Category: News

When most people think of Iceland, they conjure up images of stunning landscapes, geysers, and the magical Northern Lights. This pristine imagery, however, stands in stark contrast to the inspiration behind my latest English release, White as Snow (originally Náhvít jörð in Icelandic).

The story commences with a chilling discovery – an abandoned shipping container on the outskirts of Reykjavík. Inside? The bodies of four young women, and another barely clinging to life. As Detective Daníel delves into the investigation, Áróra is pulled into a web of intrigue and peril as she does a background check on a mysterious man. These parallel tracks soon intertwine, leading to unexpected and dangerous junctures.

The haunting backdrop for this novel is human trafficking – a grim reality more common in Iceland than one might expect. While the shocking element of the shipping container filled with bodies is borrowed from international incidents, the core of the story draws from real Icelandic cases of sex trafficking. To imbue authenticity and depth into the narrative, I conducted interviews with two survivors. Their harrowing experiences, along with tales from other sources, stunned me with their eerie similarities. This uniformity suggests that sex trafficking in Iceland isn’t just isolated incidents but possibly a facet of an organised network.

Iceland, with its low murder rates and close-knit communities, often exudes an aura of being near crime-free. Yet, these revelations about trafficking throw that perception into disarray. The tales of these women and countless others like them are a stark reminder that no country is immune to the dark shadows of human exploitation.

Penning White as Snow was no easy feat. The subject matter, raw and unsettling, led to many sleepless nights. Yet, there’s a glimmer of hope – by illuminating this issue through fiction, I aim to spark a dialogue, to raise awareness, and to ultimately contribute to the eradication of such heinous crimes.To every reader, I hope White as Snow not only entertains but also educates and inspires action. Because the world we envision – a world free from the clutches of human trafficking – begins with awareness and ends with collective action.

Jørn Lier Horst is co-author of Stigma, with fellow Norwegian crime-writer Thomas Enger.

I’ve always loved Victorian novels and the history that made them, especially the worlds of dramatic entertainments – whether the sideshows of quack doctors who travelled round the rural fairgrounds, or the glamorous theatres where pantomimes could last for hours and had the most impressive sets, not to mention casting stars to help draw in an audience. 

One of my novel’s characters is a girl called Tilly Lovell who doesn’t grow a single inch after the age of five – much like the real Princess Lottie who, at the age of fourteen, was only twenty inches tall and weighed no more than nine pounds. Princess Lottie was a member of a theatrical troop that performed as Harvey’s Midges, and that is all I know of her. However, this photograph brings her to vivid life, as do others I discovered of some of the real people who went on to inspire those invented in my fiction.

The famous Lord George Sanger was a circus manager, with his adult profession influenced by a childhood with his roguish showman father. The younger Sanger trained his own performing troop of mice, and this aspect of his story I have echoed when describing my character called Ulysses. There is also the tale told by Tilly and her sister of having seen a dead man’s face outside the window of their vardo, which was another memory from Sanger’s autobiography – when he claimed that one night a pair of grave-robbers were riding on his father’s fairground wagon, and the corpse that they had stolen and stored up on the roof started slipping from its wrappings in a most alarming manner.

Another real character deserves a novel of his own; but, for the purposes of this one, he once owned the Chiswick house where my Lovell sisters live with an Italian called Captain (after escaping their exploitative drunkard of a father who tours his daughters round the showgrounds to sell his ‘miracle elixir’). In Linden House they are told how the now absent Thomas Wainewright killed some of his relatives by the means of poisoned powder kept concealed inside a ring. This is mirrored in the book when Keziah finds a ring that may well have held the poison, which is subsequently used to dramatic effect. Also drawn from Wainewright’s life is the fact that his family published the first editions of the scandalous book: The Memoirs of Fanny Hill. Still available today, the book is highly entertaining and extraordinarily explicit. Quite the sexual education for Tilly and Keziah Lovell.

