#1 internationally bestselling author Sara Blaedel is coming to town on her national tour for the first book in a new series, THE UNDERTAKER’S DAUGHTER (Grand Central Publishing Hardcover; February 6, 2018; 978-1455541119; $26). Sara Blaedel is the most popular author in Denmark, literally. She’s the only author to ever win the Martha Prize – The Reader’s Favorite Author Prize – four times. In 2014, she won the Golden Laurel (De Gyldne Laurbær), the most prestigious Danish literary award, which can only be won once in a lifetime. Blaedel experienced huge success and critical acclaim in the United States with her Louise Rick series described as “Chilling” (Publishers Weekly), “Tightly knit” (Kirkus), “Skillfully told” (Booklist) and “Gripping” (Washington Post).
THE UNDERTAKER’S DAUGHTER is a completely new direction for Blaedel – not only is it set in the U.S., it also has less of the dark intensity that is so often associated with Scandinavian thrillers, with more of a focus on the secrets hidden in the small Wisconsin town of Racine.
She will be in Wisconsin on February 6 and 7, and I hope you will consider an interview covering her appearance and the book at that time.
2/6 6:30p – Racine Public Library w/Boswell Book Company selling (Racine, WI)
EVENT
Racine Public Library w/Boswell Book Company selling
75 Seventh St, Racine, WI 53403
Start Time: 6:30 pm
2/7 7p – Boswell Book Company w/Crimespree (Milwaukee, WI)
EVENT
Boswell Book Company w/Crimespree
Boswell Book Company
2559 N. Downer Avenue, Milwaukee, WI 53211
Start Time: 7pm
Notes: Sara will be in-conversation with Ruth Jordan of Crimespree Magazine for this event!
Sara recently moved to New York, speaks perfect English and is lovely to talk to. More about the book and talking points below!
Some of the key themes in THE UNDERTAKER’S DAUGHTER Sara can discuss:
- Outsider’s Perspective on American Culture: Having recently moved to the United States, Sara can discuss how her experiences as a foreigner surveying American culture informed Ilka’s perspective. Particularly, she can discuss her research as an undertaking apprentice into the funerary practices that, while common to an America eye, strike an outsider as oddly extravagant.
- Finding Inspiration in Loss: Sara’s motivation to write THE UNDERTAKER’S DAUGHTER was very personal. Her parents died within three days of each other, followed only a few weeks later by a beloved aunt. One of the few bright lights in this ordeal was a lovely female undertaker– who was as far from the macabre stereotype as Sara could imagine. After this experience, Sara knew her next series would be exploring what it’s like for a young woman to work as an undertaker.
- Confronting the Past: In writing the character of a daughter struggling with how to grieve for a father she never knew, Sara developed a deep understanding of how people both interpret and restructure their past into present.
In this new series, Sara Blaedel leaves behind her beloved Danish detective Louise Rick to introduce readers to Ilka Jensen. Already widowed by the age of forty, Ilka, a school portrait photographer, leads a modest, regimented, and uneventful life in Copenhagen – until unexpected news rocks her quiet existence. Her father, who abandoned her in childhood, has suddenly died. And he’s left Ilka only one thing in his will: the funeral home he owns in Racine, Wisconsin. Clinging to this last shred of communication from the father she hasn’t heard from since childhood, Ilka makes an uncharacteristically rash decision and jumps on a plane to Wisconsin. Desperate for a connection to the parent she never really knew, she plans to visit his funeral home and go through her father’s things – hoping for some insight into his life in America – before preparing the business for a quick sale. But when she stumbles on an unsolved murder, and a killer who seems to be very much alive, Ilka realizes she might be in over her head.