Vigdis Hjorth

Charlotte Barslund

Prize-winning novel by one of the foremost writers of her generation, explores the horror and beauty of being sixteen-years-old.

In a Norwegian November, when it is dark at waking and dark at sleeping, a novelist in her sixties sits next to a teenaged girl at the opera, and through their padded jackets feels a dreadfully familiar tension conducted from the parents seated on her far side.

She thinks back to her sixteenth year. The year she first got drunk and the year she first had sex with a boy. A year of being circled by an anxious, hawkish mother and, at a notable distance, her silent father. The year her family made an unspoken decision, and an unspeakable sacrifice.

Repetition

Peter Adolphsen

A look at the role of fate and coincidence in life links the death of a small prehistoric horse some fifty-five-million years ago to the combustion of oil in a car engine in 1975 Austin, Texas, after a one-armed hitchhiker pulls into the parking lot of the Timber Creek Apartments, home to a twenty-two-year-old biology student named Clarissa Sanders.

Machine

Karin Fossum

An outstanding psychological crime novel from Karin Fossum: when a body surfaces in a lake Inspector Sejer must uncover a dark secret of betrayal and paranoia. Early one September three friends spend the weekend at a remote cabin by Dead Water Lake. With only a pale moon to light their way, they row across the water in the middle of the night. But only two of them return. When the body of the third friend is discovered, Inspector Sejer is put in charge of the investigation. He is troubled by the apparent suicide and has an overwhelming sense that the surviving pair has something to hide. Weeks pass without further clues and then, in a nearby lake, the body of another teenage boy floats to the surface.

Bad Intentions

Mads Peder Nordbo

Cold Fear

Lene Kaaberbøl

"Originally published in Danish as Vildheks: Blodsungen by Alvilda in 2012."

Bloodling

This astonishing novel begins in 1907, when Josef Siedler, a science-fiction devotee, ventures deep into a series of caves in search of an entrance to the underworld. Disappointed in his quest, he nonetheless returns with a peculiar souvenir: a small rock sample that emits a strange humming sound. Upon Siedler's death, the rock is bequeathed to his nephew, a significant step in what will become an extraordinary journey through the arc of history. For as the stone passes through the hands of a series of owners, we are told their stories: from pre-World War I ambitions and inter-war anarchism to conditions during World War II, the bleakness of life in post-war East Germany, the German art scene of the 1960s, and more. These snapshots of the twentieth century serve to chronicle the continuity of humanity, with all its strengths and weaknesses. In The Brummstein, Danish author Peter Adolphsen has spun a mystical -- and movingly memorable -- exploration of the meaning of life.

The Brummstein

When a couple discovers the body of a boy and sees a man limping away from the scene, Inspectors Konrad Sejer and Jakob Skarre make inquiries throughout the community of Solberglia and find the case complicated by another boy's disappearance and the couple's marital tensions. Reprint.

The Water's Edge

Per Petterson

"1989: Communism is crumbling, and Arvid Jansen, 37, is facing his first divorce. At the same time, his mother gets diagnosed with cancer. Over a few intense autumn days, we follow Arvid as he struggles to find a new footing in his life, while all the established patterns around him are changing at staggering speed. I Curse the River of Time is an honest, heartbreaking yet humorous portrayal of a complicated mother-son relationship told in Petterson's precise and beautiful prose."

Charlotte Barslund

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