Author: Cole Sullivan

Karen Sullivan, Publisher of Orenda Books, is thrilled to announce the acquisition of World English Language rights for Norwegian artist and author Lars Elling’s extraordinary, devastatingly beautiful, brutal debut novel The Princes of Pauper’s Pond from Henrik Francke at Oslo Literary Agency, in a two-book deal.

Karen says, ‘Spanning generations, The Princes of Pauper’s Pond is a vivid, magical and deeply affecting novel set in the wild forests of Northern Norway, and it is one of those novels, those truly unforgettable pieces of fiction, that both takes us by surprise and leaves an indelible mark. It opens in 1985, when we meet nineteen-year-old Filip, who spends his days playing football, listening to music on his Walkman and drawing, searching for something he cannot quite name. He lives in a large family house shared with his grandparents, where an old rift between his grandfather Arnstein and Arnstein’s brother Truls still governs the atmosphere. The cause appears trivial, an apple tree dropping fruit across a boundary fence, but the bitterness between the brothers speaks of something far older and deeper.

‘The story then shifts to 1912. With Europe on the brink of upheaval, Arnstein and Truls – aged seven and eleven – are sent into the forest for the summer by their stern father, determined that his sons should learn to endure hardship, to learn to survive. Left to fend for themselves among travellers, log drivers and Forest Finns, the brothers live from the land, fishing, hunting and roaming the vast woodland. Cold and hungry, yet bound together by fierce loyalty and affection, they crown themselves the Princes of Pauper’s Pond, rulers of a world defined by freedom, imagination and shared struggle. Until, back home, their father makes a shocking decision that will change everything…’

‘This is a remarkable, compelling bildungsroman about brotherhood and belonging, about finding joy and love in the nature, and about those single moments that can seal a family’s fate and future. The writing is elegant, vibrant – as evocative, luminous and multi-layered as one of the author’s paintings – and the story is simultaneously cruel, enchanting and immensely memorable. I can honestly guarantee that readers will never forget it. We are honoured to publish this sumptuous work of fiction, based on the true story of the author’s own grandfather.’

Lars Elling says, ‘The Princes of Pauper’s Pond is slowly but steadily making its way across the language barriers – from Icelandic to Arabic, and now FINALLY to English! I’m very excited about this and so looking forward to working with the great team at Orenda.’

Henrik says, ‘We’re thrilled to be working with Orenda Books on the English‑language publication of Lars Elling’s wonderful, bestselling debut novel. Orenda’s commitment to distinctive literary voices and brilliant storytelling makes them a perfect match, and it’s a real joy to see the book find its English home here.’

The Princes of Pauper’s Pond is translated by Don Bartlett, and will be published in hardback in September 2026 by Orenda Books, with a second book published in 2028. For more information, please contact Karen@orendabooks.co.uk.

I have a secret. From the outside, most people would think that I must be quite an organised writer – in the same way I am on top of everything in both my professional and in personal lives. I love a good spreadsheet and project-management tools. And I have been coordinating everything in my life through a calendar system, ever since the Filofax was a thing. If something needs to be arranged, call me and my life literally lights up at the thought of being part of strategising and planning something. Even better if someone throws a good case of chaos in my lap – it will be cleaned up with organising tools in no time.

Being systematic is the only way I could have kept my life in order, with a household of six, a small importing business, political campaigns and, of course, a position in the Icelandic government.

Writing, however, gives me the freedom to be ‘in the flow’ – not sticking to rigid schedules, but giving characters room to grow. First the characters start to dance around in my head or in conversations with my husband. I start feeling their energy, if they were walking into a café, and I hear how their voices sound if they are angry or hurt, for example. From there, the story starts taking shape, as if a movie was coming to life in my head. Then the writing begins, and it is just one chapter after another – without the spreadsheets or project-management tools. Even bad habits are allowed in this part of my life, like pulling a few all-nighters writing, eating caramels, and drinking can after can of Coke Zero. No limits, no restraints, just letting loose on my own fairly strict rules for a bit.

That is what writing has brought to my life. It is a part where I am not a middle-aged PTA mum with a big job, a husband and four kids in the suburbs, and a pretty stressful job. Instead, I am a free spirit where all the rules I have created around my life take a back seat and my wilder side takes over when my family sleeps. That’s how I wrote both Dead Sweet and Stop Dead, in the silence of the night, in a hoodie, with my headphones on. Writing keeps me young in spirit and opens up spaces in my brain that need to be aired. And that eventually makes everything else in my life so much more fun.

Katrín Júlíusdóttir’s Stop Dead, translated from Icelandic by Larissa Kyzer, is the sequel to her award-winning Dead Sweet, and second in the Iceland Mysteries series published by Orenda Books on 21^st May 2026.

