A Nearly Normal Family

A Novel

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Pub Date 25 Jun 2019 | Archive Date 25 Sep 2019

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Description

Now a Netflix Limited Series

"...A compulsively readable tour de force." —The Wall Street Journal


New York Times Book Review
recommends M.T. Edvardsson’s A Nearly Normal Family and lauds it as a “page-turner” that forces the reader to confront “the compromises we make with ourselves to be the people we believe our beloveds expect.” (NYTimes Book Review Summer Reading Issue)


M.T. Edvardsson’s A Nearly Normal Family is a gripping legal thriller that forces the reader to consider: How far would you go to protect the ones you love? In this twisted narrative of love and murder, a horrific crime makes a seemingly normal family question everything they thought they knew about their life—and one another.

Eighteen-year-old Stella Sandell stands accused of the brutal murder of a man almost fifteen years her senior. She is an ordinary teenager from an upstanding local family. What reason could she have to know a shady businessman, let alone to kill him?

Stella’s father, a pastor, and mother, a criminal defense attorney, find their moral compasses tested as they defend their daughter, while struggling to understand why she is a suspect. Told in an unusual three-part structure, A Nearly Normal Family asks the questions: How well do you know your own children? How far would you go to protect them?

Now a Netflix Limited Series

"...A compulsively readable tour de force." —The Wall Street Journal


New York Times Book Review
recommends M.T. Edvardsson’s A Nearly Normal Family and lauds it as a...


Advance Praise

"A NEARLY NORMAL FAMILY is a canny, intensely suspenseful legal thriller. A 17-year-old young woman is accused of murdering a 32-year-old man, provoking a crisis for every person close to her and challenging the commandments of the law as they confront the bonds of love and family life." —Scott Turow, Author of Presumed Innocent and Testimony


"A NEARLY NORMAL FAMILY is a brilliant thriller, another masterpiece of Scandinavian noir. It is riveting as the complex plot unfolds layer after layer and twists the well-drawn characters to a startling conclusion. This is crime fiction at its best." —Linda Fairstein, New York Times bestselling crime novelist

"A NEARLY NORMAL FAMILY is a canny, intensely suspenseful legal thriller. A 17-year-old young woman is accused of murdering a 32-year-old man, provoking a crisis for every person close to her and...


Available Editions

EDITION Other Format
ISBN 9781250204431
PRICE $26.99 (USD)
PAGES 400

Average rating from 263 members


Featured Reviews

Excellent family drama-slash-legal thriller about secrets and lies in a close-knit family when a daughter is tried for a murder. Points of view and past events are shifted between mother, father, and daughter, and Edvardsson masterfully skews each perception JUST ENOUGH so that the reader is always unsure where the truth lies. Well-crafted and emotionally haunting - in all the twists and turns of this years' thrillers, it turns out the most unreliable of narrators are normal parents.

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If you love mysteries and trying to figure out who did it and where the plot is headed, you have to read this book! The suspense builds chapter after chapter and just when you think you know what is going on, your realize that you don’t. The author manages to pull a switch up multiple times and it kept me hooked. Impossible to put down until you finish it! M. T. Edvardsson has written a fabulous story and I cannot wait to read something else by this author.
The story profiles a couple who struggles with a teenage daughter, Stella, who is attempting to spread her wings and become an adult. The story also follows the friendship of Stella and her friend, Amina who have been friends since preschool. One night, Stella comes home very late and hides a bloody blouse in the laundry room. The police arrest Stella the next day. The focus of the book then shifts to the trial of Stella.

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The book is the story of a murder trial involving a young 18 year old girl. The author uses the technique of three narratives in telling his story. There is the girl's father who is a Pastor and a man dedicated to the truth, her mother who is a criminal defense lawyer and of course Stella Sandell the lady on trial. The technique employed quite successfully by Mr Edvardsson is to utilize three separate sections of the novel, each dedicated to the thoughts and actions of the three people involved. Each part supplies the reader with different facts making up the plot and certainly causes many changes of opinion as the novel progresses.
Stella is a girl that certainly has her own mind and is more than a little rebellious. She is a student reaching the end of high school with the one ambition of taking a trip of several months to Asia. Important to her, and to the story is her best friend who has been with her almost all of her short life. Amina, her friend is the exact opposite of her immersed in studies with the intention of becoming a doctor.
Both Stella and Amina have drifted into a relationship with a man 15 years older than they are. Each tries to keep her role with him apart and attempting to keep the other thinking that they are not involved with him. It is this man that is killed and circumstances put the blame on Stella. She is arrested and brought to trial.
The strength of the story is the steady building up of suspense and the maintaining of the flow keeping the reader glued to the novel. While it was written in Swedish and takes place in a small city in Sweden, the translation is an excellent one allowing the nuances of the English I read it in to be quite clear. A definite five star novel and one showcasing the work of an author at the top of his game.

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