The Oxford Street Museum, where Theo Seabrook is employed by Doctor Eugene Summerwell, was another real venue run by a Doctor Joseph Kahn. Known at the time as a gloomy sepulchre of horror, it claimed to educate the masses on reproduction and good health, for which it also sold medicinal pamphlets and quack cures. Titillation for the masses came with displays of wax models which exhibited the ravages of venereal disease. There were also displays of so-called freaks of nature, while the Anatomical Venus represented a woman whose torso was exposed to reveal the inner workings of the organs of the body; even a baby in the womb. The museum was closed down and its exhibits were destroyed after complaints from the Society for the Suppression of Vice. However, such collections were very popular at the time. Today, for those inclined to see a similar display, Viktor Wynd’s Museum of Curiosities, Fine art, and UnNatural History is situated in East London. For somewhat less bizarre, but equally macabre displays, there are the specimens on show in the Hunterian Museum, which is currently owned by the Royal College of Surgeons.

Surgeons working at the time when this novel takes place were very often known as butchers. Many operations were performed with no sedation before an audience of students. The gruesome scene in which my character of Theo recollects one surgeon having claimed to amputate an injured leg in less than seven seconds flat is based on a true story.

Somewhat less bloody but perhaps equally cruel entertainments were to be found in the freakshows of anatomical ‘wonders’. Living human exhibits such as Joseph Merrick, known  as the Elephant Man, would be toured around the showgrounds where their appearances drew responses of pity, shock, and disgust.

[Fedor Jeftichew with hairy face]

My own imaginary Aleski with his dense growth of body hair is partly based on the real Fedor Jeftichew. Fedor was called ‘The Dog Faced Boy’ and was displayed all over Europe. He was then hired by P. T. Barnum who took him to America, claiming the boy was raised by wolves, and still so wild he only barked or growled in conversation. (In fact, he was well-educated, speaking fluently in Russian, German, and English.) My Aleski also talks about a Julia Pastrana, another real and unnaturally hirsute young woman who was born in Mexico. It was claimed that Julia had an ape for a father, and when she died in childbirth the showman who had ‘owned’ her (likely to be the baby’s father) had Julia and her dead child embalmed to carry on his touring. The greed for money and fame was what produced the real monsters, more of whom are found within the pages of my book.

But, despite the gothic horrors and the darkness of this story I also hope to shed some light on the bonds formed by friends and a protective ‘family’ – with the hope that being ‘different’ does not always have to mean a life of pain and suffering.

Essie Fox is author of The Fascination, published on 22^nd June, by Orenda Books.

For more detailed information about the themes and real stories discovered in The Fascination, please visit Essie Fox’s website: www.essiefox.com, or The Virtual Victorian, a historical blog based on ‘facts, fancies, and fabrications’ relating to the era. www.virtualvictorian.blogspot.com

Waterstones senior bookseller and author of the haunting gothic thriller So Pretty chooses her favourite creepy, unsettling books.

The Bookseller in me always wants find the perfect book for any reader, so I’ve very sneakily added a couple of recommendations for readers of Young Adult and ages 9-12, which I absolutely adore. Something for all tastes.

Miss Peregrines’ Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

Wranglestone by Darren Charlton

The Deathless Girls by Kiran Millwood-Hargrave

Dead Good Detectives by Jenny Mclachlan

Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy

The Monsters of Rookhaven by Padraig Kenny

Karen Sullivan, publisher of Orenda Books, is delighted to announce the acquisition of World English Language rights for Jenny Lund Madsen’s debut Danish thriller, Thirty Days of Darkness and a sequel, in a two-book Frankfurt pre-empt negotiated with Sophia Hersi Smith at the Copenhagen Literary Agency.

Copenhagen author Hannah is the darling of the literary community and her novels have achieved massive critical acclaim. But nobody actually reads them, and frustrated by writer’s block, Hannah has the feeling that she’s doing something wrong.  When she expresses her contempt for genre fiction, Hanna is publicly challenged to write a crime novel in thirty days. Scared that she will lose face, she accepts, and her editor sends her to Húsafjöður – a quiet, tight-knit village in Iceland, filled with colourful local characters – for inspiration. But two days after her arrival, the body of a fisherman’s young son is pulled from the water … and what begins as a search for plot material quickly turns into a messy and dangerous investigation that threatens to uncover secrets that put everything at risk … including Hannah herself. 

