After the funeral he made several “noises” about killing himself - “the pills had been procured, the deed carefully planned” - but he never did so. It is 2005 and Isak, a retired gynecologist who made his name as a pioneer of ultrasound, lives alone in the old summer house on Hammarsö, where he moved permanently after Rosa’s death in the early 1990s. In the first we meet Erika, the eldest half-sister, who is now middle-aged and determined to visit her 84-year-old father for possibly the last time. The book works as a kind of literary suspense novel because the reader knows from the outset that something bad happens during one of these vacations, but you’re not sure what it is (my initial guess was way off the mark), and so to say anything more would destroy that magic. The problem with writing a review of this novel is that it’s hard to say anything more without giving away crucial plot spoilers. But during the summer of 1979 a terrible event occurs that changes the girls’ lives forever - and puts paid to their family vacations on the island. Here, under the watchful eye of their bad-tempered and seemingly indifferent father, Isak, and his second wife, Rosa (Laura’s mother), they enjoy a carefree existence. Proving that there’s more to Scandinavian literature than crime novels, Linn Ullmann’s A Blessed Child is an absorbing family drama about three half-sisters - Erika, Laura and Molly - who spend their summers together on the Swedish island of Hammarsö.

Translated from the Norwegian by Sarah Death. Fiction – paperback Picador 307 pages 2009.

It Rains in February by Leila Summers