English Translations of Scandinavian/Nordic Mysteries & Thrillers discussion

For the month of June 2024 we have 9 books to choose from at this time. Following the month, we will add books as they become known to us. Good Reading.

1) Dead Endings by Henry Ben Edom to be published on the 1st of June 2024. Finland.

Dead Endings, from Finnish author Henry Ben Edom, is a chilling collection that delves deep into realms of darkness and misery, blighted landscapes of macabre malaise and moral terror, black forests of primordial fear where carrion birds cavort with killers by the freshly-churned soil of violated graves where the rotting bodies of teenage suicides languish in Purgatory eternal.

These stories are not merely they are steeped in the pure essence of darkness and evil and are sure to leave an indelible mark on the psyche of their readers.

BEWARE!

For once the spine is cracked, and these tales are experienced, the act of reading them cannot be undone, and the stain of their horror will forever remain.

2) Mythical Monsters of Greenland: A Survival Guide by Maria Bach Kreutzmann to be published on the 4th of June 2024. Greenland. 96 pages.

What should you do if you encounter a Qivittoq? Can you outrun the fabled Ikusik? And what is a Tupilak made of? About 4500 years ago, the first Inuit landed in Greenland via North America, bringing with them stories about the mythical beings that lived alongside them. These creatures and monsters have survived the ravages of time and tide, although they have sometimes had to re-invent themselves to fit the modern world. This handy pocket guide will help guide you through the do’s and don'ts should you encounter any of these creatures in the Arctic wilderness. Happy hunting!

3) Emily Forever by Maria Navarro Skaranger to be published on the 4th of June 2024. Norway. 136 pages.

In this novel about poverty,
social inequality, and class contempt in Norway, nineteen-year-old supermarket
worker Emily is single, pregnant, and struggling to make ends meet. Em’s nineteen years old and pregnant. Her boyfriend Pablo has gone out “to take care of something” and hasn’t returned. Her mother, who raised Emily alone, moves into the little apartment to help. Meanwhile, Em’s neighbour, who may or may not be a clergyman, wonders if it’s normal to be so infatuated with someone you’ve never spoken to. Em’s boss at the supermarket might have feelings for her too, if only she’d notice. Emily Forever is a poignant, achingly hard-hitting book about class and about digging deep to find what it takes to get by. At the same time, it’s a deeply original exploration of how a girl like Emily is seen from the outside, by those who think they know who she is and how her life is supposed to pan out. Empathetic and quizzical, and scathingly humorous, Emily Forever is a novel of unyielding solidarity and smoldering social dissent, by a new star of Scandinavian literature.

4) North Bane: A dinosaur Action and Adventure novel set in the Highlands of Scotland by Christoffer Petersen to be published on the 6th of June 2024. Scotland. 297 pages.

When a rebellious and unpredictable archaeologist is incarcerated on a remote estate, freedom seems unlikely, until a secret government-backed experiment brings dinosaurs to life in the Scottish Highlands.

Struggling within the restraints and demands set by the new owners of his family estate, the Lord of Abercrombie sees an opportunity for justice in the guise of the young woman entrusted in his care, unaware that when Luci Hampton invokes the power of the Highlands, she will quickly become the Bane of the North.

Set in the near future, North Bane continues the story begun in Christoffer Petersen’s action-packed novel of prehistoric adventure Reviver, book one in the Reviver series. North Bane is book three in the series, but can be read after book one.

5) Songs of Snow by L.J. Thomas to be published on the 11th of June 2024. Viking Age Fantasy. 338 pages.

Banned magic. An ambitious huntress. A reluctant sorceress. A kingdom at stake.

Kata dreams of a life of wealth and glory, eradicating magic from her kingdom by hunting mythical beings. But when she finds a rare winged unicorn in the woods and fails to kill it, she’s unwillingly swept off to a mountain sanctuary for the very prey she longs to hunt.

Across the sea, Elín loves her simple farm life and is far too practical to believe in magic. When bounty hunters descend on her farm, believing Elín to be the last remaining snow sorceress, she’s forced to flee with a mysterious stranger. If she wants to survive to see her home again, she must travel to the shadowy ends of her world, find a lost book of spells, and learn to wield her newfound icy powers.

When they meet at the mountain sanctuary, Elín and Kata learn of an unexpected tether between them. Elín is eager to work together to reclaim the refugees’ homes—and her own—by defeating the king who banned magic. But there's a hefty bounty on Elín's life, and this is Kata’s chance to fulfill all her dearest-held dreams…

Fans of Viking Age fantasy, magical adventures like Margaret Rogerson’s Sorcery of Thorns, and wintry, fairy tale-inspired worlds like Naomi Novik’s Spinning Silver and Meagan Spooner’s Hunted will love this twist on Icelandic mythology.

