In this enthralling modern fairy tale, two sisters grapple with the dark past of their Swedish village and the possibility of escape—from the acclaimed author of The Devil’s Grip.

“It’s this village,” I said.
“How do you mean?”
“Foolish and horrific at one and the same time.”
“That is so true, Jolly. Someone ought to write about it.”

Jolly and Peggy grow up as foster kids in a village in the depths of the southernmost county of Sweden. It is a place that brings out the best and the worst in people, a place of legends and truths, as vibrant as it is ill-fated. Peggy dreams of a different life, one of books and academia, while it becomes Jolly’s responsibility to make sense of their strange upbringing. The ghost of the 19th-century author, the violence that seems to sprout from the ground, taking root inside the villagers and warping their foster family’s role in the community. Not to mention the book that is rumored to be bound in human skin, the countless murders, and the sense of shame that is synonymous with living in a cursed place.

A chilling tale of courage and hope, The Corpses We Planted speaks to the powerful bond between sisters and the remarkable light that can emerge from darkness.

In this enthralling modern fairy tale from the acclaimed author of The Devil’s Grip, two orphaned sisters grapple with the dark side of their Swedish village and the possibility of escape.

After losing their parents in a car accident as toddlers, Jolly and Peggy grow up with a foster family in a strange corner of southern Sweden. According to village gossip, it’s a cursed place full of perverts and pedophiles, marked by a history of violence and madness. Its one resident of note, an ill-fated 19th-century writer, declared it a dump not even good enough to die in—though her spirit ironically returned to haunt it. 

Now in their teens, the girls’ lives begin to change and, for the first time, separate, as Peggy dreams of the larger world outside. New arrivals shake up the community—an antiquarian bookseller with a volume allegedly bound in human skin, refugees from Chile who went through hell and learned the art of death—and the mysterious, brutal murder of 7-year-old twins sets Jolly and Peggy’s foster mother on a path of retribution that will affect them all. 

At once unsettling and oddly heartwarming, Lina Wolff’s coming-of-age tale speaks to the singular bond between sisters and how we live with our skeletons, finding beauty and hope alongside horror.