Showing results by narrator "Sofia Engstrand" in All Categories

For as long as Alice Carmichael can remember, the only thing she’s been able to count on is the written word. The war may have taken everything from her, but the stories she cherishes provide solace and escape into a world that is more hopeful than 1942 England. So when Alice finds herself at the mercy and kindness of strangers, miles from everything she’s ever known, it’s little surprise that books become her purpose.

Using ancient secrets, Galina and Sera’s mother grafted gods into their bones. Bound to brutal deities and granted forbidden power no commoner has held in a millennia; the sisters have grown up to become living weapons. Raised to overthrow an empire – no matter the cost. With their mother gone and their country on the brink of war, it falls to the sisters to take the helm of the rebellion and end the cruel reign of a royal family possessed by destructive gods. Because when the ruling alurea invade, they conquer with fire and blood.

When Lili meets Ben by chance one hot summer’s day, it feels like fate. But life is about to take them in different directions, and so they agree to meet next July, in the beautiful hidden garden where they first laid eyes on each other. But one of them never shows up. Five years later, Ben still wonders how he got things so wrong—he let the love of his life slip between his fingers. And then a stranger, Alice, arrives in his tiny Scottish hometown. Alice has no memory of how she got there: she can’t remember anything before that morning.

Visceral and poetic, these short stories reveal everyday miracles and trivialities, human desires and anxieties in a very recognizable reality. The woman who cooks soup for the lover whose fidelity she questions, the man who loses courage when faced with the birth of his child, the married couple who know they have embarked on their last summer together. In English for the first time, readers of Tove Ditlevsen and Tove Jansson will be thrilled to discover the debut short story collection of a celebrated Danish writer.