Johana Gustawsson Books In Order

Publication Order of Emily Roy & Alexis Castells Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Anthologies

Johana Gustawsson
Johana Gustawsson was born in Marseille, France in 1978. She is a graduate of Political Sciences, and was a journalist for French press and television.

While her dad is a big fan of detective novels, with a preference for Simenon and Exbraya, it was actually her mom that introduced her to the genre. The Nice writer Nicole Ciravegna assured her that reading Agatha Christie’s prose would be excellent training for beginning readers. Her mom gave her “The Mysterious Affair of Styles” when she was just seven years old, and fell madly in love with a certain mustached man with an egg-shaped head.

The pleasure of reading them made her want to “tease with the pen”, as her grandpa said. Starting out as a journalist for the magazine press, led her to write actress Laetitia Milot’s biography.

Johana writes as much as she can, as often as possible; even while she’s on vacation, much to her husband’s chagrin and her friends and family’s, too. However the writing itself is, in her case, just the final phase in the construction of the novel, and is by far the most difficult. She starts thinking about the next novel as she approaches the corrections of the previous one.

When she agrees with herself on the subject, she begins to research. She puts on her journalist’s sneakers and read, highlight, underline, take notes, and creates thematic indexes to easily find the fruit of this research when she is writing.

While progressing into her investigations, she creates what she calls the “skeleton”, a detailed outline of her novel. Then comes the writing of the novel, sticking to a military routine. She cannot work in cafes, preferring the silence of her office with a thermos handy, while all alone with her computer from 9 AM until 4 PM.

“Block 46” is the first novel in the “Emily Roy & Alexis Castells” series and was released in 2017. In Falkenberg, Sweden, the mutilated corpse of one talented young jewelry designer, named Linnea Blix is discovered in a snow swept marina. In Hampstead Heath, London, a young boy’s corpse is found with some similar wounds to Linnea’s.

1944, Buchenwald Concentration Camp. In the midst of the hell of the Holocaust, Erich Hebner is going to do anything in order to see himself as a human again. Are these two murders the work of some serial killer, and how could they be linked to shocking events at Buchenwald?

Emily Roy, who is a profiler on loan from Scotland Yard from the Canadian Royal Mounted Police, joins up with Alexis Castells, Linnea’s friend and French true crime writer, in order to investigate this puzzling case. They travel back and forth between London and Sweden, and then deep into the past, while a horrifying and startling connection gets brought to light.

“Keeper” is the second novel in the “Emily Roy & Alexis Castells” series and was released in 2017. 1888 in Whitechapel. London is bowed under the reign of terror against Jack the Ripper.

2015 in London. Actress Julianne Bell gets kidnapped in a case that’s similar to the horrible Tower Hamlets murders from about ten years ago, and harking back the Ripper killings from a century prior.

2015 in Falkenberg, Sweden. A woman’s corpse is discovered having been mutilated in a forest, her wounds are identical to those of the Tower Hamelts victims. With the man being arrested for the Tower Hamlets crimes is already locked up, do these new murders mean that he has a dangerous accomplice, or is this the work of a copycat serial killer on the loose?

True crime writer Alexis Castells and profiler Emily Roy find themselves being pulled into an intriguing case, with personal connections which turn their world upside down.

“The Bleeding” is the first stand alone novel and was released in 2022. Belle Epoque, Paris. 1899. Lucienne’s two daughters are believed to be dead when her mansion burns down to the ground. However she is sure they are still alive and she embarks on this journey into the depths of the spiritualist community in order to find them.

1949, Post War Quebec. Teen Lina’s dad has died in the French Resistance, and while she struggles to fit in at school, her mom introduces her to this elderly woman at the asylum where she works, changing Lina’s life in the darkest of ways.

2002, Quebec. An ex-schoolteacher has been accused of brutally stabbing her famous university professor husband to death. Detective Maxine Grant, who just recently lost her own husband and is parenting a new baby and teenager single handedly, takes this case on.

“Yule Island” is the second stand alone novel and was released in 2023. An art expert joins up with a detective in order to investigate this horrific murder on a Swedish island, which leads them to this mystery rooted in Viking rites and Scandinavia’s darkest and deepest winter.

Emma Lindhal (art expert) is anxious when she is asked to appraise the artifacts and antiques in the infamous manor house of one of Sweden’s wealthiest families, on the island of Storholmen. It is where one young woman was murdered nine years ago, with her killer never being found.

Emma has to work alone, and the Gussman family is avoiding her apparently, she sees virtually nobody in the house. Do they have something they want to hide? While she goes about her painstaking work and a shocking discovery yields some clues which lead to more clues, Emma becomes determined to uncover the secrets of this house and all its occupants.

The lifeless corpse of another young woman is discovered in the icy waters which surround the island, Detective Karl Rosen arrives to investigate, and memories of his failure to solve the first case return with a vengeance. Could this young lady’s tragic death somehow hold the key to the first?

Emma, battling her own demons, joins with Karl to embark this chilling investigation, thrusting them into terrifying secrets from the past, including tainted love and Viking rites, during the darkest and deepest winter in Scandinavia.