I absolutely loved this book loved hearing about the Swedish judicial system, what an eye opener!!!! loved the characters, the way the story was told from different perspectives. A book I wouldn’t normally choose to read but I will definitely read more from this author....definitely recommend this book

# A Nearly Normal Family # Netgalley
Although this book is Swedish I read the synopsis and thought it seemed like a pretty good storyline. Although I was a little unsure to be honestly. Obviously not knowing anything about Swedish law etc. However it really took me by surprise it’s a easy readable book with a lot of twist running all the way through. Also what I was unsure about Swedish law, was explained. It’s a addictive book. One I just had to keep going with despite how tired I was feeling. I still couldn’t put it down. This is the first book I have read by this author. Although it’s the first book written in English. I do hope the author writes more in English, after having read this one I would definitely like to read more of his books. It’s a compelling story of as in the title a normal family. Highly recommended

Sadly I was unable to finish this book I did give it a go on 2 separate occasions but it sadly wasn't a story for me I think it was too disjointed and I struggled with all the families lies even to each other

My first book by this author so didn't really know what to expect and boy it didnt disappoint! The story starts in a Swedish courtroom and we meet Stella an eighteen year old who is on trial for the murder of her lover, a much older man who is nearly twice her age. The book relays the story from the three family members - Stella herself, her father (a pastor) and mother (a defence lawyer) of course all depicting contrasting and different versions of events. This book is a murder mystery combined with family drama which kept me intrigued from the beginning. A few other interesting characters are introduced during the book which baits us in a little more. I will be keeping my eye out for the next book from this author. Thank you to Netgalley, M. T. Edvardsson and Pan Macmillan for the ARC.

What a thrilling, well written book. The characters were so real and writing the book from the points of view of the father, the mother and the teenager made it even better. What would you do to protect your family? This story shows what one family does to protect their daughter who has been accused of murder, taking you through the whole process and coming to an unexpected conclusion.

Highly recommended book!

Thanks to Net Galley and Pan Macmillan for an ARC of this book in exchange for a review.
Wow - I loved this book Adam and Ulrika seem to be a normal family bringing up their teenage daughter Stella. Adam is a pastor, though once an atheist, while Ulrika is a dedicated defence attorney, but has regrets that she has pursued her career, at the expense of her family. This is a domestic drama, murder and thriller which ends up in the court room.
Stella has just turned 18, she has a strong determined personality and likes to get her own way, she and her best friend Amina are inseparable, they meet Chris Olsen in a bar one evening, Amina is chatting to him first, he is at 32 a lot older and seems sophisticated and a successful business. Throughout the summer Stella has a bit of a fling with Chris..
Chris is then found dead and Stella has been arrested and detained and will stand trial for his murder.
The story is told from the point of view of both parents individually and Stella herself. When is a lie not a lie, have all the characters, Adam, Ulrika, Stella and Amina, told lies
This is a gripping story, I hated having to put it down. Will be looking for more from this author. Well deserving 5 stars.

With thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC, which I have enjoyed reading.
A Nearly Normal Family by M T Edvardsson is an extremely accomplished and clever book. The storyline is split into three sections where each member of the family has their own interpretation of events.
It is the death of Chris Olsen that triggers the court case, when Stella, the daughter stands trial for his murder. The end of the story has its own final twist.
Highly recommended

A family drama with a difference, this sucked me in and I found the characters and the family dynamic very relatable. As a much more famous author once wrote (I paraphrase), it's the unhappy families that have the interesting stories to tell!

Stella has been accused of murder but can the 18 year old possibly have killed the older man? Her father is a pastor and her mother a lawyer both are thrown into the case. Just how far will they go to help their daughter and is she guilty?

This story is told in three parts, the first is the dad. Then its Stella herself, followed by her mother. The story follows the arrest and subsequent trial with flashbacks from each character explaining how they ended up here. The plot was really interesting and I thought the ending was brilliant. The story flows well and I loved that it was broken up by the different characters so you really felt each emotion.

At first Stella doesnt seem a nice character but as it develops into her narrative, you begin to understand her more. Her father is interesting but I never really warmed to her mother.