In Under the Blazing Sun, disgruntled literary author Hannah struggles to overcome writer’s block and write her crime sequel. In some ways, Hannah’s problem mirrored my own when writing my sequel about Hannah, except I didn’t suffer from lack of inspiration, nor did I find myself suddenly wrapped up in a murder mystery. I was simply too busy as a screenwriter and caught up in family life. But, in many ways, I used Hannah’s problems as inspiration for writing Under the Blazing Sun. I asked myself: What would be the most exciting way for her to get out of her deadlock? To go to an exotic place, of course, stumble upon another murder and meet a new love interest, while also being drawn by the old one.

The great thing about writing fiction is that you can send your main character on a far more interesting and dangerous journey than you could ever experience yourself. So, imagining Hannah traveling to Sicily, solving yet another murder mystery while trying to get her book done and also being tempted by other romantic interests was the fuel for my own writing of the ‘difficult second novel’. Also, I really wanted to go to Sicily to do research.

What I knew right from the outset was that I wanted Hannah to get even more personally involved in the murder case, even to become a suspect. I wanted to raise the stakes and let her come up against forces way stronger than her. Although ‘only’ an author, and not an official detective, Hannah has become more experienced as an investigator in Under the Blazing Sun. She still lacks the resources of the police, but she now knows more about how to solve a crime. She has also changed as a person since the first book.

In Under the Blazing Sun Hannah has become a bit softer around the edges, more human. However, she still has a low tolerance for amateurs and people with bad taste and she’s definitely not a pleaser. Hannah will continue to step on people’s toes to solve the crime and reach her goals. In that sense, she’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but her critical thinking and bluntness is also what makes her able to solve the mystery.

On a more general note, I think there are still some double standards for men and women – in fiction as well as in real life – when it comes to being ‘likeable’. I could easily mention ten examples of grumpy, middle-aged men in crime fiction that everyone loves exactly because they are grumpy old men. I would love if we could embrace female characters who are a bit rougher around the edges because, in the end, this is also how things are in the real world: We are all humans with good days and bad days, and, like Hannah, we all just want to be recognised and loved.

After writing my debut novel Thirty Days of Darkness, a lot of people asked me whether my own personality resembles Hannah’s. This question was often following comments like ‘Hannah is so annoying and unlikeable’, which just made me smile. Hopefully people around me don’t think I’m a horrible person, but I kind of like the fact that Hannah doesn’t really care what other people think of her. I hope that her skills as an amateur investigator, her curiousity as well as her snappy, direct tone will make her intriguing and fun for readers to be around.  And I hope that you will all enjoy going on yet another murder-solving journey with Hannah, this time in Sicily. 

Jenny Lund Madsen’s Under the Blazing Sun, translated from Danish by Paul Russell Garrett, is the sequel to Thirty Days of Darkness, and second in the Murder by the Book Series, published by Orenda Books on 21^st May 2026.

Suzy Aspley talks about her publishing journey and the inspiration for her gothic mystery, The Bone Mother

It’s hard to believe that it’s now more than two years since my debut gothic mystery, Crow Moon, was published. As a new author, you really know very little about publishing and what to expect. 

Being a debut was a whirlwind, and being shortlisted for several major crime fiction prizes in 2024 and with a raft of events that have continued to this day, there wasn’t much time to catch my breath. It’s fabulous when your first book is well received, but when your thoughts turn to the second one, you wonder whether you can pull it off again. The ‘difficult second book’ and all that. 

When I began writing Crow Moon in 2017, I had Martha by my side from the very start, when she walked fully formed into my head. I seemed to follow her, wherever she took the story. My writing process involves getting a seed of an idea and then starting to write – maybe with a few key scenes in my head, but no firm plan in terms of where I’m going, or how I’ll get there. As I write, the horizon emerges, and more ideas drop in. I spend a lot of time outside and often get ideas when I’m walking my dogs – a bit like Martha. 

Book two, The Bone Mother, began in a similar way, before Crow Moon was even published. I was at my favourite writing retreat, Moniack Mhor, a creative writing centre in the Scottish Highlands, and it was just after the pandemic lockdowns. It was summer and only half the usual number of guests was allowed, due to distancing rules. It was a strange time, with long sunny days and evenings outside drinking wine and telling stories, sometimes ghost stories, absorbing birdsong and looking out over the mountains on long, solitary hikes. 

