The Secrets Below by Camilla Sten and Viveca Sten
Another book in translation! This one is also from Sweden. I received this book as an e-galley from Amazon Publishing. The story takes place in the Stockholm archipelago. If you are like me and didn’t know what an archipelago was, it’s a group of islands. I loved looking up all of the different cities mentioned in the book.
Twelve -year-old Tuva lives on the island of Harö. She has to take a boat to school. I don’t know why I found that so interesting. I know there are other places where kids probably have to take boats or something other than the big yellow school bus, but it was cool to hear about. At school, they are doing an orienteering test. I’ve been orienteering, and I was awful at it. During this test, one of her classmates goes missing. Tuva ends up finding her classmate’s partner, Rasmus, in the woods, following lights as if he were under a spell. Later, she learns that more people have gone missing recently. But what were the lights that she and her classmate saw? She seems to think it has to do with fairies.
There are some other odd things going on as well. Tuva is not well-liked at her school. Not much is done about the bullying either. Even her own grandmother seems to have some issue with her. I’m not sure if it is a Swedish thing or a small-town (island) thing that nothing is done about this treatment. But she is dealing with a lot.
Tuva and Rasmus decide to team up to find their missing classmate. Both know they saw the lights, and both are afraid to tell anyone else. Tuva also talks about seeing gnomes and forest trolls when she was younger. Is this the Swedish version when little kids say they see ghosts?
There is not much else I can say about the mystery. I think it would be better to read it and let it slowly unfold. I really liked hearing about the things in the forest and the water out there. There is a good amount of Swedish folklore throughout this book. It made it really interesting. I want to research folk tales from Sweden now.
This book is also part of a series, but I am not sure if all of the titles have been translated. I’ll have to keep an eye out!
Four out of Five Magical Coffee Cups
Literary Coffee 