In the Month of the Midnight Sun

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What to expect

An orphaned boy brought up to serve the state as a man. A rich young woman incapable of living by the conventions of society. Neither is prepared for the journey into the heat, mystery, violence and disorienting perpetual daylight of the far North.

Stockholm 1856.

Magnus is a geologist. When the Minister sends him to survey the distant but strategically vital Lapland region around Blackasen Mountain, it is a perfect cover for another mission: Magnus must investigate why one of the nomadic Sami people, native to the region, has apparently slaughtered in cold blood a priest, a law officer and a settler in their rectory.

Is there some bigger threat afoot? Blackasen seems to be a place of many secrets.
But the Minister has more than a professional tie to Magnus, and at the last moment, he adds another responsibility. Disgusted by the wayward behaviour of his daughter Lovisa - Magnus's sister-in law - the Minister demands that Magnus take her with him on his arduous journey.

Thus the two unlikely companions must venture out of the sophisticated city, up the coast and across country, to the rough-hewn religion and politics of the settler communities, the mystical, pre-Christian ways of the people who have always lived on this land, and the strange, compelling light of the midnight sun.

For Lovisa and Magnus, nothing can ever be the same again.

(P) 2016 Hodder & Stoughton

Critics Review

Ekback...has a tremendous sense of place. Vividly conveying the desolation of the landscape in this haunting novel
The Sunday Times
A gripping, beautifully written novel that I devoured in a day. Cecilia Ekback has a tremendous feel for the landscape of the north, and her portrayal of the small community who live under the mountain of Blackasen, their suspicion of the outsiders who come amongst them, and the land's own power and hold over their lives and fates, is as thrilling as it is fascinating.
Hannah Kent, author of Burial Rites
The writing is atmospheric, vivid and compelling.
Choice magazine
Masterfully thrilling.
The Bookbag
Ekback is a talented writer... this book is never less than absorbing.
The Times
With In the Month of the Midnight Sun, we're given more ambitious, literate Nordic Noir from Swede Cecilia Ekbäck (writing in English), who provides an elusive poetic feel not common in the genre. An orphaned boy and a privileged, rebellious young women are uneasy fellow travellers through the threatening perpetual daylight of the far north as they move towards a strange destiny. As in Wolf Winter, Ekbäck once again proves that she is in the very front rank of Scandinavian crime writers.
Independent
Praise for Wolf Winter
:
Like a silent fall of snow; suddenly, the reader is enveloped... visually acute, skilfully written; it won't easily erase its tracks in the reader's mind.
Hilary Mantel, author of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies
Exquisitely suspenseful, beautifully written, and highly recommended.
Lee Child
WOLF WINTER repays reading for the beauty of its prose, its strange compelling atmosphere and its tremendous evocation of the stark, dangerous, threatening place, which exists in the far north and in the hearts of all of us.
Guardian
A compelling, suspenseful story.
The Sunday Times
Fans of The Miniaturist will love flashing back to the dark bleakness of 1717 Lapland in Cecilia Ekback's debut.
Grazia

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