Astrid and Veronika »

Linda Olsson was born in Stockholm, Sweden. She has lived in Kenya, Singapore, Britain, and Japan.

With extraordinary emotional power, Linda Olsson's stunningly well-crafted debut novel recounts the unusual and unexpected friendship that develops between two women. Veronika, a young writer from New Zealand, rents a house in a small Swedish village as she tries to come to terms with a recent tragedy while also finishing a novel. Her arrival is silently observed by Astrid, an older, reclusive neighbor who slowly becomes a presence in Veronika's life, offering comfort in the form of companionship and lovingly prepared home-cooked meals. Set against a haunting Swedish landscape, Astrid & Veronika is a lyrical and meditative novel of love and loss, and a story that will remain with readers long after the characters' secrets are revealed.

The New York Times - Ann Harleman

Linked at first by mere accident Veronika falls ill, and Astrid finds her and cares for her the two women gradually begin to confide in each other. Unlike the voice of the novel s omniscient narrator, theirs are natural and vivid, utterly convincing. And unlike the novel s flatly depicted present, the physical world of the past, in which their stories take place, generously opens to admit us.