Fog Island

Sofia Bauman has just taken her university exam and ended a troublesome relationship with a boyfriend when she attends a lecture about a New Age movement called ViaTerra. She feels an instant attraction to the spiritual components and to the leader Franz Oswald, who is young, good-looking, urbane, and mesmerizing. His message is that stress, poisons in our food and a world out of balance are wrecking humanity. The movement has its headquarters on an island off the Swedish west coast.

Sofia is offered a job there and stays. But when summer gives way to the dense fog that engulfs the island she begins to wonder if she has been pulled into a cult. Oswald rules with an iron fist, an electrical fence has been raised around the property and there are surveillance cameras everywhere. The road back to a normal life for Sofia slowly turns into a nightmare. For no one has ever left ViaTerra.

502 pages

Crimetime Specsaver's debutant Prize, the jury's reasoning:

”Over 500 pages are completely devoured. Both the jury and the many readers who voted were unanimous – the book is impossible to put down. The language is unpretentious. The feeling of a documentary novel makes it stick out on the overcrowded crime novel shelves. The author writes about a secluded world in a way that is extremely believable and fascinating. A suspense novel about what makes people go through hell and high water because of the desire to belong. This is the first in a new fiction trilogy – we really look forward to the continuation.”

Reviews: 

"The Scientology movement has become fiction through Mariette Lindstein´s thrilling novel: Fog Island . The day-to-day routines of a cult are evidently in need of the novel formula, the non-fiction descriptions I´ve read are not nearly as compelling as this professionally constructed thriller. Compulsory nailbiting guaranteed."

Aftonbladet

”A page-turner, this falls most interesting novel.”

“It is fascinating to get a glimpse at how one can get drawn into a sect. How good it all sounds in the beginning, but how the control of the group and fear within the members gradually increase. The cult-leader is portrayed in an enthralling way, and anyone who has been involved with a charismatic person, who constantly demands attention, will recognize Franz Oswald´s character. If you furthermore, voluntarily or involuntarily, have been the victim of someone who had an unhealthy obsession with dominating others, you will get shivers of recognition when the web of control is pulled tighter around the staff at Fog Island.”

Mamma Bokström/Bonniers Book Club

”Mariette´s escape from the Scientologists sounds like a thriller. Now she has plowed down 25 years of cult-mentality into her debut novel, Fog Island.”

Quotes from Dutch bloggers and media:

“It feels authentic because of the high quality fiction. Scary from the very prologue.”
Amsterdam newspaper. The Netherlands

“A mesmerizing thriller! The suspense just increases. The reader gets the heart in the throat. Exciting scene after exciting scene unfolds until you can’t breath. It is so exciting you wonder if the film rights already have been sold.”
Scriptgirl blog. The Netherlands

“What makes it so thrilling is not ‘Who did it?’ but “How far are they going to go?’
It totally captured me.
Blog. Stralend Scrijven . The Netherlands

“It gave me goosebumps. I read it obsessively. I could not put it down. I could not stop turning the pages!”
Read Junkie blog.

“Seamless writing, smooth dialogue, excellent structure of the story itself. A masterpiece! A very ominous book.”
Hanneke Tinor-Certi Blog. The Netherlands

“It captured me from the prologue. The suspense just increases by the minute.”
Thrillers and More. The Netherlands

“The tension just builds and builds and builds until the end.”
Jaike vs de boeken, blog. The Netherlands