6) The Bad Eggs: A Constable Petra Jensen Novella by Christoffer Petersen to be published on the 13th of June 2024. Greenland.

Tensions run high in a remote Arctic village and Constable Petra ‘Piitalaat’ Jensen must find the local shopkeeper before supplies run out.

The Bad Eggs is the twenty-eighth in the Greenland Missing Persons series of novellas and novels set in the harsh, unpredictable Arctic, rich in tradition, myth and culture.

The Bad Eggs continues the adventures of Constable Petra ‘Piitalaat’ Jensen, ably assisted by interesting characters, together with a few familiar faces making cameo appearances in the series.

The Greenland Missing Persons stories are set prior to The Ice Star and Seven Graves, One Winter.

7) Don't Sleep Under the Midnight Sun and Other Short Stories by Darshani Panchia to be published on the 21st of June 2024. Norway. 40 pages.

Thought-provoking and poignant, "Don't Sleep Under the Midnight Sun" explores the universal human longing for connection—whether as a stranger in a foreign country, within one's marriage, or among family who you know the most and the least—with rare and eloquent insight. Everyone's an outsider in their own lives, as the characters in Darshani Panchia's richly drawn collection of short stories illustrates. The feeling of isolation spares no one—from a disenfranchised Norwegian foreign officer haunted by memories in a politically unstable African country to a lonely woman watching her neighbor's house in the aftermath of tragedy, longing to reach out but unsure how.

8) Some Murders in Berlin by Karen Robards to be published on the 25th of June 2024. Denmark (Germany). 448 pages.

A serial killer on the loose. A profiler with a hidden past. A world at war.

Trust is a luxury no one can afford.

September 1943: Berlin is the heart of darkness—and the last place Dr. Elin Lund wishes to be. An expert in psychological profiling, she’s been summoned from Copenhagen to investigate the gruesome murders of eight young women. Even in the midst of unspeakable evil, these killings stand apart. And with her homeland now under Nazi occupation and a young son to protect, Elin can’t refuse such a request.

Homicide Detective Kurt Schneider, head of the criminal police unit, is grudging in his welcome. The orders to find the killer come from the top, and to fail means death. The stakes are too high to risk any mistakes—or to trust a stranger. Yet the pair, trapped in an uneasy partnership, each has expertise the other needs. And Schneider, like Elin, is clearly guarding secrets of his own.

Racing to complete the investigation and return to her son, Elin feels the net tightening. Every sliver of evidence reveals a killer infinitely more dangerous, and more powerful, than anyone suspected. And in drawing closer to the terrifying truth, Elin has unwittingly made herself his new obsession…

9) Dancing on My Own: Essays on Art, Collectivity, and Joy by Simon Wu to be published on the 25th of June 2024. Sweden. 224 pages.

An expansive and deeply personal essay collection that explores the aesthetics of class aspiration, the complications of creating art and fashion, and the limits of identity politics.

In Robyn’s 2010 track Dancing on My Own , the Swedish pop-singer chronicles a night on the dance floor in the shadow of a former lover. She is bitter, angry, and at times desperate, and yet by the time the chorus arrives her frustration has melted away. She decides to dance on her own, and in this way, she transforms her solitude into a more complex joy.

Taking inspiration from Robyn’s seminal track, emerging art critic and curator Simon Wu dances through the institutions of art, capitalism, and identity in these expertly researched, beautifully rendered essays. In “For Everyone,” Wu explores the complicated sensation of the Telfar bag (often referred to as “the Brooklyn Birkin”) and asks whether fashion can truly be revolutionary in a capitalist system—if something can truly be “for everyone” without undercutting someone else. In “A Model Childhood” he catalogs the decades’ worth of clutter in his mother’s suburban garage and its meaning for himself and his family. Throughout, Wu centers the sticky vulnerability of living in a body in a world where history is mapped into every choice we make, every party drug we take, and every person we kiss.

Wu’s message is that to dance on your own is to move from critique into joy. To approach identity with the utmost sympathy for the kinds of belonging it might promise, and to look beyond it. For readers of Cathy Park Hong and Alexander Chee, Dancing on My Own is a deeply felt and ultimately triumphant anthem about the never-ending journey of discovering oneself, and introduces a brilliant new writer on the rise.

10) Pedal Faster: Prehistoric Action and Adventure by Christoffer Petersen to be published on the 2nd of June 2024. Pre-historic.

Pedal Faster: Prehistoric Action and Adventure (Short Stories with a Big Bite Book 14)
by Christoffer Petersen
As the results of the Reviver Project continue to spillover into recreational areas, one mountain biker must shred a gnarly trail to avoid getting stomped! Pedal Faster is a short twenty-minute read, full of prehistoric action and adventure. Pick up Pedal Faster for an intense fix of dinosaur action and adventure today!

