Showing results by narrator "Sofia Engstrand" in All Categories

Private investigator Julia Stark receives an unannounced visit at the office. The man at the door is one of the owners of a successful family business. The day before, he was present at a board meeting and dinner at his estate in the northwestern part of Sweden. The following morning, he finds a photograph in his phone of a bloody man, tied up with a bag over his head. Due to alcohol-related amnesia, the man has no idea where the picture comes from and wants to hire Stark Detective Agency to clear his name before the police get involved.

Do you procrastinate instead of doing the things you really need to? Are you inclined to miss a workout session because curling up on the sofa is more appealing? This is what can happen when your emotions are controlling your behaviour. Our thoughts, feelings and behaviour are all connected and if we start by changing our behaviour, a change in thoughts and feelings will follow. Swedish psychologist Siri Helle breaks down core principles of psychology into accessible, relatable tips to help you break free from emotional traps and reclaim control of your life.

Josie, Nell and Lisa go back a long way - they were flatmates, soulmates and best mates back in their 20s when life was one long party. Five years later, things are different. Josie is married with kids in deepest suburbia, free-spirit Nell has travelled the world and Lisa is on the path to career glory (and the salary Premiership). A reunion weekend in London seems a great idea to Josie...until she discovers something which will change the course of her life forever.

Esther's life isn’t perfect (whose is?) - but she’s happy enough living in her little flat with her boyfriend, Josh. But that’s about to change. Bored at work, she wishes that something, anything, would happen to liven her life up. Unfortunately, her wish comes true: when Josh calls her from the airport to tell her he’s going to work in a bar in Spain and that she’s not invited, Esther is devastated, and her unhappiness is compounded when she discovers she can actually view the bar via a webcam link and watch him chatting up other girls.

The Gotlandic myth about the White sea-lady has existed ever since Tjelvar lit the fire and the island rose out of the sea. The story is told about a young woman who drowned on her wedding night and who has since tried to lure men down into the underwater streams outside the west coast. The myth is brought up again an early morning just before midsummer, when a nurse is found murdered in the pavilion on the Tempel Hill in the Botanic garden. She is dressed as a bride.

Marytè is a devoted beekeeper. She lives by the old rules: work with fellow beekeepers, be a good Christian and a good harvest will follow. These rules help her cope with her grief when she inherits her husband's tree hollows. But as harsh conditions and tax increases threaten the harvest, Marytè begins to question her faith, her community and her own sanity.

Admiral Hägg is on watch duty at four in the morning regardless of whether he's alive or dead. In the forest with the twisted trees it's easy to get lost because clocks stop running and compasses no longer work. This could be due to the gnome Bysen or the Little People Underground. Andreas Nilsson, 9 years old, thinks about these things and about the minesweeper Albatross as he rides his bicycle from the graveyard with a stolen skull securely fastened on his bike rack. Together with his brother he has discovered a secret, but his brother is buried at the cementary.

Kesta’s husband Tim was the last person to be bitten in a zombie pandemic. The country is now in a period of respite, the government seemingly having rounded up and disposed of all the infected. But Kesta has a secret . . . Tim may have been bitten, but he’s not quite dead yet. In fact, he’s tied to a bed in her spare room. And she’s made him a promise: find a cure, bring him back. A scientist by day, Kesta juggles intensive work under the microscope alongside Tim’s care, slipping him stolen drugs to keep him docile, knowing she is hiding the only zombie left.

Stella’s life hasn’t quite gone to plan. She imagined that, at forty, she’d be settled with a supportive husband, two kids and a dog. Instead, she’s single and living at home with her mum, Bonnie, and grandmother, Florence. She passes the evenings in her childhood bedroom, obsessively searching for the perfect sperm donor. Unbeknownst to Stella is that Bonnie and Florence both also had difficult journeys to motherhood. And now that they’re writing down their stories for Stella’s unborn child, the truth about their family is becoming harder to conceal.

A small group of people with different backgrounds meet to go for dog walks together in a green area in their suburb. Their paths would probably never have been crossed if it wasn't for their dogs and the walks. Through the walks they become friends and when the area is threatened because of building plans they join forces to save their oasis in the suburb.

Paradise is a nightmare. Holly Bloom works as an analyst for Flynn Industries. When she intercepts a confidential email stating that the luxury space station housing the wealthiest members of humanity has gone dark, she immediately volunteers to accompany the rescue team sent to fix the comm issue… but Saturnalia is nothing like the reclusive paradise she'd come to expect.

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.

Vinga dreams of the sea. She's going to be a sailor when she grows up, sailing to distant lands. At home, back in the city, Mum is sad and Dad has left for good. But here with Granddad on the island, all her problems feel far away. Summer goes on as usual, with porridge for breakfast, drinking rhubarb lemonade under the lilac tree and watching the sunset from 'her' cliff. But things are different now too. The heat vibrates during the day, and a girl with a black hat has started appearing. Her name is Ruth.

Bill, a widower and single dad, is in a financial mess with bills to pay when he rents out a room in his apartment to Karla. Karla left home to study law, and to earn some money begins working as a cleaner at the palatial home of Steven and Regina Rytter. But inside their house it is clear that something is wrong with the doctor and his wife, who never leaves her bedroom. Jennica is single and career-less when she meets Steven on Tinder. But just as she thinks her luck is changing, it soon becomes clear that Steven is hiding secrets of his own.

From their very first date, Jamie and Lucy know they've met the one. They're as different as night and day. Jamie's a home bird, while Lucy's happiest on holiday. He has a place for everything—she can never find her keys. Yet, somehow, they make each other happier than they ever thought possible. So why does their story start with them saying 'goodbye'?

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.

In the not-too-distant future, a young spy named Elísabet Eva is about to discover something that will upend her carefully controlled life. Elísabet's work is the lynchpin of her existence in the city; her friends and social life centre around the Special Unit. But recently Elísabet has found herself taking long solitary walks near the lake. One day, she sees two creatures emerging from the water, half-human, half-swan. She follows them through tangles of thickets into a strange new reality.

The wheel was invented some 5,000 years ago, and the modern suitcase in the mid-nineteenth century, but it wasn’t until the 1970s that someone successfully married the two. What was the hold up? For writer and journalist Katrine Marçal, the answer is both shocking and simple: because "real men" carried their bags, no matter how heavy. There were rolling suitcases before the '70s, but they were marketed as a niche product for (the presumably few) women travelling alone, and the wheeled suitcase wasn't "invented" until it was no longer threatening to masculinity.

Newly widowed beauty entrepreneur Vivi Savidge's fortieth birthday is fast approaching, and she plans to celebrate it at the Palazzo Stellina, a historic former convent in the foothills of the Italian Alps run by disgraced chef Marco Bianchi and his elderly grandmother. Vivi's little sister, Alice, is flying from Brisbane with her sixteen-year-old twins in tow. Ex-colleague Pete and his new husband, Nick, are coming from Boston, and old friend Caroline is driving from Turin. Every one of them is hiding a shameful secret.

When Hollywood actor Ethan Simmons sues his wife Tori for allegedly lying about his infidelity, the world is captivated. Once the darlings of the social scene, the case will tear apart their perfect exteriors. For Riley Grey, a true crime influencer, the case might hold the key to the disappearance of her sister, Alice, after an anonymous source tips her off. As the high-profile trial begins, it soon becomes clear that both parties are willing to air their dirty laundry in public. And when Tori hints at an even darker secret, Ethan’s reputation could be destroyed once and for all.