I’d heard about the Cailleach Way, and the shrine in Glen Lyon, which is even more remote than Moniack. Other ideas dropped in – a news story about trains in Scotland and what was flushed out of their waste disposal systems onto miles of remote lines around the country. I wondered what might be disposed of in such a way that it might never be found. Or only by accident. This combined with memories of my time as a young reporter in the 1990s and a trip to Bosnia after the war, where I interviewed soldiers and scientists. In those days, they were using certain techniques to identify bodies with advanced forensics for the first time, and often through personal possessions found buried with disarticulated remains in mass graves. 

All of these threads gradually came together in a story, and the ideas helped form new characters, as well as influencing those already in Martha’s world. And, of course, I had to wrap it up in legend and folklore. 

When Crow Moon came out, someone said that despite Martha’s firm non-belief in other-worldly things, they nevertheless seemed to follow her around, and that’s absolutely true. She remains a determined sceptic, despite what has happened in her life. 

With The Bone Mother, it seemed like some of those other worldly threads have started to follow me, too. I went for a hike up to the shrine on a freezing, but sparkling January day about three years ago. Some of what I discovered there is written in the opening chapter of the book and was penned just after I got back. The place is far from anywhere. On the day we went, the mountains were laced with snow and we had to find a place to cross the high waters of the river which guards the entrance to the Cailleach Glen. 

On the way up, there was a turn in the track and a clearing where an old caravan might once have stood overlooking the waters of the loch. Heavily fleeced sheep studded the hillsides, hiding in hollows and amongst wind-blasted Hawthorns and Rowan trees. When we reached the shrine, it was peaceful. The small stone and turf-roofed dwelling was tucked off to the left of the track across boggy ground. The Cailleach stones were safe inside, hidden from the world, but atop the structure were flowers, animal skulls and other items. The atmosphere was truly magical and set me off to find out more about the stories surrounding Scotland’s goddess of winter.

Since then, I’ve met people with unexpected connections to the Glen and the Cailleach herself; I have had warnings about treating her tale with respect, and had several Tarot readings where a purple-robed queen with a definite resemblance to the goddess has appeared. 

The beautiful lines from a poem quoted at the start of the book, by writer Sarah Coakley were another coincidence, which has led to us planning an event together in Dundee on 21^st May. There have been other odd coincidences, too many to detail here, but it all added up to Martha setting off on another strange adventure. There are bones, missing girls, and an exploration of the contrast between ancient and modern worlds. I hope readers will enjoy being alongside Martha again as much as I have. 

And this spring, I intend to return to the shrine to see the stones out, and will leave an appropriate offering for the Cailleach which I hope will please her.  

Suzy Aspley is the author of The Bone Mother, book two in the Martha Strangeways Investigation series and the sequel to Crow Moon, both published by Orenda Books.

Stephanie Bramwell-Lawes’ spellbinding debut historical mystery, Thornby Manor, is published by Orenda Books on 23rd April 2026.

How has the process of writing a novel together been?

First of all, it’s been a lot of fun. It’s been a lot of work too, as it’s not very common for a French and Norwegian author to put their minds and pens together.

It all started during the pandemic, when Johana was living in London and I was based in Oslo. We knew each other because we were published by the same publisher in the UK/US (Orenda Books). A French colleague had asked Johana to reach out to me about participating in a noir fiction short-story collection in France, with the proceeds going to charity. Johana very kindly offered to edit and polish my father’s initial French translation (he taught French at a high school in Norway). While we were talking on the phone about various aspects and choices in that story, we realised very quickly that we had a unique creative energy when we talked about our craft. 

Ideas were sparking left, right and centre, every time we talked. At one point we thought: Why not see if we can write something together? After all, it was covid, and at the time we were both depressed out of our minds. This could become beacon of light, so to speak.

That’s when Johana told me about an idea for a character she’d been harbouring for a long time, a sort of memory and body-language expert. I loved the prospect of such a lead character, and once we gave her a name, we started plotting and doing research. In fact, we outlined the first three volumes of the Kari Voss series before even writing a single word of Son. 

We needed to know where we wanted to go with Kari. Johana did most of the research and wrote the Kari chapters, while I more or less took care of the rest. Having said that, we were always sending chapters back and forth, each of us adding or deleting sentences or paragraphs, meaning that in some parts of the book we’re not even sure ourselves who wrote what. Maybe that’s why it comes across as one voice.

There were some challenges to all of this, of course, the both of us writing in our own language first, then translating it to English so we could understand each other. At first we meant for this to be published in Norway, as Kari is Norwegian, but it became impossible for the both of us to take part in the editing process. In the end we decided to see if we could do it in English. Thankfully, our lovely common English publisher asked: ‘Can I please publish this?’ And Orenda Books led on the edits, then rights were sold across the world!

