Ilse was so relatable. Feeling stuck and wanting more is something I think we can all identify with.This is definitely a character driven book, and I think that could be a problem for some.

For me, I enjoy it. I love getting deep with our characters and deep into our setting too. This book was beautiful and descriptive in the best way.

Ilse is a translator who lives a very insular life in Greenland. When she gets the opportunity to visit France for the first time, her world broadens in many ways.

Some of the story felt haphazard or rushed. I'm not sure what the ultimate message was, because the shift at the end confused me.

Isle Erlund is a Greenlandic translator who gets a translating job in Provence, France.

I was initially drawn in by the book description. I haven’t read many (any?) books set in Greenland. However, the execution was choppy and flat for me. I wanted the setting and characters of Under the Tuscan Sun meets A Year in Provence and I just didn’t get that. I also hated Frey as a character and plot point. Are we supposed to?

Thank you to Random House Publishing and Ballantine Books for this digital copy to review.

I love character driven books, and this one was a great one.
In this novel we follow Ilse Lund a Greenlander woman who is a translator in English French and Danish, and who is asked to translate a book of poems by “Geoffrey Labaye, an elderly poet known as “the last living troubadour of Provence.”
Ilse has always wanted to go to France as this is a language that she admires the most. But she feels she need to go to Provence to really get the feelings of the poems, and the man that has written them, as they are written for the most part, in a Provencal dialect.
She convinces her publisher to pay for a trip to work with the poet, as this job has a tight deadline.
Once there Ilse falls in love with the area, and she and the poet become very close and work well together.
I love how she worked so hard at getting to know him as a person, so that she would be able to not only translate the words of the poems, but also the feelings he felt when writing them.
A beautifully written book, with many things that will want you to keep reading.
There are a whole group of characters from France to Greenland, that add to the back and future of the story.
I would like to thank NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine for a copy of this book.

I throughly enjoyed this story. It took me a little bit to get into the writing style, but by chapter 3, I was hooked! I laughed, I cried, and I learned a little French. This story is very language heavy, but that fits with the story so well.

I received an ARC of this novel from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I love this novel. The poetry and descriptions of the scenes are beautifully written I was thrilled with the empowering ending.

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE!

I was engrossed in this love story from the very start. This story is beautifully written with lyrical descriptions throughout. It's emotion filled--I laughed, I cried, I enjoyed. I was able to imagine what the inhabitants in a small place in Greenland were like as well as the people in a small Provencal village in France. I liked the main character as well as the other characters throughout. This was an enjoyable read, and I highly recommend it. Thank you, NetGalley, and the publisher for the advanced reader's edition.

The synopsis of this book sounded interesting. The writing of this book was not. I read the first half of the book and it was filled with so much irrelevant description that I just could not continue and decided to not finish. I very rarely don't finish a book but there are so many books and so little time.

I have read books that epitomize the power and magic of words/language, but I am not sure if I have ever read a book that reflects the beauty of words/language so successfully.

Ilse is a native of Greenland, part Inuit and part Danish. She also has an ear for languages and in addition to speaking the local Inuit language and Danish, she speaks English and French. In fact, she has made a career translating French books into English. However, she has never been to France (or even ever left Greenland). When asked to translate the poetry of the last living troubadour in Provence, Ilse fears she is in over her head, especially as it requires understanding the Provençal dialect, which she does not. She convinces her editor that she needs to travel to France and meet the poet in order to do justice to the translation.

Visiting France is an amazing and, in some ways, overwhelming experience, so different from her isolated life in a remote arctic village. Ilse and Geoffrey Labaye (Po) quickly develop a connection rooted in their mutual love of words and the deeper meaning that the right words can convey. Being in France and working with Po to translate his poetry opens Ilse up to a new understanding of herself. For Po, Ilse helps bring light into his life; Po appears to have a good life filled with joy and dear relationships (family and friends), but his personality masks the inner darkness of the loss of his wife five years ago, as well as the estrangement of his son.

Ilse's translation of Labaye's poetry will be much more successful than she ever expected, but more importantly, the time in Provence with Po, Agnes, Frey and others, results in a translation in Ilse's life. She has been profoundly changed by her time in Provence, and events at home will force her to re-evaluate what and who she wants.

