Elin Boals has the perfect life. A successful photographer in New York, she’s married to the wonderful Sam and together they have a seventeen-year-old daughter, Alice. But something has always been missing in the picture of their perfect family.

One day, Elin receives a letter from her childhood friend Fredrik, her one true friend and lifeline during her poverty-stricken childhood on the island of Gotland outside Sweden. It’s a voice from the past that Elin has done everything in her power to forget and hide from everyone, even those closest to her. Memories and thoughts come flooding back with this unexpected sign of life. It drives a wedge between Elin and her family and fills her with shame over what she once did, the secret that made her run away from the island and never return.

In the end, Elin realizes that she must face her past to become whole again, and save the family she has now. She sets out on a journey to another continent, but also to another time and another life.

A Question Mark Is Half a Heart is a captivating story about overcoming shame and guilt, about finding oneself and the truth. And in doing so, learning how to love. A Question Mark Is Half a Heart is Sofia Lundberg’s second novel to date.

In Memory of an Unconditional Love is the story of the (in fiction) late author Jonas Gardell and his family. A family that is much like any other, except perhaps for the creative way in which it handles weakness. In the Gardell family, secrets and unwanted truths have a tendency to change shape, transforming into legends that – much like a skillfully executed magic trick – dazzle the eye with a prettier truth.

The best teller of such legends was without a doubt Ingegärd Rasmussen, Jonas’ loving mother. The eccentric Free Church-raised Ingegärd, born in the not-so-roaring Swedish twenties, was a woman surrounded on all sides by obstacles dictating what a woman should be. The intrepid Ingegärd took on these ideas, and indeed the world, with the fierce battle cry, “I must be free!”

Ingegärd joins forces with Bertil, a man of the future. Together the two dreamers will face twentieth century Sweden, a rapidly changing nation. But their life together nearly comes to an end when Ingegärd almost dies while giving birth to their youngest child, Jonas. Looking down at the helpless bundle in her arms, she realizes that she must survive for the poor child’s sake. Then and there, mother and son form a pact that’s never to be broken.

In Memory of an Unconditional Love is a novel of epic love, solidarity and betrayal as much as it is a portrait of a bewildering yet endlessly charming woman. Written with an irrepressible joy and humor, it sparkles even as it cuts deep into life’s most painful moments.

Jonas Gardell (b. 1963) is one of the greatest and most distinctive voices in Swedish literature today. Since his literary debut in 1985, the novelist, playwright, screenwriter and comedian Gardell has time and again mesmerized the reading audience with moving, stylistically immaculate prose that ricochets off the page. His unique mixture of humor and heartbreaking episodes fetched from his own life as a member of the LGBTQ community has made Gardell a trendsetting authorship in Scandinavia. Deeply personal, utterly unfazed by taboos, and with a humor you can’t guard against, he is finally back with the national No. 1 bestseller, In Memory of an Unconditional Love.

Hedvig Montgomery climbs the official bestseller list for nonfiction yet again. This week her Parental Magic comes in at No. 3. Jørn Lier Horst’s long-running bestseller The Katharina Code comes in at No. 4 on the paperback list.

Jo Nesbø’s The Thirst, the eleventh installment in the Harry Hole series, is No. 2 this week on Der Spiegel’s bestseller list for paperback fiction in Germany.

This week’s official bestseller lists in Norway see Jørn Lier Horst’s The Katharina Code climb once again, this time coming in at No. 3 on the paperback list.

Hedvig Montgomery likewise climbs, claiming the No. 4 spot on the nonfiction list with Parental Magic.