Blood Ties

Betrayal, secrets, revenge, and murder: they’re in the blood in a provocative novel of psychological suspense by the award-winning, internationally bestselling author of Everything Is Mine.

As Norway’s newly appointed minister of justice, child-rights advocate Clara Lofthus has a chance to accomplish something meaningful on behalf of the most vulnerable members of society. It couldn’t be more personal. After her husband’s death, she is the sole caretaker of her twin sons, Andreas and Nikolai. She’s also still haunted by her own traumatic childhood—and the lengths to which she was willing to go to pursue her own brand of vigilante justice. How far? No one ever needs to know. And this is just one of Clara’s secrets.

Then one day, Clara comes home from work to make a terrifying discovery: her sons have been kidnapped. Clara’s search leads to her hometown in Western Norway, where she learns that her mother has been released from the mental hospital she has been living at for the past thirty years. Hot on Clara’s heels is a local reporter, who is every bit as relentless as she is. He’s determined to disrupt Clara’s life even further and will not rest until he exposes the truth about her past.

As the fate of her sons hangs in the balance, the demons of Clara’s past are flushed out of hiding, threatening to come home to roost.

Ruth Lillegraven was born in Hardanger, Norway, where she grew up on a small farm. She debuted as an author with a poetry collection in 2005. Since then she has written seventeen books, including children’s books, several poetry collections, two plays, and the prize-winning, internationally bestselling novel Everything Is Mine, the first in her Clara series. Her work has been translated into Dutch, English, French, German, Spanish, and Polish. Among other prizes, Ruth has won both the Brage Prize and the Nynorsk Literature Prize for the poetry collections Urd and Sickle. For more information, visit www.ruthlillegraven.no.

Diane Oatley is a writer, independent scholar, and translator. She began her undergraduate studies of English literature at the University of Maine and completed an MA in comparative literature at the University of Oslo. Her poetry has been published in anthologies and journals in England, Norway, Spain, and India, and she is the author of three poetry chapbooks. In 2014 Diane received NORLA’s annual Translator’s Award for nonfiction, and two of her literary translations have been long-listed for the International Dublin Literary Award. She is a member of the Norwegian Non-Fiction Writers and Translators Association and the Norwegian chapter of PEN International.