Tinged with Swedish lore, this enthralling coming-of-age tale explores art and guilt in the wake of a mysterious tragedy at the end of the 1980s. On the night of Easter Eve 1989, 12-year-old Hanna’s older brother Erik and some friends go to the infamous Mount Verity, where there is a cave that, according to legend, was used in the witch trials in Östergötland during the 17th century. Rumor has it that whoever does not tell the truth and goes down into the cave will disappear into the mountain. Erik never comes home that night. Over the years, Hanna and her childhood friend Marcus develop an increasingly symbiotic relationship, until life takes them in different directions. He pursues an academic career, while she fails to get into art school, feeling uncertain about her path and doubting her talent. When Hanna finally becomes a successful artist, she cannot let go of what it has cost her. What justice decided that she was allowed to live while Erik vanished? What is there left to believe in when the worst has happened? And can the story of Mount Verity be more than a fable? Mount Verity is an atmospheric, naturalistic tale of survivor’s guilt told in prose at once dreamy, almost magical, and yet realistic and rife with slowly building suspense. “Bohman condenses decades into this brief, potent book…The novel explores a compelling ambivalence. Hanna’s grief for Erik is the key to her art, but so is the nothingness he seems to have disappeared into. She needs both to move on from the tragedy and to burrow deeper into its mystery… Mount Verity confronts these anguished contradictions with disarming frankness and calm. We are effortlessly drawn into Hanna’s story.” — Wall Street Journal “This magical and grimly realistic story is a powerful ode to grief and the beauty in the natural world…a dreamy, gripping slow-burn thriller.” — Chicago Review of Books , Must-Read Books of the Month “Bohman evokes a strong sense of place, rendering the landscape as both magical and tangible. There’s much to savor in this slow-burning meditation on a family tragedy.” — Publishers Weekly “A reflective and atmospheric read, this story investigates how to live with great loss…Readers who enjoy thoughtful, philosophical books will find this one compelling.” — Library Journal (starred review) “Bohman…takes an oft-written narrative and gives it a mysteriousness and elegance, weaving Swedish lore into a deeply emotional story of grief, loss, and the transition to acceptance, and once again shows herself to be a skilled author with a penchant for reaching under the surface of humanity to the complex, tragic, but often beautiful layers hiding within us.” — Booklist “Both naturalistic and lyrical, [ Mount Verity ] includes nuanced depictions of young adulthood, sexuality, traumatic memory, and self-expression. The prose is both evocative and restrained…The novel’s pacing and structure heighten the sense of longing and unresolved tension…dreamy and intimate.” — Foreword Reviews Therese Bohman grew up outside of Norrköping and now lives in Stockholm. Her debut novel, Drowned , received critical acclaim both in Sweden and internationally, and was selected as an Oprah Winfrey Summer Read. Her second novel, The Other Woman (Other Press, 2014), was short-listed for the Nordic Council Prize and Swedish Radio’s Fiction Prize, while her third novel, Eventide (Other Press, 2016), was short-listed for Sweden’s most prestigious literary award, the August Prize. Her fourth novel Andromeda was published by Other Press in 2025. Bohman is an arts journalist who regularly contributes to one of Sweden’s largest newspapers, Expressen . Marlaine Delargy studied Swedish and German at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, and she taught German for almost twenty years. She has translated novels by many authors, including Kristina Ohlsson; Helene Tursten; John Ajvide Lindqvist; Therese Bohman; Theodor Kallifatides; Johan Theorin, with whom she won the Crime Writers’ Association International Dagger in 2010; and Henning Mankell, with whom she won the Crime Writers’ Association International Dagger in 2018. Marlaine has also translated nine books in Viveca Sten’s Sandhamn Murders series and two books in her Åre Murders series. PROLOGUE On Easter Saturday 1989 I recorded almost the whole of the Top 20. I had been given a cassette player for Christmas, and even though I had been interested in music before, my interest increased when I was suddenly able to record the chart for myself. That winter I spent Saturday afternoons in front of the cassette player: I recorded, recorded over a track, recorded again. It felt sophisticated, because I thought that what I was doing wasn’t something my contemporaries did until they went to high school. Knowing which songs were in the chart made me feel grown-up. There was plenty of drama in the spring of 1989. Debbie Gibson’s “Lost in Your Eyes” had been at number one for three Saturdays in a row, but