In short? It’s been a blast.

You’re both used to writing with great success and acclaim individually – what were the biggest advantages and challenges of writing in collaboration, and, more specifically, in collaboration with each other?

When you start a collaboration, in just about anything in life, you never really know how it’s actually going to work out. You don’t know whether it’s going to be as much fun after one month or seven as it was in the beginning. You don’t how your everyday life will play into it, either, especially when you live in two different countries and you don’t even share the same mother tongue. 

Johana has small children as well, while mine are grown up and out of the house. That means we live very different kinds of lives. Sometimes you’re dead tired. Sometimes you’re away for two weeks travelling. Sometimes you have to focus on solo projects. You need to be able to deal with all kinds of curve balls that life throws at you, while being on the same page, quite literally. You need to be able to handle criticism too.

Luckily for us, neither of us has big egos, and we both want the same thing, which is the best possible end product. And we share the same work ethic as well; we don’t mind the long hours or the sometimes endless rounds of rewriting. We know it’s part of the process and therefore completely necessary. We don’t care, either, about who had the idea for this or that or who clocked in the most hours.

In hindsight, the biggest challenge – without a doubt – was the language question in the initial stages. It took us a long time to realise how we needed to do this. Once that was determined, everything became so much easier.

One of the greatest assets of working together is the fact that we’re always two, whenever we write ourselves into a corner. There is a great chance that four eyes will see better than two, or that two brains will manage to come up with something smarter than just one. The creation of this universe is a good example of that; it was born from our imaginations colliding with each other.

 A good friend and colleague of ours, Jørn Lier Horst, said it well: If you go into a forest and you stumble upon an abandoned house that looks really scary, chances are better that you’ll venture inside if you’re two. You probably won’t if you’re alone. It’s a bit the same with writing. As a pair, we can afford to be more daring in our thoughts and ideas. Perhaps the initial idea isn’t perfect, but it might spark another one that will lead us in a direction neither of us would have thought of on our own.

Another huge advantage for us is the fact that we come from two different cultures. That means we will inevitably have different perspectives on various issues, which lays the foundation for a fruitful discussion. But, the biggest plus? It might just be achieving something together, like we have with Kari, who’s going to be published in over forty countries (and counting). It’s so much more fun to celebrate success with someone than on your own, isn’t it?

Did you agree on the storyline, themes and where you wanted the novel to go? And if you disagreed in the writing process, what did you do?

A: There are always discussions about ideas and if this way or that way is the right one going forward. But, touch wood, we’ve never argued, not once. That’s, in part, due to the fact that we have so much respect for each other, and each other’s opinion. If either of us has a bad feeling about something, chances are there’s a problem with that scene. We know each other so well now after working on Son that we can tell from each other’s voices whether we’re convinced about something or not.

With Son, we established what Johana refers to as a ‘skeleton’ of the book, a detailed chapter-by-chapter outline of the plot, before starting to write. After that we wrote chronologically, not moving onto the next until we were satisfied. 

The book is the first novel in the new series about Kari Voss, who’s a psychologist and expert on body language and memory, who therefore can detect lies – how do these abilities affect the dynamics of the story? And what inspired you to choose her characteristics and way of approaching investigations?

A: The initial idea was really to explore the theme of body language, but as Johana delved into her research, she came across the work of Dr Elizabeth Loftus, who is an expert on memory, often used as an expert witness in trials in America. It was really fascinating to dive into her science on how fallible our memory is. Our memories change every time we recall them, as if we alter the reality of the past just by thinking about it. It’s both fascinating, disturbing and ideal for storytelling: How can we determine what is true if our own memory is lying to us?

And, of course, adding that science to a person who’s more or less or real-time human lie-detector, and voila – you have a great crime-fiction character. We were really sure about that. 

From the onset, we were adamant that we didn’t want Kari to be a superwoman with superpowers. Yes, she had to be brilliant, of course, but we also wanted her to have flaws, like we all do. On the one hand, we wanted readers to like her, admire her, and to want to be like her to a certain extent as well, but also to identify with her on a human and personal level, in her fallibility. What we also thought would be very interesting was to give Kari a condition where her own body and brain shut down under extreme pressure and stress, causing her to lose consciousness and memory. It’s as if her own body is mocking her.

What do you hope to explore further in the series in the future? 

Oh, plenty of fun things. We couldn’t be more excited to continue the Kari Voss series. As mentioned, we have planned for three books to begin with. Let’s see where she takes us after that. Next, though, REMEMBER will be out in Spring 2027, and wait till you see what happens next…

Thomas Enger is co-author of SON, written with Johana Gustawsson, and published by Orenda Books.