Book Preview: TELL ME YOU’RE MINE by Elisabeth Norebäck
G.P. Putnam’s Sons; September 4, 2018
I’ve had my eye on Elisabeth Norebäck’s debut novel TELL ME YOU’RE MINE for quite a while now - and, in anticipation of its September release, I’m so excited to share with CBTB readers a preview of this intriguing domestic suspense novel! I’ve been on a recent quest to explore psychological thrillers set in Scandinavia (see: my recent love of Alex Dahl's THE BOY AT THE DOOR and Michelle Sacks' YOU WERE MADE FOR THIS). Scandinavian crime fiction is (unsurprisingly!) my favorite subgenre of crime fiction, and psychological thrillers are a close second. Combine these two and the results seem tailor-made for CBTB readers! If this combination sounds up your alley, too, TELL ME YOU’RE MINE belongs on your TBR. Swedish author Elisabeth Norebäck explores the delicate balance between love and obsession in her domestic thriller set in Stockholm; I’m digging into TELL ME YOU’RE MINE today, and can’t wait to share my full thoughts on this one with CBTB readers soon.
In the meantime, thanks to Elisabeth’s US publisher, I’m thrilled to give you a chance to dip into TELL ME YOU’RE MINE in advance of its release this September! In this blog post, you can learn more about Elisabeth and her debut—plus, you can read the book's first chapter here, too. Many thanks to Putnam for providing the below excerpt. TELL ME YOU'RE MINE releases in the US on September 4th, 2018!
About TELL ME YOU’RE MINE:
Where is the line between hope and madness?
Three women: one who believes she has found her long lost daughter, one terrified she's about to lose her child, and one determined to understand who she truly is.
Stella Widstrand is a psychotherapist, a happily married mother to a thirteen-year-old son. But when a young woman named Isabelle steps into her clinic to begin therapy, Stella's placid life begins to crumble. She is convinced that Isabelle is her daughter, Alice. The baby that tragically disappeared more than twenty years ago on a beach during a family vacation. Alice is believed to have drowned, but her body was never found. Stella has always believed that Alice is alive, somewhere--but everyone around her worries she's delusional. Could this be Alice?
Stella will risk everything to answer that question, but in doing so she will set in motion a sequence of events beyond her control, endangering herself and everyone she loves.
About Elisabeth Norebäck:
Elisabeth Norebäck lives in Stockholm with her husband and three children. She holds a Master of Science in Engineering from KTH Royal Institute of Technology. She started her writing on a psychological thriller during her maternity leave, and now is a full-time novelist. Tell Me You're Mine is her first novel.
TELL ME YOU’RE MINE by Elisabeth Norebäck
G.P. Putnam’s Sons; September 4, 2018
Stella
I’m lying on the floor.
Legs pulled up, arms around my knees.
Inhale. Exhale.
My heart’s still pounding in my ears, the pain in my stomach has turned to nausea, but at least I’ve stopped shaking.
My name is Stella Widstrand now, not Johansson. I’m thirty-nine, not nineteen. And I don’t get panic attacks anymore.
A gray autumn light streams in. I still hear rain pouring down outside. My office at the clinic looks the same as always. Tall windows, moss green walls. A large landscape painting and a wooden floor with a handwoven rug on it. My old, battered desk, the armchairs in the corners, just inside the door. I remember decorating this room, how carefully I chose every detail. I no longer recall why that felt so important.
I always imagined that I would find her. Not that she would track me down. Maybe she was driven by curiosity, wanting to see who I am. Maybe she’s come to accuse me, so I won’t ever forget.
Maybe she’s here for revenge.
It’s taken me so many years to rebuild my life, to get to where I am today. But even though I’ve left what happened in the past, still I’ve never forgotten. There are things you can’t forget.
I’m lying on the floor.
Legs pulled up, arms around my knees.
Inhale. Exhale.
Henrik kissed me on the cheek before he left for work this morning. I ate breakfast with Milo and dropped him off at school, then headed to Kungsholmen. Just a normal day. Fog on the windows, traffic over the Traneberg Bridge, mist hanging above the gray waters of Lake Mälaren, and no place to park when you get to the city.
Her appointment was an hour before lunch. She knocked, I opened the door, and I knew immediately. We shook hands, introduced ourselves. She called herself Isabelle Karlsson.
Does she know her real name?
I took her wet jacket. Said something about the weather and asked her to come inside. Isabelle smiled and sat down in one of the armchairs. She has dimples.
As I usually do when I meet a patient for the first time, I asked her why she sought help. Isabelle was prepared. She played her role very well and claimed she’s been suffering from a sleep disorder since her father’s death. She needs help dealing with grief. She said she felt lost and insecure, that she found social situations difficult.
It all felt extremely practiced.
Why?
Why didn’t she just say what she wants? There’s no need to hide her real reason for coming.
She’s twenty-two now. Medium height, an hourglass figure with a narrow waist. Short, unpainted nails. She has no visible tattoos or piercings, not even in her ears. Her straight black hair hangs down her back. Still wet from the rain, it glistened against her pale skin, and it struck me how beautiful she is. More beautiful than I ever could have imagined.
The rest of the conversation is a haze. It’s difficult now to remember what I said. Something about the dynamics of group therapy, or something about communication, or how our self- mage determines how we see others.
Isabelle Karlsson seemed to listen attentively. She tossed her hair and smiled again. But she was tense. She was on guard.
At first I felt sick to my stomach, then came the dizziness and the pressure on my chest, making it difficult to breathe. I recognized the symptoms. I apologized and left the room, went into the bathroom in the hallway. My heart raced, a cold sweat ran down my back, and the throbbing behind my eyes sent flashes of light through my head. My stomach knotted up, and I dropped down on my knees in front of the toilet and tried to vomit. I couldn’t. I sat on the floor, leaning against the tile, and closed my eyes.
Stop thinking about what you did.
Stop thinking about her.
Stop thinking.
Stop.
After a few minutes I went back in, told her she was welcome at group therapy next Wednesday at one o’clock. Isabelle Karlsson pulled on her jacket, lifted her hair from her neck, and tossed it. I wanted to stretch out my hand and touch it, but I stopped myself.
She noticed.
She saw my doubt, my desire to make contact.
Maybe that was exactly what she’d hoped to accomplish? To make me feel unsure?
She slung her bag over her shoulder, I opened the door for her, and she left.
I’ve dreamed of this day. Fantasized about how it would happen. How it would feel, what I would say. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. And it hurts more than I ever could have believed.
I’m lying on the floor.
Legs pulled up, arms around my knees.
Inhale. Exhale.
She’s come back.
She’s alive.
From TELL ME YOU’RE MINE by Elizabeth Norebäck, published by Putnam, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright © 2017 by Elizabeth Norebäck. English translation copyright © 2018 by Elizabeth Clark Wessel.
Book Details:
Paperback: 368 pages
Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons (September 4, 2018)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0735218544
ISBN-13: 978-0735218543
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