11) Hallowed Sunday: A Constable Petra Jensen novella by Christoffer Petersen to be published on the 4th of June 2024. Greenland.

When Constable Petra ‘Piitalaat’ Jensen wakes up inside a cell with a rotten corpse under her bed, her logical assumption is that she is dead. But six-year-old Luui Angakkuarneq, the shaman's daughter, has other plans for Petra!

Hallowed Sunday is a fun and alternative novella with characters plucked from Christoffer Petersen’s Greenland Missing persons series.

Originally released each Sunday in October, after dark, on Christoffer Petersen’s Patreon site, Hallowed Sunday is now available in one collected work.

12) The Untamed: A short story of summary justice in the Arctic by Christoffer Petersen to be published on the 18th of June 2024. Greenland.

Tensions run high when a group of foreign trophy hunters take advantage of a local Greenland guide, drawing the wrath of Constable David Maratse.

The Untamed is the twenty-fifth in a series of novellas to feature Constable David Maratse in Greenland. Each novella is set during Maratse’s career as a police constable, and features aspects of Greenlandic culture, tradition, and not least the stunning natural environment.

Constable David Maratse also features in the popular Greenland Crime series starting with Seven Graves, One Winter, and makes regular cameo appearances in the Greenland Missing Persons series.

13) Danish Dreams by Tanya Johansen to be published on the 6th of June 2024. Denmark. 278 pages.

If you loved the atmospheric beauty of Where the Crawdads Sing and the heart-wrenching family secrets in Before We Were Yours, then Danish Dreams is your next must-read.

Zoe’s vivid dreams of ancient ceremonies and distant landscapes pull her into a journey of self-discovery that she can't ignore. Guided by the whispers of her ancestors, Zoe sets out on a quest that leads her from the red earth of Australia to the cobblestone streets of Denmark, unraveling the mysteries of her dual heritage.
Along the way, she encounters unexpected romance that adds both complication and passion to her journey.

With a foot in two worlds, Zoe navigates family secrets, cultural identity, and the powerful call to honor all parts of herself. As she bridges the gap between her Australian and Danish lineage, she discovers the strength that lies in embracing her full identity. But with each revelation, suspense builds as Zoe uncovers truths that challenge everything she thought she knew about her past.

Danish Dreams is a captivating tale of identity, heritage, and belonging. Dive into Zoe’s world and join her on a spellbinding journey that explores the echoes of the past and the whispers of the future. Perfect for readers who enjoy richly woven stories that celebrate the complexity of family, the ties that bind us to our roots, and the thrill of uncovering long-buried secrets.

Discover the magic of Danish Dreams and let Zoe's story inspire you to explore the threads of your own heritage, with all its suspense and unexpected romance.
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Set out on a journey of heritage and self-discovery in "Danish Dreams". Follow Zoe, a fierce Australian woman, as she travels to Denmark to unravel her family's past.

Guided by vivid dreams of her late mother and a mysterious medallion, Zoe finds herself entwined in a centuries-old mystery involving a hidden son of King Christian IV.

Navigating the complexities of academic research, media attention, and personal relationships, Zoe forms an unexpected bond with Daniel from Canada.

Together, they explore historical sites, uncover hidden clues, and face challenges that test their resolve and deepen their connection.

"Danish Dreams" is a tale of resilience, love, and the enduring bond between past and present. Will Zoe be able to honor her mother's legacy and discover the truth about her family's history? Dive into "Danish Dreams" to find out.

14) A Study in Vegetables by Annelie Wendeberg to be published on the 30th of June 2024. 38 pages.

I’m Morgan Fox, a walking calamity in human form who accidentally stumbled into the role of a cold-case analyst and profiler for a pint-sized police force on a speck of a Swedish island. Deemed unfit for field work and banned from carrying firearms thanks to epilepsy, autism, and generally overwhelming oddball nature.

Would you trust such a person to lead a charge into a hostage situation?

Nope. Not in a million years.

Yet here I am.
_____
The Adventures of the Basement Detectives is a cozy mystery short story serial featuring an autistic and non-binary cold-case analyst and a gay detective who solve strange cases on the Swedish island of Gotland. A new episode will be published every 2 months.

15) Nothing but Trouble: A Greenland Missing Persons short story by Christoffer Petersen to be published on the 21st of June 2024. Greenland.

Friday nights in the capital can be hard work for Constable Petra ‘Piitalaat’ Jensen, but teaming up with her supervisor, Sergeant Kiiu Duneq, has the potential to make them much, much worse.

Nothing but Trouble is a light, quick read connected to Christoffer Petersen’s Greenland Missing Persons series.