Reviews

Winner of the 2017 Best Swedish Crime Novel Award and the Glass Key Award, Camilla Grebe will not disappoint with her latest offering, Before the Night Takes Us.

Get under the skin of one of Stockholm’s most exclusive postcodes in Måns Wadensjö’s polyphonic novel, The Karlaplan Internship. 

Strange deaths in Åre turn out to be interlinked Sara Strömberg’s latest skilfully woven crime novel, Soot.

Hannele Mikaela Taivassalo explores the power and importance of human connection in the world of damaged characters in her latest novel, InSanatorium.

Part daytime TV soap opera, part Dostoevskian epic, Tone Schunnesson takes it up a notch with her third novel, Ultraviolence. The story of the doomed Griepenbrand family is a literary joyride fraught with trauma, absurdity and its fair share of blood and guts. Reader discretion is advised. 

In Linda Johansson’s Changeling, the forest surrounding a small Swedish town becomes a place of unease and terror.

In Autumn from Hell, Ellen Strömberg gives authentic voice to the trials and tribulations of twenty-first-century pre-teen girls on the cusp of adolescence.

Can you always believe what you read and see online? In Daniel Andersson’s book Liars, we read of a journalist striving to uncover a web of lies created by Sweden’s most controversial political party – the Sweden Democrats.

A mother finds life with her partner and young children to be an uphill struggle, and instead sets her sights on Mount Everest in Alma Thörn’s graphic novel Everest.

What does it really mean to be free? When do we need boundaries? And how do we learn that independence in relationships is supported from a certain amount of give and take? Sophia Westin’s young adult novel Lady Liberty touches on these questions.

The adventure of a fox on an ocean liner stranded at sea, Lena Frölander-Ulf’s Lysinea – the Marvellous Story of a Vessel is a distinctively illustrated book for young readers with an understated moral lesson.

A graphic novel set against the backdrop of Kiruna, the northern Swedish city gradually being relocated, Village of the Year is Hilda Westerberg’s unsettling debut.

You’re the One I Write About by Moa Backe Åstot is a young adult novel in poems about first love, in all its pain, excitement and challenges.

A child ponders the existence of the invisible in The Invisible, this August-nominated picture book by Annica Hedin and Karin Cyrén.

Why do we cry? In Crying – The Philosophy of Tears Eric Cullhed tracks down the answers drawing on science, philosophy, history, anthropology and literature across the centuries.

An atmospheric novella set in Stockholm, Therese Bohman’s My Street is a coming-of-age story and depiction of student life.

Johanna Hedman’s sharply written The Benefactors takes a harsh look at a cynical art industry that devours young artists alive, spitting out their bones and clothes. It brings into focus those who normally remain in the shadows: those who buy and collect art. 

Bübin's Kid is compact, evocative coming-of-age story by Mare Kandre, republished almost thirty years later.