Karen says, ‘If ever there was a book destined for our list, this is it. Atmospheric, dramatic and full of nerve-jangling twists, Thirty Days of Darkness is also an outrageously funny literary satire with the convergence of (or battleground between) literary and crime fiction at its heart. Hannah is a masterful character – snobby, alcoholic, world-weary and selfish, yet strangely likeable – and her public spat with a bestselling crime writer is hilarious. The entire novel is clever, literary, thoughtful and beautiful but it is also, perhaps most importantly, an absolutely brilliant Nordic Noir thriller, full of darkness, brooding tension and unsettling turns, with an exceptionally plotted mystery. The conceits, the fact that Hannah travels to a tiny fishing village in Iceland to write her crime novel, the evocative, exceptional writing, all play directly into familiar territory for us and we are going to have so much fun publishing this ultimate meta thriller.

‘Jenny is one of Denmark’s most acclaimed screenwriters (Rita and Follow the Money) and Thirty Days of Darkness, the first in a series, won the Harald Mogensen Prize for Best Danish Crime Novel of the Year and was shortlisted for the coveted Glass Key Award. This superb blend of comedy and dark, dark Nordic crime, currently in production for a TV series, is perfect for Orenda.’

Jenny says, ‘I’m extremely proud that Thirty Days of Darkness will now join the ranks of the brilliant crime novels and thrillers published by Orenda Books, and I couldn’t be more excited for publication day. I hope readers will enjoy my Danish-Icelandic crime story with a twist and that they fall for our unlikely heroine Hannah, the literary novelist-cum-investigator.’

Sophia says ‘Thirty Days of Darkness is a brilliant debut and Jenny Lund Madsen is a breath of fresh air on the crime novel scene! We cannot wait for Orenda Books to introduce English-speaking readers to this darkly funny and deeply original Nordic Noir.’

Thirty Days of Darkness will be translated by Megan E. Turney and published by Orenda Books in hardback in May 2023. For more information, please contact Karen@orendabooks.co.uk.

Karen Sullivan, publisher of Orenda Books, is delighted to announce the acquisition of World English Language rights for Essie Fox’s The Fascination, in a deal negotiated with David Headley at DHH Literary Agency.

Set in a Victorian world of human phenomena, and encompassing rural fairgrounds, the glamour of London theatres, and an Oxford Street Museum of morbid curiosities, The Fascination tells the story of twin sisters, Keziah and Tilly Lovell, identical in every way, except that Tilly hasn’t grown a single inch since she was five. Coerced into promoting their father’s quack elixir, the girls are eventually sold to a mysterious Italian, known only as ‘Captain’. In a second strand we meet Theo, an orphan raised by his wealthy – and resentful – grandfather in an opulent country home. When his grandfather remarries, Theo is forced to leave his home without a penny to his name and takes on work as an assistant in Dr Summerwell’s Museum of Anatomy. And it is here that the lives of the two sisters and Theo collide, with devastating effect.

Karen says, ‘The Fascination is a glorious, glittering evocation of Victorian London and its obsession with ‘deformo-mania’; it’s sumptuous, visceral and exquisitely written, populated by superbly drawn, often unscrupulous characters, and powered by an unexpected, brooding tension … and multiple layers of intrigue and deception. At its heart are universal themes of love and loss, and, perhaps most powerfully, an examination of what it means to be unique, to fall outside the physical norm, to be excluded and exploited, and yet retain a fierce and independent spirit. Essie Fox is renowned for her atmospheric, bewitching explorations of Victoriana, and this extraordinary, evocative novel showcases a writer at the height of her powers.

‘This is masterclass historical fiction, with themes and writing that embrace everything we want to do at Orenda Books. We are elated to welcome Essie to our team, and cannot wait for readers to enter the spellbinding world of The Fascination.’

Essie says, ‘The Fascination has been my passion for the last few years. It’s a story that was forming, even while I was writing other novels; something bursting to get out. So, it was an absolute delight for me when Karen at Orenda shared my enthusiasm, and had such vision for the project. I hope that readers will now take as much pleasure from the story as I felt when writing it.’

David Headley says, ‘Well-known to the publishing industry, Orenda Books is an absolute powerhouse, so when Karen said she wanted to work with Essie on her new book, it just made perfect sense. It is a privilege to represent Essie and her writing, which only goes from strength to strength. I know that The Fascination has found its perfect home, and I can’t wait to see it in readers’ hands.’

The Fascination will be published in hardback in June 2023 by Orenda Books. For more information, please contact Karen@orendabooks.co.uk.