Rose in the Sand

ISBN 978-1-4567-3398-8, Gather Community Press/Author House, 2011, hardcover, 244 pages. Image by Karin Albinsson, karinalbinsson.com.

Each of us has dreams that we inherit. The work of life is discovering our own. Author Julie Catterson Lindahl reflects on an unexpected decade spent raising her young family on a small, isolated island in the North and the dream she found there. Through her story of breaking with a corporate career and a cosmopolitan life, an inherited dream, and pursuing an existence in the often harsh Nordic wilderness, Lindahl captures the very essence of the greatest personal challenge that each of us meets: to discover that there is no blueprint for living and that the great work of life is to grow your own rose out of the sand.

Using the eight seasons of the indigenous people of the North as her guide, the author takes us on an intimate personal journey in which she sees the world and herself anew through the fine detail of her extraordinary environment. For anyone who has ever felt trapped by preconceptions about themselves, Lindahl opens the door.

​Published through an award for best back cover text from Gather Community Press, the world's first online community for writers, in 2009. The award supported publication through Author House.

“Nobody writes about the Swedish islands and the life that exists on them through the seasons better than Julie Lindahl. …she does for Swedish islands what Peter Mayle did for Provence!” – Arshad Jamil, “Reviewer”, USA.

“Rose in the Sand is a delight to read. Julie Lindahl writes beautifully, combining specific detail with sensitive, lyrical descriptions of the surrounding nature during the constantly shifting seasons, together with her own reflections of life. At times her prose is truly poetic.” – H. Arnold Barton, Swedish-American historian, America’s Swede of the Year 1988.

“Reading Julie Lindahl’s Rose in the Sand is not like reading a book at all. It is like listening to soothing music, or watching an elegant movie or even more so, feeling like you are part of the movie…If you have not read this book, you are missing something in life.” – Sundeep Waslekar, President, Strategic Foresight Group.