Danish screenwriter Anders August is set to adapt Karen Blixen’s novel Ehrengard for Netflix. The Danish Oscar winner Bille August has been recruited to direct the project. The project has been developed over the last decade by Jacob Jørgensen and JJ Film, with SF’s Marcella Dichmann producing. Queen Margrethe II of Denmark is designing the sets.

Ehrengard is set in the fairytale kingdom of Babenhausen, where a young, self-appointed expert on love, Cazotte, is hired by the scheming Grand Duchess to help her secure an heir. While searching for a suitable future Princess, Cazotte teaches the timid and introverted Crown Prince the art of seduction and lovemaking. But their plan soon backfires, when an heir is conceived out of wedlock and the royal family has to seek refuge in the castle of Rosenbad. Here, as rivals within the royal family close in on their scheme, Cazotte himself falls in love with Ehrengard, the maid of honour, and gradually learns that in fact, he’s no expert on love at all.

Lina Brounéus, director co-production and acquisition EMEA at Netflix, said: “With such a strong creative team in Bille August and Anders August, our close partners SF Studios producing combined with the extraordinary decoupages from Queen Margrethe II, I feel confident that this timeless tale will be just as epic, ingenious and witty as Karen Blixen’s masterpiece from 1962.”

Lars Kepler is nominated for Bookbeat’s Crime Author of the Year 2021, an award that is completely data-driven and is based on how popular, listened to and liked the three latest novels from current Swedish crime authors have been during the past year.

The winner will be announced on September 25th at this year’s CrimeTime Festival in Gothenburg.

SAS: Rise of the Black Swan, the action film directed by Magnus Martens based on Andy McNab’s novel Red Notice, premiered on Netflix on this Friday and is the second most watched movie in the US this weekend.

The film stars Sam Heughan (Outlander), Ruby Rose (Batwoman), Andy Serkis (Planet of the Apes), Tom Wilkinson (Michael Clayton) and Hannah John-Kamen (Ready Player One) and follows a band of criminals as they hijack the Eurostar train with 400 hostages on board, deep beneath the English Channel where they plan to detonate an explosion, ushering in an economic war on the government. Unbeknownst to the criminals, injured Special Air Service off-duty officer Tom Buckingham is on board the train as well, and he will stop at nothing to thwart the terrorist attack.

Ahead of its publication, Marvin Mellow and Peas on Earth has garnered Bobbie Peers his second nomination for Ark’s Children’s Book Award 2021. Peers previously won the sought-after award in 2015 for William Wenton and the Luridium Thief. The annual literary prize is bestowed upon the children’s book of the year and the ultimate winner is selected by over 10,000 children in grades 5-7. The award ceremony will be held in Oslo in November.

Marvin Mellow is a strikingly ordinary boy. He gets pushed around by nasty bullies at school and dreams of becoming a YouTube star. Then one day his life takes an unexpected turn when he discovers a peculiar metal egg in his garden and befriends the alien Peas. From then on, nothing is ordinary!

A wild and laugh-out-loud funny story for middle grade readers, featuring Marvin Mellow, Fred, Principal Tor, the bullies Irmeline and Fluffy, action heroes, stunt men, dating, aliens, fame, bagpipe music and friendship. Ahead of its release Marvin Mellow and Peas on Earth has landed Bobbie Peers his second nomination for the sought-after Ark’s Children’s Book Award for children’s book of the year.

Jørn Lier Horst’s long-running bestseller A Question of Guilt is No. 1 on week 33’s paperback list. Horst is joined by Kristina Ohlsson, whose just published Storm Watch debuts at No. 4 on the e-book list.

On Tuesday, Jo Nesbø and climate activist Greta Thunberg appeared together in an exclusive conversation at the Edinburgh TV Festival, in the fest’s Worldview Address slot, to discuss the climate crisis and the creative industry’s responsibility towards sustainability and a greener future and how writers and producers need to tackle it through storytelling.

The Edinburgh TV Festival is the largest media event of its kind in the UK, attracting several thousand delegates from the UK, rest of Europe and the US.

The festival’s creative director Stewart Clarke says about the event:

“It really was a long-term goal to get Greta Thunberg and get her to talk about what the responsibility is of the TV world of storytelling, for storytellers, and more than that, to frame things in a positive way in terms of how positive change can be effected, and what was great was to be able to pair her up with Jo Nesbo, the author who has spoken about this before. That’s an amazing matchup.”

Please click “read more” below to watch the event.