New author: Ulrika Lagerlöf
We are happy and proud to announce that we have started to represent Ulrika Lagerlöf. Her new novel Cloudberry Mire will be published on the 22nd of May by Romanus & Selling. It is a wuthering love story set in the magnificent forests of Sweden, that lifts forgotten female heroes and climate issues spanning over generations.
Ulrika Lagerlöf works in communications within forestry since the past ten years. She lives in Uppsala and made her debut in 2021 with the novel Stanna hos mig (Stay with me).
Cloudberry Mire, which is the first part in a series, is inspired by Ulrika Lagerlöf’s own family history. Her mother grew up in Bastuträsk in Västerbotten, and in the early 1940s, her grandmother worked as a cook in a forest cabin.
A few years ago, Ulrika received a large brass bell from her grandmother’s youngest sister. Their father (Ulrika’s great-grandfather) used to have it on the sled when he worked in the forest during the winter, and in the spring, the siblings listened for the bell to hear if their father was on his way home after months away from the family. At the same time, Ulrika learned that her grandmother had worked as a cook in a forest cabin when she was young, and this together became the inspiration for the novel Cloudberry Mire.
In Cloudberry Mire, we follow the young girl Siv who in 1938 is sent out to work as a cook in the forests of northern Sweden. As the only woman, with ten men, she is to cook and manage the household in a small forest cabin without electricity and water for three months. It’s winter, the snow is deep, and it’s bitterly cold.
In a parallel timeline, we follow Eva in 2022. She is sent to the small community Djupsele by her employer in Uppsala, to quell fierce protests against one of the forestry company’s logging operations. As tensions escalate, she must confront the media, environmental activists, and the Sami village, but in the wake of the conflict, she also finds clues to her own family history.
Intertwining the historical story with a contemporary one that depicts the conflicts around the forest today felt completely natural. The Swedish forest has been the subject of heated debates in recent years, both in Sweden and within the EU, something that Ulrika comes into contact with almost daily at work.
When Ulrika is not working or writing stories, she loves to go out into the forest, preferably on cross-country skis. In March 2024, she participated in the Swedish long-distance ski race Vasaloppet for the fifth time. During the summer, mountain hiking is a major interest, and for the past couple of years, Ulrika and her husband have been renovating a small cottage in southern Hälsingland during their free time.