Esmara´s tale (2010)

Berättelsen om Esmara (Esmara’s Tale) was published in 2010 and in paperback in 2011. In it I returned to creative writing to introduce the fictional character Esmara Rova, whom, like myself, was exposed to early trauma and has her roots in Tornedalia in the north of Sweden. Unlike me, however, Esmara Rova is more of a business-woman-wonder-child and soon accumulates a fortune in the booming Stockholm real estate market in the 1980s. She also plays her cards well in the internal family power feuds, but finds love more difficult. It is the first novel of a trilogy. Critics, somewhat surprised at the shift in my writing style as now anchored in a more popular genre of fiction, still concluded that my "glamorous chic-lit has a bite and a good handle on language" and dubbed it "Dallas meets Tornedalia", alluding to the popular TV-series. Someone also reflected that "the boy-meets-girl saga becomes a whole new story in the queer hands of Östergren".