2026 Book Review #3:The Hidden Child

 

I discovered this author via our oldest daughter a couple of years ago. This is book 5 in the Patrik Hedstrom detective series set in Sweden.  Every winter I love reading a book set in Alaska or Sweden or elsewhere that is "snowy".  This book didn't disappoint.  So far it's my fave of this series followed by The Ice Princess (book 1).

Book 2, The Preacher continues to be my least fave so far. Books 3 (The Stonecutter) & 4 ( The Stranger) were also very good. 

I have now read 3 books for the month of January.  

 STORY SUMMARY

Erica Falck is a true crime author and mommy of now 1 year old Maja.  Erica is married to Patrik Hedstrom a well known detective in the Tanumshede police force. 

Patrik is currently taking his one year paternity leave while Erica, just off from her one year maternity leave, is back to writing in the upstairs office. 

She is also going through her mother's old diaries and items she found in the attic. They are living in her mom's old house and there's still a lot of things to sort through since her mom's car accident that killed her about 4 years ago.  Erica has a sister named Anna who is living with her boyfriend Dan and her two children Emma and Adrian whom she had with her first husband, now her ex, due to physical and emotional  abuse.   Dan has custody of his 3 daughters from his first marriage. Now, Dan and Anna are expecting their first child together so Annie is very busy managing her life, her children, her partner, and her new stepchildren.  She can't really help Erica sort out their mom's things. 

Erica finds an interesting looking medal  among the diaries. It's a Nazi medal!  Why in the world would her mother, Elsy, have a Nazi medal??  

Erica and Anna were  emotionally neglected by their mother all through their childhood. Their father Tore did the bulk of the emotional support for them. Their mother did not and Erica is determined to learn why.  

Why was her mother so cold and distant?? 

Her questions lead her to the home of a well renowned historian and retired history teacher. His name: Erik Frankel.  But he is very evasive about answering questions regarding Elsy even though they were close childhood friends well into their teens.  In fact, his older brother Axel, who was somewhat of a resistance fighter for Sweden against the Germans, was also part of their friend group as was a girl named Britta and another boy named Frans. Britta is now diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and married to a wonderful man named Herman. Britta, Frans, Erik, and Elsy were all friends throughout the 1940s.  And there was another friend that comes to light during some of Erica's research into her mother's past.  A boy named Hans. 

Some of the answers Erik gives Erica are downright bizarre.

Two days later he is found dead.  The medical examiner says it was murder. 

Patrik becomes involved in the murder case as he just can't seem to stay away from investigations. Who in the world would kill this gentle old man so viciously to bury secrets that are so old? 

Soon, Britta is smothered to death with a pillow while napping.  

Then, Frans is found dead by an apparent suicide. 

What is going on?? 

Patrik begins to help Martin and Paula with this case. (fellow police detectives) with Mellburg, the chief, overseeing things. 

Meanwhile, Erica begins to dig through more of her mom's diaries and soon learns something that reveals a painful revelation about Erica's past. With what little she knows, also become a danger to her husband and baby girl? 

MY THOUGHTS

This was my fave book so far in this detective series. I'm glad I have read them in order because each book reveals new things about the ongoing characters of Patrik, Erica, Anna, Mellburg, and their family members/friends.   The characters are very well developed. 

The author did a great job with the back story of Elsy and her friends in the 1940s.  Every other chapter was set in the village of Fjallbacka where the present takes place but with a title of the chapter signifying the town and year (example Fjallbacka 1945).  It kept the writing  smooth and the pace moving forward.  I found my self loving the sub plot as much as the main plot and of course they tie together in the end. 

I also loved that in this book there was far less use of the "f  word" than in the previous ones.  I'm glad.  When an author oversues that word, it shows me (this is my opinion ) that he/she isn't very creative with coming up with other expressions that are far less low class. 

I did guess correctly some of the plot of this book....the actual murderer of Erik. It was so well done and had a poignant ending with Erica's mom from 1975 reflecting on just why she was the way she was.  I don't want to say too much because it would ruin the story for you. 

This book is a thick one so it took longer to read than some of the other books I've read so far this winter. But it's one of those fiction stories that has grains of truth in it.  

