The Little Dark Thorn

the long version

At six, Merrie is taken from her unmarried mother in Malaya, and sent to England to live with her father's Aunt Emma. Later, her father marries a kind Birgit, and she lives with them although remains resentful of her father. When she is seventeen, she visits her stepmother's parents in Norway, and finally begins to confront old conflicts and bitterness, and to clarify goals for the future, including a better relationship with her father.