Celadon Books is very excited to announce our recent acquisition, A NEARLY NORMAL FAMILY by Mattias Edvardsson. After Senior Vice President and Co-Publisher Deb Futter received this submission from Astri von Arbin Ahlander at the Stockholm-based Ahlander Agency, she knew instantly that this book would be a hit with U.S. readers. Thrilled with the page-turning story, Deb made a pre-emptive offer for two books six hours after receiving the manuscript, before the auction could begin.
The novel is a psychological thriller told in three acts. Nineteen-year-old Stella stands accused of the brutal murder of a much older man. Stella is an ordinary teenager from an upstanding local family. What reason could she have to know a shady businessman, let alone to kill him? Chronologically told through three perspectives, readers follow both the story of a crime and the unraveling of a seemingly normal family: the father, a pastor; the daughter, a recent high school graduate; and the mother, a criminal defense attorney. Dazzling storyteller Mattias Edvardsson weaves a web in which everyone becomes entangled and nothing is what it seems. A NEARLY NORMAL FAMILY asks the questions: How well do you know your own children? How far would you go to protect those you love? And is a murder ever justified?
“The love that parents have for their children is unquantifiable,” says Deb. “When one of the parents is a pastor and one is a lawyer, the lengths they will go to protect her is further complicated. This novel is a frightening there-but-for-the-Grace-of-God-go-I classic about families, lies, and murder. I am thrilled to add it to our list.”
Mattias Edvardsson is the author of a number of previous novels, though never before published in the United States. He lives in Stockholm, Sweden. His follow-up novel novel will be published by Celadon in 2020.
A NEARLY NORMAL FAMILY is coming August 2019, a thrilling end-of-summer read guaranteed to get your heart racing.