Two quotes really stood out to me: 

"it was easy to leave this place that my country had become, but difficult to leave the country that it had once been." ~ (pg 323, The Hidden Child by Camilla Lackberg, c. 2007. )

 (this resonated with me because if I was ever was to move out of this nation, it would be how I feel about the USA currently). 

and this quote: 

"Because if you didn't allow yourself to love, you didn't risk losing everything." ~( pg 526)

 

In my opinion, this book is appropriate for ages 14 and older. 

On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the highest, I rate this a 10. 

Snowy Sunday Stealin'

Welcome to Sunday Stealing. Here we will steal all types of questions from every corner of the blogosphere. Our promise to you is that we will work hard to find the most interesting and intelligent questions. Cheers to all of us thieves!

We found this one at CreativeGene. It's designed inspire "happy thoughts on a frigid January day." Obviously temperatures vary based on locale, but it's a lovely sentiment, so let's go.   

Here are 10 things that make me happy:

1. Snuggling on the couch with hubby under warm quilts

2. Hot steaming mugs of coffee. Note the plural. 

3. Books

4. My daughters' visits and  phone calls 

5. mountains

6. sitting next to a mountain lake

7. my wooden Adirondack chair

8. my closest friends who do life with me

9. letters from far away friends and family 

10. playing Beethoven or singing good choral music

and staying inside during a snow storm 

Listening to the Silence

 

No, I didn't dress like this on Thursday and head up a mountain summit. I just loved the image with the quote. 

I was walking on this, 

bundled up in winter hiking leggings, a wick away shirt, a sweater, a down jacket, a wool scarf and hat, fingerless gloves (it was 37 degrees F as opposed to the 17 degrees F the day before at the same time....around 11 AM), winter trekkers and a pair of hiking socks and one hiking pole. I had a large water bottle waiting for me in the car. No backpack needed as I was just walking in the town park on the bike path and a wooded trail and only planning on walking about 2 miles as I had some errands to run. 

Thankfully there was no ice under the snow.  No microspikes were needed although I do keep them in the trunk with my hiking poles and an extra hat and gloves. 

On my lawn, in the front yard, we have large patches of brownish grass. There's not been much snow except the couple of inches that fell earlier in the month and that the town didn't plow here at the  town park on our north side of town which is close to where I live. In December they had plowed a piece of this trail.  This time they didn't bother. 

I loved being the only person on the trail.   

My car was the only one in the lot, although I did see a car parked in the lot next to the town pool but never saw a human being. 

I saw bunny prints. I heard and saw blue jays, cardinals, a nuthatch, a woodpecker. 

I saw droppings of deer and bunny. 

I saw a large hawk circling overhead perhaps looking for the mice or bunny. 

And all around me were the trees standing silent. 

I only took my phone out to send a quick marco polo to this friend at the very beginning of my walk and then to just snap a few pics. I kept it nice and warm in my jacket pocket. 

There's just something about the snowy  silence that speaks to my soul. 

I was thinking about this Scripture as I walked: 

"In Your Presence is fullness of joy" ~Psalm 16:11~

And I realized that while walking on the snow in the silence of the woods with no other humans around me, I did have joy.  I did feel like I was in the Presence of God. I'm not one to usually embrace Winter but as I've been retired now from teaching for the last 2 years going on 3, I've learned that there's a beauty to this part of God's creation that I just never appreciated before. I'd rush off to work, run to do grocery shopping afterwards, stay in where it's warm, and do chores and then repeat. When the girls were little I would send them outdoors to play in the snow and they loved it, or as a family we would go sledding at the nearest elementary school where there is a good sized hill, but for the most part, we stayed indoors during the long months of January and February.  

I've come to appreciate silence. Especially the silence of a snowy walk. It is in the silence that I hear.  I listen to the thoughts inside my head and if they're negative I cast them to the wind. I listen to the things God is whispering to my soul.  Listening to the sounds of nature all around me. Learning to have confidence in what I'm hearing.....like the prompting to pray for a dear friend who is struggling with her mental health. To have confidence in just walking on snow and not worry about any physical pain in my cervical spine. Motion is lotion, after all! 

To appreciate the way the shadows move across the land and sky when the sun disappears......and the confidence knowing it will return. The sun does return. 

