Malin Hedin

Christelle desperately wants to regain custody of her daughter. Sure, she’s made some mistakes, done things she’s not proud of, but she is not a bad parent. Giving up her child is not an option—not after what her own mother did to her. First, she must earn back the trust of the social services. Getting a job would help. But with her record and lack of experience, there aren’t a lot of options. Her well-meaning, do-gooder aunt gives her a job advert from an ostrich farm nearby, and Christelle can sense her aunt’s hesitation. But it is a chance and she will take it. Neither the repulsive filth nor the creepy brothers who own the place will scare her away. And if things go south, well, then she knows where one of them keeps his money.

Christelle really wants to do things right—for her daughter’s sake. But her curiosity and lack of impulse control have always been her weaknesses, and the farm is full of secrets, buried beneath the layers of dirt. Secrets no one wants to talk about, involving her mother. And now that Christelle has caught the scent, she can’t stop digging.

Drawn to Darkness is a gripping suspense novel about family ties, broken trust, and powerless people trying to defy the odds. With sharp insight and a skillful pen, Malin Hedin explores the merciless forces of fate and how the past never truly stays buried.

Following an alcohol-fuelled Midsummer’s Eve celebration in 1983, young and carefree single mother Maria mysteriously goes missing from her cottage in rural Dalarna. Her disappearance leaves a huge and disconcerting impact on the small community, where friendly relationships turn sour amid speculation and suspicion.

Some claim that Maria got fed up with her life, leaving her beloved young daughter behind, but Maria’s mother
Greta refuses to believe the malicious rumours. Her maternal instincts send her out on a tireless quest to find her daughter, one where she walks the forests and roads all day long without eating or resting, in the meantime forgetting all about her granddaughter. But there are people that don’t want her to succeed, that want the events to be blotted out. Months later, Maria's remains are found in the woods, but with little evidence and no witnesses her murder goes unsolved, leaving an irreparable wound on the community. Fourteen years later, Maria's daughter Terese returns to the village after having lived most of her life in foster care. The people here failed her, yet she is drawn to this place, drawn to learn more about the mother she can barely remember. 

Midsummer Mist is an eerie psychological thriller about the aftermath of a vanishing. About the secrets and lies that grow in its wake and about the cost of truth. It also explores the notion of motherhood, the unconditional love and the inextricable bond, as well as the loss of a child and the longing to be a parent.