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Powell's Staff: New Literature in Translation: June 2022 (0 comment)
June is one of my favorite months, especially here in Portland, where the weather can be beautiful and sunny one minute and a gray downpour with threats of thunder the next. It’s important to always be prepared to take advantage of those rainy afternoons, with a good mug of tea and a great book. Below, we’ve rounded up some of the books in translation released this past month....
Read More»
  • Phuc Tran: “Scene But Not Herd”: Phuc Tran's Playlist for 'Sigh, Gone' (0 comment)
  • Kendra James: Powell's Q&A: Kendra James, author of 'Admissions' (0 comment)

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Nearly Normal Family A Novel

by MT Edvardsson, Rachel Willson Broyles
Nearly Normal Family A Novel

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ISBN13: 9781250204431
ISBN10: 1250204437
Condition: Standard
DustJacket: Standard

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Synopses & Reviews

Synopsis

M.T. Edvardsson's A Nearly Normal Family is a gripping psychological 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 each other.

Eighteen-year-old Stella 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?

Synopsis

"M. T. Edvardsson has written a deceptive and riveting novel. A Nearly Normal Family will make you question everything you know about those closest to you."
--Karin Slaughter, Author of 18 international bestsellers

"In all the twists and turns of this year's thrillers, it turns out the most unreliable of narrators are normal parents."
--Gregg Winsor, Johnson County Library

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?

Synopsis

...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?


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Average customer rating 4 (4 comments)

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One Thrifty Reader , July 11, 2019 (view all comments by One Thrifty Reader)
This domestic suspense novel set in Sweden is very well written, and the translation from Swedish to English is excellent. A married couple (husband a pastor, wife a lawyer) find their eighteen year old daughter puzzling. This is not so unusual, perhaps. Her arrest for the murder of a well-known man in his thirties, however, is very unusual. The night the murder happened, the daughter was out late and her parents didn't know where she was. However, the father woke up when she arrived home and saw her slip into her bedroom. When his daughter is sent to trial, the father/husband/pastor faces a huge question: should be say his daughter arrived home earlier than she did, using his status as a pastor to help away the jury into believing him, to save his daughter?

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Tonstant Weader , July 07, 2019 (view all comments by Tonstant Weader)
A Nearly Normal Family is a legal thriller depicting the title’s nearly normal family, a pastor husband, lawyer wife, and defiant high school senior. Whene Stella, the daughter is arrested accuseed of murdering her 34-year-old lover, the family reaches a crisis that tested their values and faith in each other. The first part is told by Adam, the father who reflexively lies to give his daughter an alibi and runs about town seeking clues and an alernate suspect. Usually the amateur “detective” is important in solving the crime, but Adam is fairly inept. The second part of the story is told by Stella, the daughter. She describes her relationship with her father, her friendship with best friend Amina, and her time in jail. Much is made of her therapy sessions. Since she first got in trouble, her parents didn’t really trust her, particularly her father. Their distrust and strictness led to more defiance. Then the third part is told by the mother and is focused more on the trial. She describes her history with her daughter and how she has sometimes preferred Amina, who is so much easier. She thinks she knows what happens and takes a big gamble to save more than just her daughter. It seems completely realistic, however, that when one of the possible suspects went to the police to accuse him of abusing her, she was dismissed and disbelieved. Her efforts to warn the girls is perceived as stalkerish. Women are simply not believed, even in Sweden. She makes a good potential suspect. So does best friend Amina who seems to cause trouble for Stella by telling tales. Of course, Stella is also a likely suspect. Perhaps this is a cultural difference, but I was shocked by how little attention was paid by the police, the family, and the lawyers to the age difference between Stella and the man she was on trial for killing. Stella and Amina are high-school seniors and though Stella is eighteen, the idea that it’s no big deal that this man was dating Stella is strange. You would think the police, the neighbors, and the media would see something vile about the murder victim, but it seems to never come up. Essentially the story is about trust. Can the father, mother, and daughter learn to trust each other? I received an e-galley of A Nearly Normal Family from the publisher through NetGalley.

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Maggie , June 06, 2019 (view all comments by Maggie)
A psychological thriller, a legal drama, a family drama - this book is everything! It's all about the characters. Told from the point of view of three different unreliable narrators, not only do the characters not know who to trust, but you don't know who to trust either! How far would you go to defend your child? (My mom would totally throw me to the wolves if she thought I was guilty.) The characters each take the reader through one of three phase of the trial from their own point of view with their own struggles and opinions. It starts off a bit slow, but keep going! You'll totally be hooked in the last two thirds!

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BookFreakOut , June 04, 2019 (view all comments by BookFreakOut)
This book is the definition of a page-turner, a masterpiece of suspense. I loved the way the book is broken into three sections: The Father, The Daughter, The Mother. With each section, we get a distinctly different narrative voice, a little more background information and accompanying secrets, and a new perspective on the murder and how this "nearly normal family" started down a destructive spiral. Are any of them telling the whole truth? Who has all the information? It was fully engrossing, and even when I was caught up in the "current" storyline of the murder investigation, the flashbacks that fleshed out each character were always just as interesting. Each person's past informs how they choose to act during the investigation, and the lingering sense that the full story still hasn't been uncovered is wrapped up in an ultimately satisfying conclusion. A disturbing examination of how far people will go to protect a reputation, a friend, a daughter.

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Product Details

ISBN:
9781250204431
Binding:
Hardcover
Publication date:
06/25/2019
Publisher:
CELADON BOOKS
Pages:
400
Height:
1.30IN
Width:
6.40IN
Author:
MT Edvardsson
Author:
Rachel Willson Broyles
Author:
Rachel Willson-Broyles
Author:
M. T. Edvardsson
Author:
M.T. Edvardsson

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List Price:$26.99
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