In tenth century Iceland a young woman, Thora Thorvinnsdottir, is orphaned at age fifteen, out of a home and close to destitute. Goaded by her misfortune Thora strives to fill in the gaps between the warp threads of her life's weaving pattern — which the Norns, maidens of fate, set up for each mortal as they see fit — with weft threads of her own choosing.

She sails west to the new frontier of Greenland hoping to acquire a new farm of her own. In Greenland she agrees to a marriage ill-conceived to begin with, and ill-fated in the end. Thora joins her husband's timber-seeking expedition across the western sea to an unexplored land rumoured to be the source of driftwood littering Greenland beaches. In Westland they encounter novel forms of life — plants, animals and people unknown even to the most traveled Norseman among them, and Thora is given a chance to achieve a major goal she set for herself, in a way she never imagined.

Afiena Kamminga has published short fiction and non-fiction as well as a children's novel; this is her first novel for adults. She studied Law, Journalism and Anthropology, all of which as well as her lifelong interest in History, contributed to the writing of this story. There is no better way to live more than one life she feels, than by reading and writing novels. After each of her journeys to another time and place, transported by reading and writing, she returns to her home in Sackville, Canada, to reconnect with her husband and assorted animal companions.