Cecilia Ekbäck Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Anthologies

Cecilia Ekback
Cecilia Ekback was born in a small northern town in Sweden. Her parents originally come from Lapland. Now she lives in London with her twin daughters and husband, coming back home to the landscape and the characters of her childhood in her writing.

Cecilia started reading when she was four, at least that’s how the family tale goes. She read as though she was short on time, never reading the same book twice. She read all of the books in her parent’s shelves, her teachers’ shelves, and her neighbors’ shelves.

When she was six years old, her parents started leaving her in the library after school let out and pick her up at closing time. They were allowed to borrow ten books a week. Cecilia was the only one allowed to borrow as many as she wanted. She was also allowed into the adult section.

During her teen years, she worked as a journalist and after attending college specialized in marketing. Over a span of twenty years, he work took her to Germany, Russia, Portugal, France, the UK, and the Middle East. In the year 2010, she finished a Masters in Creative Writing at Royal Holloway.

Cecilia was raised in the Pentecostal faith and one of the constant books from her youth was the Bible. She was an Old Testament reader, with the violence, the stories and the moral dilemmas stuck out to her. She believes this is partly why she’s grown to love crime writing and thrillers as much. She finds that few are able to beat the Bible, however. The passage on Abraham and Isaac’s always stuck with her, for what could possibly be any crueller than tell a subject that you can love but only one.

Cecilia’s debut novel, called “Wolf Winter”, was published in the year 2015. Her work is from the historical mystery genre.

“Wolf Winter” is the first a novel and was released in the year 2015. The year is 1717, in Swedish Lapland. Maija, Paavo (her husband), and Dorotea and Frederika (both of her daughters) arrive from native Finland, just hoping they’ll forget the traumas from their past and develop new roots in this harsh yet gorgeous land. Above them looms Blackasen, a mountain whose own foreboding presence looms over this valley and dark history appears to haunt the lives of the people that live in its shadow.

Frederika, as she herds the family’s goats on the mountain, just happens on the mutilated corpse of Eriksson, one of their neighbors. The death’s just dismissed as a wolf attack, however Maija believes the wounds could’ve been inflicted by some other guy.

Compelled to investigate despite her neighbors’ odd disinterest in this death as well as the fate of Eriksson’s widow, Maija is pulled into the rather dark history of betrayals and tragedies that’ve taken place on Blackasen. Young Frederika finds she is pulled toward the mountain too, and feels something that none of the adults around her appear to notice.

While the seasons change, and the “wolf winter”, the most brutal winter in memory, hits the settlers, Paavo travels for work, and Maija finds she’s struggling for her family’s survival in this land of a winter-long darkness. While the snow continues to gather, the secrets of the settlers are laid bare more and more. The never ending-darkness and scarce resources force them together, however Maija

The atmosphere of this novel is very foreboding and dark and Cecilia’s writing is incredibly detailed. You feel the hunger and the cold that the settlers must face during one of the coldest winters, and the fear while things happening aren’t easily understood.

“In the Month of the Midnight Sun” is the second novel and was released in the year 2016. Sweden in 1855. The Minister of Justice gets a rather disturbing note. A massacre on one of Lapland’s mountains: a police officer, a priest, and one local settler were butchered by one of the indigenous Sami people.

The killer is in custody and has refuses to talk. The Minister dispatches his son-in-law (a geologist) to investigate this matter. For there’s more than one reason somebody would visit Blackasen: it’s a mountain with many secrets. And it’s also one mountain that nobody’s ever mapped out.

Magnus doesn’t make this journey alone. The Minister’s daughter is sent off with him, in disgrace. What they learn about the murders and what lies behind each of them is nothing compared what they’ll learn about themselves. This self-knowledge is going to come at a bitter cost.

Readers found the build up to the finale to be great. Louise is a likable character yet you feel a real sense of compassion for Magnus. They have a growing mutual understanding of each other that’s beautiful to read.

“The Historians” is the third novel and was released in the year 2020. The year is 1943 and Sweden’s neutrality during the war’s under pressure. Laura Dahlgren, the young, bright, and right-hand of the chief negotiator to Germany, is aware of these tensions, even while attempting to keep her head down in all the mounting fights. But when Britta, Laura’s friend from university, is discovered murdered in cold blood, Laura is bound and determined to locate the murderer.

Britta, before her death, sent a report in on the racial profiling in Scandinavia to Jens Regnell, the secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. During a negotiation of a fragile alliance with Hitler and the Nazis, Jens doesn’t comprehend why he’s given a report. When the pursuit of Britta’s killer takes Laura to his door, the pair join forces to get to the truth.

Yet while Laura and Jens try untangling the mysterious circumstance that surrounds Britta’s death, they just become even more mired in a complex web of deceit and lies. This trail’s going to lead to a conspiracy that might topple their entire nation’s identity. It is a conspiracy that some in Sweden are going to try and keep hidden at any cost.

Cecilia has you on needles and pins through the entire novel. Laura and her dad is complex, and their conflict and the themes that go with it could make an outstanding stand alone tale all its own.

2 Responses to “Cecilia Ekbäck”

1. Carolyn: 3 years ago

   Is there a sequal to the book The Historians?

   Reply
   • Graeme: 3 years ago

     At this time, no.

     Reply