The year is 1957. The day Ellinor receives a letter with news of her mother’s death is a turning point in her life. She has always understood that her mother Boel had left her when she was a little girl and wonders what it is that her adoptive parents have not told her.

1907-1912: we follow the happy-go-lucky, headstrong Boel’s journey from a small town in the west of Norway to big city life in Chicago and back to her home country again. She has grandiose dreams and is filled with obsessive desires, but the society she lives in demands decorum and moderation. Eventually she becomes a victim of her own zest for life and in despair she hurts the ones she loves the most.

Stay With Me is an account of love, duty and shame – about the fragile bonds that hold families together through generations.

The novel is based on true events.