(Make note: This is not a ranking, it’s an alphabetical list by author surname.)

#1 Wilful Disregard

(Egenmäktigt förfarande by Lena Andersson, 2013)

Writer Ester Nilsson is invited to give a lecture about the ‘magnificent and singular’ artist Hugo Rask, which marks the beginning of a love story of sorts. Ester leaves her sensible boyfriend to embark on a self-deceiving quest for Hugo’s love. Ester and Hugo meet for long dinners and long talks. He plays it slow, encouraging Ester just enough to convince her that there is hope, but not giving her what she really wants: love.

A girl-meets-boy story, but without romance and feelgood. This is love, passion and power dissected and conveyed with brutal honesty and humour.

#2 April Witch

(Aprilhäxan by Majgull Axelsson, 1997)

Desirée wants to know who stole her life. Institutionalised since early childhood due to severe disabilities, she lies in her hospital bed making plans. She can neither walk nor talk, but she has special abilities. Desirée is an ‘April witch’, which means that she’s able to see through other creatures’ eyes and can make them take her wherever she wants to. In her quest to find out which of her three foster sisters has stolen her life, Desirée becomes an invisible presence in their lives, following them, biding her time.

A relationship drama with a surreal twist, if you like.

#3 Simon and the Oaks

(Simon och ekarna by Marianne Fredriksson, 1985)

Simon Larsson grows up in a working-class family in Gothenburg in the 1940s. World War II is raging. Simon’s father is a man of principles and strong views; his mother runs the home with love and warmth. But they are not his biological parents. Simon finds out that he was adopted and that his real father is Jewish. At school, Simon meets Isak Lentov, the son of a rich Jewish bookkeeper. The Lentovs, who fled from Nazi Germany before the war, becomes closely linked to Simon’s own family as the two boys make the transition from childhood to adulthood.

A drama where love meets evil in the shadow of the war, the book was filmatised in 2011.