Top Ten Tuesday; Books By Authors Who Live in Norway

It's Tuesday, which means it's time for another Top Ten Tuesday post courtesy of That Artsy Reader Girl and the theme of the week was books by authors who live in my state/country. As I live in Norway, that's what I'm focusing on, and as there's few horror/paranormal authors in Norway, I decided to write a list with a mix of genres, so there's something for "everyone".

Here's my ten picks.

I'm Travelling Alone by Samuel Bjørk

Description from Goodreads

When the body of a young girl is found hanging from a tree, the only clue the police have is an airline tag around her neck. It reads ‘I’m travelling alone’.

In response, police investigator Holger Munch is immediately charged with assembling a special homicide unit. But to complete the team, he must track down his former partner, Mia Krüger – a brilliant but troubled detective – who has retreated to a solitary island with plans to kill herself.

Reviewing the file, Mia finds something new – a thin line carved into the dead girl’s fingernail: the number 1. She knows that this is only the beginning. To save other children from the same fate, she must find a way to cast aside her own demons and stop this murderer from becoming a serial killer.

I Will Miss You Tomorrow by Heine Bakkeid

Description from Goodreads

The first in a new Norwegian crime series featuring disgraced ex-Chief Inspector Thorkild Aske, a damaged man with a complicated past

Fresh out of prison and a stint in a psychiatric hospital, disgraced ex-policeman Thorkild Aske only wants to lose himself in drugged dreams of his beloved Frei. Wild, unknowable Frei. The woman he loved. The woman he has lost forever.

Yet when Frei’s young cousin goes missing off the Norwegian coast and Thorkild is called in by the family to help find him, dead or alive, Thorkild cannot refuse. He owes them this.

Tormented by his past, Thorkild soon finds himself deep in treacherous waters. He’s lost his reputation – will he now lose his life?

The Last Pilgrim by Gard Sveen

Description from Goodreads

Young, lovely Norwegian Agnes Gerner is waging a dangerous and secret fight. Outwardly, she is a devoted Nazi sympathizer engaged to a prominent businessman. In fact, she is part of an underground resistance doing everything to win the war against the Germans. The only hope she has of being reunited with the man she truly loves—who serves under the code name “Pilgrim”—is if the Nazis are defeated. Of course, there’s no guarantee that she’ll be alive when that happens…

Many years later, three sets of remains are found in a popular Oslo forest—two adults and a child. Despite his boss’s call to not spend extra time on the old case, Detective Tommy Bergmann cannot help but dig deeper, especially as he uncovers connections to a more recent murder. As he unravels the secrets of the past, it becomes clear that everything is permissible in war—and that only those who reject love can come out victorious.

The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas

Description from Goodreads

Commonly seen as the legendary Norwegian writer's masterpiece, this story tells the tale of Siss and Unn, two friends who have only spent one evening in each other's company. But so profound is this evening between them that when Unn inexplicably disappears, Siss's world is shattered. The Ice Palace is written in prose of a lyrical economy that ranks among the most memorable achievements of modern literature.

Freydis: Daughters of Freya by Gunhild Haugnes

Description from Goodreads

All she ever wanted was to become a famous explorer, but that was not for women.
Freydis Eiriksdatter is one of the most remarkable women of the Viking age. She leads a harsh life amid the towering cliffs and great glaciers in the heart of a Greenland fjord.
Freydis has inherited the warrior spirit of her father, Eirik the Red, and follows in the footsteps of her brother Leif to Vinland, the promised land.
Christianity makes inroads into her beloved Greenland, but Freydis continues to worship the old Norse gods, and to live her life as she pleases. But one day she is summoned by the mysterious Volva, Torbjorg.
Fiery passion, perilous voyages and powerful history.
This book has it all.

Pieces of Happiness by Anne Østby

Description from Goodreads

A novel of five lifelong friends who, in their sixties, decide to live together on a cocoa farm in Fiji, where they not only start a chocolate business but strengthen their friendships and rediscover themselves.

"I've planted my feet on Fijian earth and I intend to stay here until the last sunset. Why don't you join me? Leave behind everything that didn't work out!"

