Tanya is almost sixteen and angry. She is in love with Henrik and unhappy. Her mother has decided they're moving the very same day Tanya gets the job as drummer in Henrik's band, Limbo. It really isn't much fun having to leave behind everything you care about. Nor is it much fun having a mother who keeps on changing her boyfriends. And who doesn't understand that sitting in a coffee bar in town with friends is infinitely better than rummaging about in a field in the country. In fact it just is no good being 16 and being forced to abandon the things that really matter in life - love, friends and music. Unless you can find a way to run away from it all. But that takes courage. And money. Tanya gets a little less angry the day Lisbeth gives her a ride. Lisbeth who's always running around on her moped. And is a good laugh. Lisbeth who's got a boyfriend - Iver. Tanya thinks. Tanya who's only got her sheep dog Floyd. And her little brother Joachim. She thinks.
When Anna Neshov suffers a stroke a week before Christmas Eve and is left dying, her three sons must take stock of their own lives and each other's. For various reasons, they have not been in contact for many years. The youngest brother, Erlend, works as a window dresser in Copenhagen. Margido owns a small funeral home in Trondheim, and the eldest brother, Tor, runs the family farm on the Byneset peninsula outside Trondheim. Now they meet at their mother's sickbed.
