For the avid reader, discerning collector and real ScandiNoir and Lars Mytting - fan (to be),
a new, signed 1st UK edition hardcover copy of
Lars Mytting
The Bell in the Lake
MacLehose, London / UK, 2020
"Norway, 1880. Winter is hard in Butangen, a village secluded at the end
of a valley. The lake has frozen, and for months the ground is too hard
to bury the dead. Astrid Hekne dreams of a life beyond all this, beyond
marriage, children, and working the land to the end of her days. Then
Pastor Kai Schweigaard takes over the small parish, with its
700-year-old stave church carved with pagan deities. The two bells in
the tower were forged by Astrid’s forefather in the sixteenth century,
in memory of conjoined twins Halfrid and Gunhild Hekne. They are said to
hold supernatural powers.
The villagers are wary of the pastor and his resolve to do away with
their centuries-old traditions, though Astrid also finds herself drawn
to him. And then a stranger arrives from Dresden, with grand plans for
the church itself. For headstrong Astrid this may be a provocation too
far.
Talented architecture student Gerhard Schönauer is an improbable figure
in this rugged community. Astrid has never met anyone like him; he seems
so different, so sensitive. She finds that she must make a choice: for
her homeland and the pastor, or for an uncertain future in Germany.
Then the bells begin to ring . . ." (maclehosepress.com)
“An exquisitely atmospheric novel . . . The Bell in the Lake
does what fiction promises: to steal you away to another world and ask
you, if unfairly, to leave a little of your heart behind.” (Derek B. Miller)
"Lars Mytting, a novelist and journalist, was born in Fåvang, Norway, in 1968. His novel The Sixteen Trees of the Somme) was awarded the Norwegian National Booksellers’ Award and has been bought for film. Norwegian Wood has become an international bestseller, and was the Bookseller Industry Awards Non-Fiction Book of the Year 2016. His novel The Bell in the Lake was a number one bestseller in Norway and nominated for the Norwegian National Bookseller’s Award 2018." (maclehosepress.com)