty nature of memory; and the indelible mark left by the joys and traumas of youth. Affecting and beautifully observed, The Sacrament is both propulsively told and poignantly written--tinged with the tragedy of life's regrets but also moved by the possibilities of redemption, a new work from a novelist who consistently surprises and challenges.

The Sacrament

e4b3d6cf-8808-4256-bd81-eca7cd2003f1-1

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Minnesota

A searing novel of love and war, betrayal and redemption. Having grown up in an exclusive circle of wealthy British ex-pats in Florence in the 1920s, Alice Orsini shocks everyone when she marries the son of a minor Italian landowner and begins restoring San Martino, a crumbling villa in Tuscany, to its former glory. But after years of hard work, filling the acres with orchards, livestock, and farmhands, Alice's growing restlessness pulls her into the heady social swirl of wartime Rome and a reckless affair that will have devastating consequences. Her indiscretion is noticed by careful eyes—those of Robert Marshall, a renowned dealer of renaissance art. In exchange for his silence, he demands Alice hide a priceless Caravaggio, a national treasure that he has sold to the Germans, at San Martino. As the front creeps toward Tuscany, sending a wave of orphans, refugees, and wounded Allies to San Martino, Alice trusts that the painting she's hiding will keep the Germans at bay. What she doesn't know is the truth about a brilliant young artist she harbors named KristÍn, a prodigy who can restore any painting, and whose secrets may ruin them all. Trapped between loyalists and resistors, cruel German forces and Allied troops, Alice and KristÍn must withstand the destruction of everything around them while painfully confronting the consequences of their past mistakes. In this sweeping story of passion and betrayal, Olafsson works his profound magic once again, creating a novel that grapples with the moral abyss of war while rendering the psychological portraits of those living through it with masterful strokes.

Restoration

8443f862-f1c3-4c31-8f33-7eadfa335a9e-0

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

Michigan

A mesmerizing, panoramic story of one man's search to find a lover who suddenly disappeared decades before



When the pandemic hits, Kristofer is forced to shutter his successful restaurant in Reykjavik, sending him into a spiral of uncertainty, even as his memory seems to be failing. But an uncanny bolt from the blue--a message from Miko Nakamura, a woman whom he'd known in the sixties when they were students in London--both inspires and rattles him, as he is drawn inexorably back into a love story that has marked him for life. Even as the pandemic upends his world, Kristofer finds himself pulled toward an answer to the mystery of Miko's sudden departure decades before, compelling him to travel to London and Japan as the virus threatens to shut everything down.

A heart-wrenching love story and an absorbing mystery, Touch delves into the secrets of the past to explore the hidden lives that we all possess, the pain and beauty of our past loves and friendships that continue to leave their mark on us. Searching and lyrically rendered by acclaimed author Olaf Olafsson, Touch is a stunning tribute to the weight of history and the complexities of the human heart. 

Touch

c007185a-5443-4a87-b923-8184b651b861-1

Texas

From the critically acclaimed Olaf Olafsson, an intimate yet sweeping story of a New York neurologist and the three women who change his life

An overlooked pianist who finally receives fraught success after decades of disappointment. An elusive dancer whose untimely death her fiancé is desperate to untangle. A mysterious patient who is comatose after a violent accident.

These are the three women who animate Olaf Olafsson's brilliantly rendered One Station Away. Magnus, a New York neurologist--son to one, lover to another, and doctor to a third--is the thread that binds these women's stories together as he navigates relationships defined by compromise and misunderstanding, guilt and forgiveness, and, most of all, by an obsessive attempt to communicate--to understand and to be understood, to love and to be loved.

A deeply affecting family tale, a heart-rending love story that spans the globe, and a suspenseful drama at the edge of the mystery of life and death, One Station Away is a profoundly moving story of memory, identity, and misconnection, a novel of haunting power and lasting insight.

One Station Away

0e882762-23d7-461e-9558-3a1e23d0cc64-1

Smoke free home pet free home. There is creasing on the cover and spine a small rip on the bottom right corner of the spine and top right corner of the spine. Yellowing of the pages. Book is still in good condition.

Massachusetts

As butler to William Randolph Hearst at San Simeon castle, Christian Benediktsson lives quietly, almost invisibly. He completes his tasks efficiently and with aplomb, catering to the whims of the volatile Chief and overseeing the running of the hectic household. Privy to the goings-on of the celebrity guests who visit as well as to Hearst’s intimate relationship with his mistress, the actress Marion Davies, he is the picture of discretion. An extremely private man, those around him know nothing of him or his life. And so it is in his thoughts and in unsent letters to his wife back in Iceland that we witness the unraveling of his former life, which began when he abandoned her and their children for an actress in New York City. Once a successful businessman, he erases his past and himself after a sudden tragic death and his financial ruin, the result of a jilted lover’s vengeance. Walking into the Night is a stunning portrait of a man wrestling with guilt and secret passions.

Walking into the Night

0ad6bfa3-7443-45e2-9d67-53f625ca9584-1

Smoke free home, pet free home. There are no writings markings or highlights in this book. There is a crease down the middle of the front cover increasing on the spine as well. There is a black mark on the bottom edges of the pages. Please see pictures Still in good condition.

California

In his spellbinding first novel, acclaimed Icelandic author Olaf Olafsson takes us inside the mind of a man haunted by the crime he willed half a century earlier. Expatriate businessman Peter Peterson left behind the trappings of a seemingly charmed life: a vast fortune, two children, and a stately Park Avenue address. But he also left behind another legacy: a secret from long ago that shadowed his accomplishments and estranged him from his loved ones—a crime of passion, committed in the throes of unrequited love, that became a lifetime’s burden. Yet when Peter is forced to confront the consequences of his actions, an unexpected turn of events shakes the very foundation of his past. Spanning a boyhood in Iceland to the Nazi occupation of Denmark to modern-day Manhattan, Absolution calls up Dostoevsky and Ibsen as it masterfully plumbs the darkest corners of a sinister mind and a wounded heart.

Save this search

Olaf Olafsson

The Sacrament

Olaf Olafsson

Restoration

Olaf Olafsson

Touch

Olaf Olafsson

One Station Away

Olaf Olafsson

Walking into the Night

Olaf Olafsson

The Sacrament

Olaf Olafsson

Absolution

Olaf Olafsson

The Sacrament

Olaf Olafsson

One Station Away (2017 First Edition)

Olaf Olafsson

The Sacrament

Olaf Olafsson

The Sacrament

Olaf Olafsson

Touch - ARC

Olaf Olafsson

One Station Away

Olaf Olafsson

One Station Away

Browse by categories

Save this search

Olaf Olafsson

The Sacrament

Olaf Olafsson

Restoration

Olaf Olafsson

Touch

Olaf Olafsson

One Station Away

Olaf Olafsson

Walking into the Night

Olaf Olafsson

The Sacrament

Olaf Olafsson

Absolution

Olaf Olafsson

The Sacrament

Olaf Olafsson

One Station Away (2017 First Edition)

Olaf Olafsson

The Sacrament

Olaf Olafsson

The Sacrament

Olaf Olafsson

Touch - ARC

Olaf Olafsson

One Station Away

Olaf Olafsson

One Station Away