HANNA MADELENE
A Novella – Nr 1 in the Trilogy about Hanna Madelene

Sweden, 1922.
Eighteen-year-old Hanna Madelene lives alone in a rented room in Göteborg. By day, she folds linens, counts coins, and speaks only when spoken to. By night, she hums old hymns and remembers the forest—the moss-thick stillness, the secret songs, the spirits she was told to forget.

She left Dalsland two years ago, fleeing a home shaped by silence and sorrow. Her mind, sensitive and attuned, turns every color into meaning, every sound into a signal. The world presses in too sharply—so her inner one grows vivid and alive, peopled by mythic figures who speak when no one else does. It is how she makes sense of what cannot be said.

Now, for the first time, she begins to choose her own life: a church choir, a blue dress, a song she dares to sing aloud. But when love and danger begin to blur, Hanna must decide what she believes—and who she truly is—beneath the rules, beyond the fear.

Told in lyrical, intimate prose, Hanna Madelene is the first novella of three—a deeply emotional, quietly magical journey from rural Sweden to the shores of America.

A story of sacred music, quiet rebellion, and one girl’s path to freedom.

For readers of Tove Ditlevsen, Kristin Hannah, and anyone who has ever found strength in solitude or spoken with trees.