The Raven's Nest

By Sarah Thomas

'Fascinating' - Robert Macfarlane, author of The Old Ways

'Truly a thing of wonder' - Kerri ní Dochartaigh, author of Thin Places

'Lyrical [and] thoughtful' - Cal Flyn, author of Islands of Abandonment

Visiting Iceland as an anthropologist and film-maker in 2008, Sarah Thomas is spellbound by its otherworldly landscape. An immediate love for this country and for Bjarni, a man she meets there, turns a week-long stay into a transformative half-decade, one which radically alters Sarah's understanding of herself and of the living world.

She embarks on a relationship not only with Bjarni, but with the light, the language, and the old wooden house they make their home. She finds a place where the light of the midwinter full moon reflected by snow can be brighter than daylight, where the earth can tremor at any time, and where the word for echo - bergmál - translates as 'the language of the mountain'. In the midst of crisis both personal and planetary, as her marriage falls apart, Sarah finds inspiration in the artistry of a raven's nest: a home which persists through breaking and reweaving - over and over.

Written in beautifully vivid prose The Raven's Nest is a profoundly moving meditation on place, identity and how we might live in an era of environmental disruption.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Atlantic Books
• Release date: Jul 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9781838956707

Sarah Thomas

Sarah is officially a licensed and retired commercial pilot. She graduated from Purdue University with a B.S. in Aviation Technology. She then went on as the chief pilot of an engineering firm in the Midwest for a couple years. Once she married a military man, she was whisked away from her land of corn and soybeans to start the next chapter in her life. Three moves into her marriage, she had to figure out a career that worked for a lady-on-the-run! Thank goodness for her geeky affection for algebra and geometry (and calculus.eep!) and a keen eye for design & color. Sarah's Gramma and mom taught her to enjoy crafts and handwork from a young age. She learned to crochet around age 4; played with beadwork and wire art from age 5 or 6; cross-stitch was second nature by the time she was in 2nd grade; and her school notebooks were always filled to brim with doodles. It was only a matter of time before she discovered the quilting world -- where art meets math and magic happens! By chance, she learned she had a knack for free motion quilting as well. Basing her style of FMQ on the doodles that filled her notebooks, she's classified her personal FMQ style as Sketchbook Quilting. She loves the opportunity to quilt for others She has been part of the Hoffman California Fabrics family, contributing as a surface pattern designer and releasing her premier fabric collection, Paradigm in June/July 2019. Her first and second collections for Moda are featured in this book.