Edvardsson explores how far parents will go to protect their children in this tense and dramatic thriller. It is not your usual crime thriller; instead, this novel was character driven in an understated manner. So many novels in this genre are driven pretty much entirely by a tense, gripping plot. A Nearly Normal Family is definitely engaging, but it is also written more along the lines of domestic drama rather than crime fiction. In this way, Edvardsson's effective use of multiple narrators, telling the story in three parts (from the perspective of each parent and Stella) really brings into focus the themes of familial loyalty and, in particular, parental love and to what end such love will go to protect. Whilst I must admit that I preferred the sections from the perspective of Stella and her lawyer mother, each part complemented each other, particularly as it soon becomes clear that all the perspectives in this novel were ultimately unreliable.

The ending was a satisfying payoff on both levels as crime/psychological thriller and as a character study. The discovery of who killed Chris is masterfully played - while I was not very shocked by the resolution, I did find it nevertheless an unpredictable ending. I liked this as it showed that Edvardsson had planted the breadcrumbs throughout the story well without giving anything away.

With that being said, this novel never really entirely clicked with me. I found it long-winded in parts and I felt that the narrative could have been tightened in places. The father's voice in particular was difficult to engage with although perhaps that was the point. While I really enjoyed all the scenes with Stella and her best friend, Amina, I wish we had seen more of Amina. This novel is really worth picking it up if you are a fan of the genre as I feel it has a lot to say. It is just a shame that I was left cold.

I have to be honest, when I first started reading this book it just didn't grab me. Adam's account of what occurred leading up to the trail just seemed far fetched to me. However, when Stella began her story I was hooked.
I urge you to stick with this book if you are finding the beginning hard to get into, it really does become gripping.

Although the story was interesting, I found the writing a bit wooden in places - maybe due to translation and I found it hard to connect with any of the characters.

This is a domestic drama based thriller that had all the elements I loved.

Mom, dad, annoying secretive daughter.

I had one of the characters under suspicion but just kept wobbling between 50/50.

It’s really rounded and written so well you stroll from page to page with ease, however tension does build that Spurs you on to find answers to your questions.

A lot of the time I was saying “oh....I didn’t expect that”.

I’m definitely following this author for future books. Definitely!

This is without doubt one of the most fascinating psychological thrillers I have read in a long time. I’m always a bit wary of the psychological thriller label, because these days it used as a catch all for crime novels that are not straightforward police procedurals.

But this book is all that it promises to be and more. Told in three voices, in almost equal parts, this is the story of eighteen year old Stella Sandell, accused of murdering a man almost twice her age. She is the daughter of Adam, a local pastor and his wife, Ulrika, a criminal lawyer.

The reader is presented with three perspectives on the story that unfolds as we begin to understand who Stella is and why she is suspected of this crime.

The Sandells are a respectable family, comfortably off and to all intents and purposes everything in their garden is rosy.

Then Stella is arrested for the murder by stabbing of 32-year-old Christopher Olsen.

We hear first from Adam, Stella’s father. That he loves his daughter is not something we can be in doubt about, but Stella concerns him. He has always found her wilful, even as a child and sought without success to curb her excesses. He sees her as sometimes out of control and on at least one occasion he failed in his duty to be the kind of father that she really needed. Their relationship hasn’t been the same since.

Adam will have to decide how far he is willing to test his faith and his reputation in order to keep his daughter from going to prison.

Stella’s sexuality has been on overdrive most of her teenage years. A large part of that has been pure rebellion; some of her behaviour has been, consciously or not, to spite her parents. Her dalliance with the older businessman comes with an ex-girlfriend who has many warning flags to raise about her ex.

Stella’s mother, Ulrika is a walking tower of guilt. She knows she doesn’t have the relationship with Stella that she wanted to have – in fact she has a better relationship with Stella’s best friend, Amina. She has never been able to be the moderator between Adam and Stella and she has a secret of her own that Stella has managed to find out.

Amid this family drama, Ulrike and Adam will have to consider how well they know Stella and what they believe she might be capable of. Then they will face the decision of what they are going to do about it.

Each of these voices is tightly written and completely convincing. Taken together they present an often contradictory picture as we see each character through the eyes of the other two. Behaviours seem very different when viewed through the eyes of others and the reader is left to watch this family, who always thought of themselves as a typical, normal family, are faced with some huge moral dilemmas.

It is precisely the normal-ness of this family that makes this book quite so compelling. You can’t help but wonder what you would do in similar circumstances and I can see this one being hotly debated.

This is not a fast-paced book, but it is immensely thought-provoking and genuinely fascinating. Edvardsson takes his time building a solid picture of a family in crisis within a courtroom wrapper that both thrills and fascinates. The translation is excellent; inasmuch as I really didn’t notice I was reading a translation.

