I remember finding this book in a small bookstore in Stockholm sometime in the 90s. Over the years, I've gone back to it whenever I've visited my parents (where a lot of my old books are). Compared to the romance novels I read today, it's... very different. But it still keeps me turning the pages. Probably a case of nostalgia that makes you overlook issues that you would call out in modern-day books, so it's hard to say if this is for today's readers...
A young Swedish girl, having survived the journey from the Estonian island Dagö to southern Ukraine, by the river Dnieper, is an outcast in her small village of Swedes, with silver hair and blue eyes hinting of Swedish nobility rather than of the hardworking farmers. An orphan, she lives with an uncle and his disapproving wife, and blocks everything out. Only one thing draws her attention - a tortured Zaporozhian Cossack left for dead. Tending to his wounds, talking to him, makes her feel needed for the first time in her life.
This is the beginning of a love story between two very different people from very different backgrounds, of humans discarded by their own societies and finding their purpose.