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Five Facts

The Inspiration for Yule Island

Johana Gustawsson

1. A secluded Swedish island: A dear friend of mine came to see me as I was unpacking my boxes in my new Swedish home and she said to me: ‘Johana, I’ve come here with best reasons why you should write about the Swedish east coast. Just down the beach, five minutes by boat from here, there’s a small pedestrian island home to just over 250 inhabitants and it has its own haunted mansion.’ And the first seed of Yule Island was planted. 

2. A haunted house: While doing some research, I discovered that this haunted mansion located in the heart of the pedestrian island of Storholmen, was built at the beginning of the 20th century by Gunnar Kassman, a wealthy Swedish banker who reminded me of the Great Gatsby, as he and his wife organised lavish parties for the Stockholm elite in their magnificent residence, which, legend says, is now haunted by the late Mrs Kassman. And there seems to be some truth to this story.

3. A pirate treasure-hunt gone wrong: The former owner of my own home on the island of Lidingö, east of Stockholm, had left some furniture, including a magnificent 17th-century dressing table with a set of silver brushes. While I was unpacking, Alexander, one of my twin boys, dressed as a pirate, dropped one of the brushes. A friend of mine, who was helping us move in, picked it up and handed it to Alex, saying: ‘I don’t think there’s a treasure map in there… but maybe an SOS?’ And another crucial element of Yule Island was born. What kind of SOS…? A message from the past?

4. Viking rites: Having been fascinated by Greek and Roman mythology from a very early age, writing about Sweden drew me into the cauldron of Norse myths and Viking legends. And it was while reading an article about the ‘draugr’, the undead who refuse to rest in their graves, that a large part of the puzzle within the pages of Yule Island took shape. 

5. A cameo: A body is found in the frozen sea of a bay located in the north of Lidingö Island, opposite Yule Island. My house makes a cameo in this scene: it’s the green and red house that one of the bathing grandmothers talks about.

Yule Island, by Johana Gustawsson, translated by David Warriner, is out today in paperback. Signed copies are available from your favourite bookshop!

Anonymous letters. I’ve received a few…

It’s strange that a letter without a sender’s name can somehow feel more personal. As an investigator, I’ve received letters like these, not only directed at me and the cases I’ve worked on, but also filled with the most imaginative views of the world – also sent because I’m an author. 

These letters – long and conspiratorial, full of loose threads, or short, terse messages – have an almost obsessive quality, and there’s something fascinating yet deeply unsettling about a sender who has a story to tell but doesn’t want to divulge their identity.

Receiving anonymous letters is like looking into a reflection of your own life, seen through an unfamiliar lens. You don’t know the angle from which the sender views you, or why they chose to write specifically to you. Each letter becomes a kind of riddle – one you can never quite solve because there are missing pieces that will never materialise. I’ve wondered if being an author makes me seem like a key figure in others’ dramas, someone they feel can provide answers to everything that eludes them.

One summer, a letter like this arrived every single week. Every one of them carried the same warning about a murderer being amongst us — and they suggested that this was something that I not only knew about, but had actively covered up. After months of these regular arrivals, they suddenly stopped, as if the sender had simply lost interest or their mission had been accomplished.

There was no threat in the letters, just an unsettling feeling of invasion, a kind of warning that someone was watching what I did. I never found out who was behind the letters, but I would have liked to ask a few questions – not least to understand what made this person spend so much time on me.

There’s something about these letters that goes beyond the message itself. They have a unique psychological effect – a tiny grain that burrows under your skin, a reminder that others are witnessing what you do, keeping an eye on you, watching. And it was precisely this anonymous invasion of privacy that laid the foundation for the fifth book about Alexander Blix and Emma Ramm.

The plot in Victim is based on the last case Blix was responsible for as a police investigator. It was a missing persons case, where single mother Elisabeth Eie disappeared. But the investigation was set aside when Blix himself was arrested for avenging his daughter’s murder in book four. Now his days mostly consist of quiet walks with his dog. Until he finds an anonymous letter with a photo in his mailbox – a photo of a murdered woman. Elisabeth Eie is no longer a missing person case; it’s murder…

Translated text from the letters

Jørn Lier Horst says: there is a murderer among the people

The demon created humanity.

The best crime novels shed light on current social issues.

Envelopes

Karen Sullivan, Publisher of Orenda Books, is delighted to announce the acquisition of World English Language rights for French author Anne Sénès’s profoundly original, lyrical novel Double Room (Chambre Double) from Carla Briner at Pontas Agency in a two-book Frankfurt pre-empt.

Karen says, ‘Double Room is an extraordinarily beautiful book, with echoes of Laura Kasischke and Kazuo Ishiguro, set between Paris and London, and across two time periods. The novel is narrated by Stan, a French composer living in England, and his world is experienced through the scents, sounds and colours that music creates for him. He embarks on one of the most exquisitely drawn love stories I’ve ever read, with Liv, a Londoner, who becomes the love of his life. Their duo soon becomes a trio, with the birth of their daughter Lisa.

‘When a tragic accident occurs, Stan returns to France surrounded by

darkness, no longer able to compose, and living in the Burrow, a home left to

him by an aunt. He shares his life with Babette, a lifeguard and mother of a

boy of Lisa’s age, and Laïvely, an AI machine endowed with Liv’s voice, which he spent entire nights building after her death. But Stan remains haunted by his past. As the silence gradually gives way to noises, sometimes even a burst of laughter, and Laïvely seems to take on a life of its own, memories and reality fade and blur, and Stan’s new family implodes…

‘Mysterious, complex, exquisitely written, this is an unusual, profound, sensorily vivid novel, with a great emotional force. The juxtaposition of this strange AI creation, which interrupts, sighs and even whistles, with Stan’s memories of Liv and their deep love, and his deepening sense of disconnection, his cracking relationship, provides an unexpected tension and an almost overwhelming pathos. There is always one book that sticks in your mind after a busy book fair, and Double Room is that book for me. This is something very, very special.’ 

Anne says, ‘I’m so thrilled to be published by such a wonderful publishing house. Being translated into English is a dream come true.’

Carla says, ‘I couldn’t be more delighted that English readers will finally have the chance to discover Anne’s lyrical and original storytelling thanks to Karen, West, Alice and the brilliant and dedicated team at Orenda.’

Double Room will be translated by Alice Banks, and published in B-format paperback, with flaps, in June 2025 by Orenda Books, with a second book to come. For more information, please contact Karen@orendabooks.co.uk.