Description

Winner of the 2016 HWA Goldsboro Debut Crown Award.

‘Exquisitely suspenseful, beautifully written, and highly recommended.’ Lee Child

There are six homesteads on Blackasen Mountain.

A day’s journey away lies the empty town. It comes to life just once, in winter, when the Church summons her people through the snows. Then, even the oldest enemies will gather.

But now it is summer, and new settlers are come.

It is their two young daughters who find the dead man, not half an hour’s walk from their cottage.

The father is away. And whether stubborn, or stupid, or scared for her girls, the mother will not let it rest.

To the wife who is not concerned when her husband does not come home for three days; to the man who laughs when he hears his brother is dead; to the priest who doesn’t care; she asks and asks her questions,
digging at the secrets of the mountain.

They say a wolf made those wounds. But what wild animal cuts a body so clean?

Publisher Review

It's a dark but colourfully told tale, richly laced with elements of gothic mystery. * Mail on Sunday * A compelling suspenseful story. * Sunday Times * Ekback is wonderful at evoking place, and the coming ling of real and spirit worlds works a treat. There is so much to enjoy. * Guardian * Memorable and interesting characters, this story will stay with me for a long time. * Cook Create Read blog * There are shivers aplenty in Cecilia Ekback's cracking atmospheric debut. * Saturday Express Magazine * Strong sense of place, robust characters and gothiky atmosphere. * Woman & Home * This debut by Swedish-born writer creeps up on its reader - steadily immersing them in its distant dangerous world. Eighty pages in, it is a surprise to look up and discover you are not snowbound. * Metro * This story of the struggle for survival of a family of Finnish settlers in Swedish Lapland in the early 18th Century is not for the faint hearted. The writer creates a convincing atmosphere of a very strange time in a very strange land... The details of how these people survive in an extraordinary landscape stays with you long after you have finished reading. * Daily Mail * Cecilia Ekback provides something fresh. . . haunting . . . ugly secrets are soon brought to light at the cost of great danger to Maija and her family. Highly individual fare. * Financial Times * Exquisitely suspenseful, beautifully written, and highly recommended -- Lee Child, No1 bestselling author of the Jack Reacher thrillers