The second novel in Sigrid Unset's Nobel-prize winning Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy, Volume II (original title: Husfrue) picks up with the newlywed couple of Kristin Lavransdatter and Erlend Nikulausson arriving at his ancestral estate of Husaby. Having courted, engaged, and married with heedless abandon, Kristin begins to find herself reaping the rewards of what she's sown, if only in the guilt within her heart. Steadily harboring bitterness, finding more of herself in Catholic traditions, and beginning to grow up, the reader sees Kristin and Erlend's relationship wax and wane with children, fights, and responsibilities mounting. Filled with details of medieval Norway, and rich with descriptions of the characters populating her Norwegian towns, Kristin Lavransdatter is an educational trip into the past, as well as a classic novel. 415 pages, softcover.