When Sina, Maya, Ingrid, and Lisbeth each receive a letter in the mail posing the same question, the answer is obvious. Their old high school friend Kat--Kat the adventurer, Kat who ran away to the South Pacific as soon as they graduated--has extended the invitation of a lifetime: Come live with me on my cocoa farm in Fiji. Come spend the days eating chocolate and gabbing like teenagers once again, free from men, worries, and cold. Come grow old in paradise, together, as sisters. Who could say no?

Now in their sixties, the friends have all but resigned themselves to the cards they've been dealt. There's Sina, a single mom with financial woes; gentle Maya who feels the world slipping away from her; Ingrid, the perennial loner; Lisbeth, a woman with a seemingly picture-perfect life; and then Kat, who is recently widowed. As they adjust to their new lives together, the friends are watched over by Ateca, Kat's longtime housekeeper, who oftentimes knows the women better than they know themselves and recognizes them for what they are: like "a necklace made of shells: from the same beach but all of them different." Surrounded by an azure-blue ocean, cocoa trees, and a local culture that is fascinatingly, joyfully alien, the friends find a new purpose in starting a business making chocolate: bittersweet, succulent pieces of happiness.

A story of love, hope, and chocolate, Pieces Of Happiness will reaffirm your faith in friendship, second chances, and the importance of indulging one's sweet tooth.

The Bird Tribunal by Agnes Ravatn

Description from Goodreads

TV presenter Allis Hagtorn leaves her partner and her job to take voluntary exile in remote house on an isolated fjord. But her new job as housekeeper and gardener is not all that it seems, and her silent, surly employer, 44-year-old Sigurd Bagge, is not the old man she expected. As they await the return of his wife from her travels, their silent, uneasy encounters develop into a chilling, obsessive relationship, and it becomes clear that atonement for past sins may not be enough. Haunting, consuming and powerful, The Bird Tribunal is a taut, exquisitely written psychological thriller that builds to a shocking, dramatic crescendo that will leave you breathless.

Odin's Child by Siri Pettersen

Description from Goodreads

An epic fantasy trilogy from Norway about thousand-year-old secrets, forbidden romance, and what happens to those who make a deal with the devil comes at last to the United States!

15-year-old Hirka has always been an outsider in the world of Ym: she’s the only person without a tail, and the only one unable to access the Might, a current of power that runs through the earth.

Her differences become more and more of a concern as the date approaches for the Rite—the ceremony where everyone is to be blessed by the all-knowing Seer and the Council of powerful families who rule in His name. With only a few weeks until the Rite, Hirka discovers the shocking secret behind why she is tailless and Mightless: she is not from this world. As an infant, she was brought through an ancient stone circle known as a Raven Ring, and as long as she’s in Ym, the passageway between worlds remains open inviting terrifying creatures called the blind to follow.

No one can know the truth of Hirka’s identity, especially
not Rime, her childhood friend who just might become something more. But is Rime is hiding secrets of his own?

The first in a trilogy, Odin's Child is a thrilling modern fantasy epic.

The Twistrose Key by Tone Almhjell

Description from Goodreads

Something is wrong in the house Lin's family rented. The clocks tick too slowly. Frost covers the flowerbed, even in a rain storm. And when a secret key marked "Twistrose" arrives for her, Lin finds in a crack in the cellar and unlocks a gate to the world of Sylver. This frozen realm is the home of every dead animal who ever loved a child. Lin is overjoyed to be reunited with Rufus, the pet she buried under the rosebush. But together they must find the missing Winter Prince in order to save Sylver from destruction…and they’re not the only ones hunting for the Prince.

Exhilarating suspense and unforgettable characters await the readers of this magical adventure, destined to become a classic.

The Emperor by Marianne Nelvik

Description from Goodreads

Katya Belmon is one of the few nomeds with access to magic. As an army recruit, she's training to protect the people from the danger that looms outside the city walls.

After a catastrophic event, something awakens within her - a dark and wilful energy that changes the rules of magic and entices her with promises of power.

When she discovers that the threat runs deeper than expected, Katya must break the law. She has to venture through the portals and search for the mythical world of Dayathe. Only by surviving the perished and finding her answers can Katya prevent genocide and reveal the secrets of the cult and the Emperor. To make it there, she needs the help of her greatest rival, Valour. He's arrogant and peculiar, but immensly talented.

Dayathe is said to consume souls and poison minds.
With an unstable energy already eating away at her, Katya is at risk of becoming a threat herself.