Finnoybu

Finnoybu is a trilogy of historical novels following Olav Hestby, a young Norwegian sailor whose first deep-sea voyage in 1876 sets in motion a life caught between two loves — the woman he marries and the man he cannot speak of — in an age that had no word for either.

Book I, Salt and Silence, opens on the brig Sigrid on a June morning at the Stavanger quay and follows Olav through five years of voyages, illness, and homecoming to the moment he sets sail for the East Indies as a betrothed man. Books II and III continue the story through the long voyage to Calcutta and Rangoon and the marriage at Hestby that closes the arc.

For those who loved in times that had no word for it, and for the ones they could not say.

About the author

E. A. Westbo writes historical fiction set in the last great age of sail. The Finnoybu trilogy is inspired by a Norwegian-American family memoir of the same coast and period; the characters, voyages, and inner lives of the novels are the author’s own invention.

A note on the source

The world of Finnoybu is grounded in the geography of southwestern Norway — the islands of Finnøy, Lindøy, and Mosterøy in the Stavanger channel — and in the working life of the merchant sailing fleet in the decades before steam took the long routes. Where the prose names a specific ship, port, or maritime detail, it has been chosen for fidelity to the period; where it names a character or an interior life, it is imagined.