Beautifully written, this is a wonderful story which hits all the marks of a heartwarming romance.

Ilse Erlund lives in a small cottage in Greenland north of the Artic Circle where there is frequent downpours of rain and bitter winds. It requires several layers of clothes even while she sleeps. There is danger where she lives with floating sheets of ice and the sea rising which is practically on her door step.

Yet, she dismisses the extreme cold when she is enjoying the beauty of the northern lights, stunning rainbows and watching the humpback whales. She lives with an adoring cat while translating books from English to French or French to English.

While she has received praise for her work, she has never translated a poem and never been to France – which has been a faraway dream until now. She will be under a strict deadline of 2 ½ months to translate a collection of poems. Ilse convinces her publisher to send her to Provence for two weeks so she can meet with the poet and understand his feelings and thoughts. She is ecstatic.

France is a large culture shock and she stumbles but manages just fine. It feels like a travel journey of sorts with the adventure as she finds herself eating warm rolls and magnificent food and drinks. Then it turns into a love story with unexpected twists.

The book is filled with tender poems that come from the heart and make you pause. The poet goes by: Po. He’s an older man but has a way of bringing new experiences to her that helps her to translate his work perfectly.

There was much to love: the characters, the original plot and the easy flow of the words. I thought I could predict what would happen. I was surprised by the ending. It’s satisfying in its own way.

My thanks to Ballantine Books and NetGalley for allowing me to read an advanced copy of this book with an expected release date of May 21, 2024.

The Novel Northern Light In Provence by Elizabeth Birkelund is about a young woman IIse Erlund who is a translator and lives in Greenland. IIse wants more out of life than being translator Greenland. She wants to move to France and translate for a French Poet. Only IIse was not prepared for what happened once she started living that dream.

Loving her job, love living in France and all the beauty it had to offer. IIse finds herself falling in love with the poets son. Only to find out he is marring someone else. Then also finding out that he is also becoming a father. What will this young women do now? All she wanted was a better life doing a job she loved living in a beautiful country. She didn't ask for a broken heart. How do you not shed some tears for this poor girl?

Beautifully written makes you want to pack up and move to France. Not your typical love story yet you were hoping for a happy ending. Would totally recommend it .

Thank you NetGalley and Random House for the ARC.

An isolated, grieving translator is given the unusual opportunity to work closely with a poet on his work, and travels from her home in Greenland to the south of France, where she finds a renewed sense of beauty and wonder in the world, reckons with difficult decisions, makes mistakes, learns from them, and changes her life for the better. It might sound sentimental, but this is a gorgeous book that is very human, invested in language and precision and awe, and develops places and characters that are rich and relatable. Highly recommend, especially for people interested in language.

This book was so beautiful that I wanted to savor every second of it. It’s a love story, but one unlike any I’ve read before. This is a story of the love of words, cultures, people, and place…and the changes that occur in them. It is all of these that help Ilse find herself, save herself. This book was just lovely, and I highly recommend it.

Thank you Ballantine Books for inviting me to read this novel. I loved the story of Ilse, a woman who makes her living translating books, speaks fluent French, and lives very remotely in Iceland. She convinces her editor to pay for her to visit a French village where she'll translate the work of a Provencal poet and the last living "troubadour." The trip is life-changing as she spends countless hours with the French poet getting the history and nuances of his poetry, and whilst doing that, spends time taking stock of her life at home. She's had a tumultuous relationship with her mother that was exacerbated by the death of her only brother five years prior in a motorcycle accident. Since losing her brother, Ilse has shut herself off from her family, friends, and any notion of love. Living in the little French village, meeting new people, and having new experiences opens her eyes to a more substantial future. Ilse becomes very close to the poet, and his sister and son, and when she returns to Iceland she is determined to make real changes. When she loses her home, it sets in motion some major decisions that she's prepared to make with fresh eyes having had the experience of life outside her small town. I highly recommend this enchanting read by Elizabeth Birkelund.

