Scandi books to look out for

Here are a couple of books with Scandinavian settings which, won't get flagged in my next Petrona Award eligibles list, as either not in translation (1) or not yet published in the UK (2):

1. When I Wake Up by Jessica Jarlvi, available in ebook at the moment with a hardback release scheduled for September. Jessica Jarlvi is Swedish but is writing straight into English.

When Anna, a much-loved teacher and mother of two, is left savagely beaten and in a coma, a police investigation is launched. News of the attack sends shock waves through her family and their small Swedish community. Anna seems to have had no enemies, so who wanted her dead?

As loved-ones wait anxiously by her bedside, her husband Erik is determined to get to the bottom of the attack, and soon begins uncovering his wife's secret life, and a small town riven with desire, betrayal and jealousy.

As the list of suspects grows longer, it soon becomes clear that only one person can reveal the truth, and she's lying silent in a hospital bed...



2. Alexandra Dahl, born in Oslo, is half Norwegian, half American and currently lives between London and Sandefjord. Her novel, The Boy at the Door, set in Sandefjord, has been bought by Berkley in a two-book deal. Described thus: ... a respectable mother's encounter with a strange child who appears from nowhere throws her peaceful Scandinavian suburb where nothing bad ever happens into a dense and shocking web of lies (Publishers Lunch). Berkley is a US publisher but fingers crossed for a UK release.