Just like the Son will return one day......and our darkness will turn to Light, and the Winter will turn to Summer....and all will be restored.

 Just like walking in the fresh winter air is restorative to my body  so does time with my Creator restore my soul. 

Bitter Cold Week Faves

 

It's been a frigid, below freezing week here in the Capital Region of New York.  We still only have 2 inches of snow on the ground unlike the Tug Hill plateau out by my hometown, and the western part of the state!  The mountains have snow of course and the skiers are happy. 

My blessings today....five faves..center around things that are warm and/or that make my heart warm. 

I'm joining other grateful bloggers at Susanne's site where we link up our FIVE FAVES every Friday. 

• Cozy Quilts!  We are very thankful for the basket of cozy quilts and fleece blankets we keep in the family room (our coldest room in the house due to it being on a slab with bamboo flooring).  Dave won the red and cream quilt on a raffle in Maine when he was in grad school and the blue/black quilt was handmade by a woman in Guatemala that he met while on a missions trip there. The green fleece behind it was a gift from me for Xmas a few years ago and there are 2 blue fleeces similar to it, under the ones you see. We like to curl up on the couch together on the weekends and watch a movie on one of the streaming services with these blankets to keep us warm.  We needed them this past week as temps dipped into the teens and single digits!

• SUPER SOFT SOCKS!  I am very thankful for the entire drawer of super soft socks I own and that I wear from December until about April when I can go barefoot again.  I prefer bare feet but this winter has been cold so the soft socks keep my feet warm and comfortable. It's just a little blessing but I'm thankful for it. 

• CREAMY COFFEE:  There's a new coffee spot in  town and I'm all about supporting local coffee shops and this one is even nut free!  They have a good menu with many vegan options and the milk of choice is oat milk. (at home I use unsweetened almond).  I ordered a regular latte with the creamy oatmilk and it was insanely delicious. My friend Lynn joined me so we could get caught up on each other's lives since we hadn't had a coffee date in months. I'm thankful for hot creamy coffee on a frigid morning and time to chat with one of my besties. 

• FOOD, FUN, FELLOWSHIP!  One of my goals for the year is to have friends over for dinner more often. I grew up with people coming to my parents' home all the time for dinner or game nights and somehow Americans have gotten away from this. so last Sunday we invited a single mom we know from church  who is in her 40s (and she's in my small group and the hiking group and volunteers with the organization I also volunteer with) over for Chicken Curry and games. She loved it. Shawna is about 20 years younger than we are and it was nice to have her join us for Sunday dinner.  I love cooking homemade chicken curry and it came out great. And we had a blast playing this easy, quick game called Shut the Box that I bought Dave for Xmas but which didn't arrive until last week! (never will I order from a social media ad again! HA!).  I'm so thankful we could have Shawna over for good food, fun and a lot of conversation. 

• HEART-WARMING HAPPENINGS:  Lots of little blessings came our way this week through texts, phone calls, emails, conversations that just warmed our hearts and made us grateful.  One was that our youngest (Claire) called to tell us she had taken her final NYS exam to become a licensed optician (she just has her apprenticeship left..another year) and she got a 90% on the exam! This is all while also taking Chemistry 2 (where she earned a 98%) at the local university while working full time as an optometric technician for Luxottica (which, locally,  took over all the Target Opticals and LensCrafters). Praise God!  AND she reported Wed evening that her Organic Chem class she is currently taking will be a lot of reading but less written work. She's taking science classes she didn't need for her BS degree but that she needs before she can apply to Optometry School. Other blessings: a good medical report from my sister Hope regarding her husband Donny (I won't go into details); a good report from another friend of mine regarding her mental state (I won't go into details) ; a prospective new car insurance agent (too long to go into it); the new Winter/Spring semester began at church this week and my Bible study group now is full with 8 members and the hiking group is up to 54 members with 8 names on the waiting list; the town "boil water advisory" was 3 days but finally lifted as of yesterday morning, thank you God! (i know...first world problems but I will never take clean running water for granted again!) and a phone call with Dave's mom that was coherent and wonderful.  God is good and I'm thankful we had our hearts warmed with all of these happenings. 

That wraps up my week!

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!  As I write this post, the temps are actually warmer than than yesterday so I'm taking off to walk the bike path while the sun is shining.