ISBN: 979-8-9923690-1-4
Trade paperback
Publication date: November 18, 2025
Betty
Set in 1979 Norway during a time of environmental resistance and cultural awakening, If the Owl Calls is a gripping literary mystery. As the Sami community fights to protect ancestral lands from the controversial Alta Dam, Oslo detective Hans Sorensen is sent to the far north to investigate a series of sabotage attacks. But when a body is discovered in a remote ravine, what seemed like a political act of defiance spirals into something far more complex—a case that will force Hans to confront his own past, his buried heritage, and the meaning of justice.
Hans, who is Sami, has spent his life on the fringes of his culture. Still mourning the recent death of his wife, he is reluctant to return to the land of his childhood. But as he follows the trail of two suspected saboteurs he is pulled into a web of secrets, betrayals, and shifting alliances. Richly detailed and deeply evocative, If the Owl Calls is a powerful narrative of identity, loss, and the fight for place.
Praise for Sharon White's Writing
“Sharon White’s writing is gorgeous. The sentences are lyrical and assured at the same time. Almost every page gives the reader a beautiful image to savor, whether it’s a persimmon or an orchid or something grander, like a park or garden or mountain.”
—Ann Hood, New York Times best-selling author of The Stolen Child
“With mad singing in strange lands and familiar places, these stories speak a language of dark lyricism. Unleashing the unconscious, White dares to venture through a tapestry of nightmare memories to illuminate strange moments of reality bordered by pure beauty.”
—Aimee Parkison, author of The Petals of Your Eyes
“Her lyrical prose moves effortlessly through the centuries, through the stories and histories of people and flowers, of rivers and plants. Stunning work.”
—Lisa Couturier, author of The Hopes of Snakes & Other Tales from the Urban Landscape
“As with all excellent writing about landscape, Vanished Gardens transforms the world before our eyes so that the reader, held in its thrall, begins to see to see.”
—Michael Martone, winner of the Indiana Author’s Award
If the Owl Calls: A Novel by Sharon White
Sharon White is an award-winning author whose work spans nonfiction, poetry, and fiction. She has written extensively about nature, place, and memory, bringing a lyrical and reflective voice to her storytelling. Her books include Minato Sketches (Minerva Rising Press), The Body Is Burden and Delight (Cornerstone Press), Boiling Lake: On Voyage (Jaded Ibis Press), Vanished Gardens: Finding Nature in Philadelphia (University of Georgia Press), Eve and Her Apple (Harbor Mountain Press), Field Notes: A Geography of Mourning (Hazelden Press), and Bone House (Brickhouse Books, New Poets Series).
Vanished Gardens: Finding Nature in Philadelphia won the AWP Award in Creative Nonfiction and Boiling Lake received the Italo Calvino Prize in Fabulist Fiction. Minato Sketches was awarded the Rosemary Daniell Prize.
An Associate Professor Emerita at Temple University, White has dedicated her career to writing and teaching, and has published in numerous literary journals and anthologies. A passionate traveler, she draws inspiration from diverse landscapes and cultures. In Scandinavia she researched the life of Danish painter Emilie Demant Hatt, and in 2019, as an artist-in-residence in Dunedin, New Zealand, she immersed in the region’s literary and artistic culture. She has also taught creative writing at Temple University Japan. She lives in Philadelphia.