Verdict: Enthralling, original and compelling. This is a stand-out psychological thriller.

This gripping Swedish psychological thriller is a really edge of your seat drama that keeps you reading late into the night.

When Adam and Ulrika’s daughter Stella is arrested on suspicion of murder, the strong family unit begins to crumble.

A really engrossing read with great characters and a thrilling storyline, MT Edvardsson is one to watch.

What a brilliant thriller
The story unfolds from perspective of the three main characters, Father, Daughter and Mother
slowly building up the tension, which keeps you captivated
right up to the chilling and compelling conclusion.

A must read

Thank you netgalley, M T Edvardsson and Pan MacMillan for allowing me to read and review this book.

A Nearly Normal Family is a thriller that is set in three parts and it is a little different in its lay out because of this but it does work.
Adam is a pastor and his wife, Ulrika is a lawyer together they have an eighteen year old daughter, Stella who is what you would call not really conforming to her parents idea of life. She meets Christopher who is quite a bit older than her and starts a relationship with him but due to her not really fancying him she takes a step back but meanwhile her best friend Amina is spending time with him. Stella wants to find out what is happening and on that night she goes to confront them Chris is found stabbed, who did it is revealed slowly throughout the book but Stella is imprisoned for the duration until a court date.
I liked how this book was set out, part one is Adam, we follow his thoughts and reactions to finding out about the murder. The second part is Stella recounting the lead up to the night in question and the third part is Ulrika and what a mothers love will do for her daughter.
An interesting read that had me gripped from the start even though I found some parts were quite slow moving.
I would like to thank Netgalley and Pan Macmillan for this ARC I received in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to Pan Macmillan for an eARC via NetGalley of M. T. Edvardsson ‘A Nearly Normal Family’ in exchange for an honest review. This novel was originally published in Sweden and translated by Rachel Wilson-Broyles. It was published in the U.K. on 11 July and having sampled the text I elected to buy the Kindle/Audible combined editions.

Adam Sandell is a pastor and his wife, Ulrika, a successful criminal defence attorney. Their lives are thrown into turmoil when their 18-year old daughter, Stella, is arrested on suspicion of the murder of 32-year old business man, Michael Olsen.

Again as with other thrillers, I suggest reading this without too much background to avoid spoilers. The novel is split into three parts each featuring a different narrative voice and a different side to the story: the Father, the Daughter, and finally the Mother.

I found this a very engaging and satisfying legal thriller/Scandinavian noir. Alongside a very tense thriller it explores aspects of family life and loyalty.

The audiobook edition was superbly narrated by Richard Armitage, Emily Watson, and Georgia Maguire.

Highly recommended and hopefully we will have the opportunity to read more translations of Edvardsson’s writings in the future.

This book is about an 18 year old girl Stella who is accused of murdering a man.
The story is told from both the parents view and Stella’s view each telling us all about before the murder and after.
When the case goes to court many family secrets are exposed.
And as I was coming to think I knew how it ended I was wrong
Thanks Netgalley

A Nearly Normal Family by M. T. Edvardsson is a fast-paced, exciting thriller.

Often with books that have been translated it is easy to tell as there is some kind of disjoin, they don’t quite sound right. A Nearly Normal Family wasn’t one of those books.

A Nearly Normal Family is written in split narrative form. First, we hear things from the father’s point of view, then the suspect’s and finally her mother’s point of view. I thought this worked particularly well.

When Stella is accused of murder her family is left reeling, or are they?

Her Father believes she has been framed and wants to protect her at any cost.

Her Mother believes there is something she is hiding.

Stella knows neither of them are aware what she is capable of.

“Family life had never seemed so harmonious. Then everything changed.”

In the first half of the book Stella comes across as spoilt, vindictive and generally exactly the kind of person you would expect to be a murderer.

Stella’s father, a pastor was a completely unlikeable person. He was controlling, frequently invaded his daughter’s privacy and did some morally questionable things. He was more concerned with saving face than trying to understand his daughter. He doesn’t even know whether he thinks she did it or not.

Her mother is a largely absent workaholic who has grown closer to her daughter in recent years.

Everyone has secrets in A Nearly Normal Family, and nobody is what they seem.

I had lots of thoughts throughout the reading process as to the identity and motive of the murderer and one of the things that occurred to me was more or less right.

A Nearly Normal Family was a thoroughly engrossing read.