I am a lover of language and France so I was very drawn to this book. I enjoyed it. As others have mentioned it drags a bit but stick with it and you will be so happy you did.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️- {A NORTHERN LIGHT IN PROVENCE -Elizabeth Birkelund}

The landscapes of this novel are the true star. I felt genuinely transported to the luscious vineyards and sun warmed streets of Provence as well as to Greenlands isolated wet lands and melting icebergs. Romance and poetry flow through the pages as the main character Ilse experiences intellectual love, passionate love, and an unwavering love all in a matter of months. She finds her true self while translating the poems of a famous elderly poet known as the “last true troubadour of Provence” and lives along side him, his many dogs, vintage wines and love for the spoken word. If your looking to immerse yourself in a charming French village and fall in love with its cast of characters this book will take you there!
Thanks to @netgalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

What a beautiful story of love, literature, language, across multiple cultures. I knew nothing about Greenland before and now I want to read more of it! Not to soil anything but it is not the predictable story you might imagine at the beginning or even halfway through and that was a delightful turn of events. Take a chance on Ilse!


I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Ilse seems numb in her life, going through the paces. A translater, she receives the opportunity to leave Greenland for Provence, to translate poetry, and has such an emotionally transformative journey. I really liked her character, and enjoyed the softer moving pace of this novel.

Though I wish some of the characters were more developed, I found the descriptions gorgeous and they painted the most vivid pictures.

Overall, I found this to be a very pleasant read.



Thank you to Ballantine Books and NetGalley for the DRC!

This book's gentle flow and rhythm make it a delightful read.

Book lovers, and lovers of language, will certainly warm to it. The beautiful story of a woman in love with words certainly hits all the right feels!

Ilse is just such a lovely character. The reader cannot help but love her, and fall into her story. It's love and loss and beauty and pain.

"Your words are fairer than you," she says. She's been reading too much troubadour poetry..." (chapt 28)

To me, the best part about this book is that we, the English-speaking readers, are reading it in translation!

So many lovely layers! So many warm and beautiful pictures in the gentle prose! A must-read!

"Ilse remembers the poem by Robert Frost asking whether the world will end in ice or fire. 'Mr. Frost, you got it wrong. The world will end in water.'" (chapt 36)

A Northern Light in Provence is, as the title suggests, a book filled with contrasts. Greenland and Provence could not be more different. The protagonist and narrator, Ilse, is a translator who lives in a remote village in Greenland, where she isolates herself in a home on stilts, and where she hides from life. Greenland is dark, cold, and wet, while Provence is warm and filled with soft light from the sun. Initially, Ilse sees herself as French at heart. Provence calls to her. Ilse's journey from Greenland to Provence and the choices she makes in each location are the focus of Elizabeth Birkelund's novel, A Northern Light in Provence.

Like nature and life, poetry is filled with contradictions and is open to interpretation, which means that translating from one language to another presents a challenge far more difficult than the translation of a novel. To Translate poetry, Ilse needs to journey to Provence, where she meets the poet who opens her life to possibilities. A Northern Light in Provence, is a book filled with contrasts and choices and the search for acceptance and love.

The story within A Northern Light in Provence is a novel filled with opposites, with choices between fantasy and reality and the discovery of the different ways that nature can be experienced. Birkelund's novel opens slowly, with descriptions of Greenland that seemingly close the novel and narrator's life to possibilities. Descriptions of family conflict, loss and grief, and descriptions of nature and weather make the escape to Provence even more appealing. And in fact, Provence opens the protagonist Ilse's life to possibilities. In Provence, she puts aside the grief she felt after her brother's death, a grief that has paralyzed her. In Provence, she begins to live again. In translating the Poet/Po's verse, his words teach her about the possibilities of love and the ability of love to heal. The contrasts continue with Po, who continues to create poetry, while his life approaches an end, and with Ilse, for whom the poet's words serve to remind her that it is still possible to love and be loved.

With the exception of Ilse's mother, Birkelund's characters are complex, with hidden facets of personality. The secrets that Ilse discovers by the end of the novel allow her to change and move on with her life. A Northern Light in Provence is beautifully written. The deceptively unappealing Greenland world that opens the novel is misleading. Birkelund's prose seemingly comes alive in Provence, but that is a beautifully constricted analogy for Ilse's heart and life. In Greenland, Ilse is closed and dark, while in Provence, she is open and filled with light. Ilse's transformation lies at the heart of A Northern Light in Provence.

I want to thank the author, Penguin Random House, and NetGalley for making this ARC available for me to read and review. These comments are my own opinion of A Northern Light in Provence. .