The Stockholm Octavo

If you have spoken with me, Virginia or especially Kayleigh in the past few months, you are probably aware that we are all huge supporters of Karen Engelmann's debut novel, The Stockholm Octavo. This beautiful tale of Stockholm’s opulent Golden Age brilliantly interweaves history, romance, and intrigue, in which one man’s fortune holds the key to a nation’s precarious fate.  

Karen's website has recently gone live, and it is chock-a-block full of interesting supplemental information.  Find out the history behind the use of fans; discover additional reading materials; and learn how to lay your own Octavo.

And if you want more back story on how this story was created, check out this interview with Karen.

– Annie

This has been quite the year for debuts! A Land More Kind Than Home and The Song of Achilles were huge Winter greats, Into the Darkest Corner blew our minds this Summer, and now The Stockholm Octavo is gearing up to wow you in the Fall. Karen Engelmann was at Day of Dialog, so some of you might have had the chance to meet this classy, funny woman.  I read it when I was on vacation, and found the history of Sweden in relation to Europe fascinating.

Virginia also chatted about it at ALA where we gave away two sets of the beautiful Octavo cards and a hand-held fan (the language of fans factors heavily in the plot).

If you would like some back story to how this book was developed, Karen has graciously answered some questions for us! 

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Q.: Where did the idea for the book come from? Did you start writing it while living in Sweden or only once back in your native U.S.?

Identifying an exact source for the idea of the book is nearly impossible, but a seed was planted early on in the form of folding fans. My mother had a small collection and as a child, I was fascinated with their beauty and fragility. When I travelled to Sweden as a young adult, one of my first outings was to Kulturen museum in Lund, where they had an exhibition of truly exquisite and valuable fans. I did a number of drawings with folding fans, but it was not until long after I returned to the U.S. that they opened in my writing. The fans led me to the 18^th century, and my own experiences abroad led me back to Sweden and the Gustavian age. Folding fans and Gustav III became the unlikely combination that served as basic ingredients. The Octavo and the notion of “The Eight” emerged eventually as the framework and transformative force of the story.

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A Conversation with Karen EngelmannRead More »