The One Who Follows a Star Never Turns Back is a gripping novel about Malin Blomsterberg who lived as a housekeeper at the internationally famous author Ellen Key in her mannor Strand by the lake Vättern. Ellen Key’s works on the Swedish people's home, education and women's rights were translated into over 20 languages. The One Who Follows a Star Never Turns Back won Book of the Year 2025, received a large readership, and was praised by reviewers.

In the summer of 1914, the cook and shoemaker's daughter Malin Blomsterberg hikes from Skåne to Östergötland. The goal of the hike is Ellen Key's Beach by Lake Vättern, and the intention is to stay. Because Malin wants to get close to the great minds and thinkers, and most of all come close to the author Ellen Key.

Her wishes come through, and she becomes Ellen's faithful servant, disciple and friend, secretary and confidant. But with the great gratitude also comes the fear of not being good enough, and of losing everything. Malin has a small black bird picking on her mind, making her insecure, she hides her fear of losing her sanity.

The One Who Follows a Star Never Turn Back is a moving novel about the housekeeper Malin Blomsterberg who lived next to the world-famous Ellen Key, but who carried a world of her own inside. It is a story about the limits of work and the psyche, about class and the longing for belonging in a time when everything is about to change.

365 Pages

Reviews:

"If it's not nominated for the August Prize, I'll be really upset! ... If I had been the person who underlined and wrote in it, I would have probably crossed out every other sentence because the language is fantastic! ... When I had read the last few pages, I wanted to read it again. A fantastic novel!"
- Johanna Lundin, Gokväll SVT

"A gripping and multifaceted story about the cook and shoemaker's daughter Malin Blomsterberg ... A book that deeply moved me."
- Aftonbladet

"Through her book, Haawind breathes life into a life that is usually forgotten, the one lived alongside a great woman. It's a good move, the reader gets some well-known women's history through a voice that is rarely allowed to speak. The book is quietly told but still grabs, largely because of Malin's inner thoughts and reflections that are kept in what she calls the room inside and are never allowed to come to the surface. It is a moving testimony to a class society where even those who want good can do evil." - Borås newspaper

"Suddenly, here it is - the book that makes your mind spin and your soul lift, and which is also written in such sublimely beautiful language that every word seems weighed on a scale of gold... This is so fantastically good! Heartbreaking, wise, complex." - Alingsås Newspaper

"Journalist and author Malin Haawind has created a masterpiece that not only honors Malin Blomsterberg's memory, but also points out the shortcomings in the documentation of other famous people's invisible surroundings." - Ölandsbladet

"It has become such a successful novel that shows the gap between social classes and at the same time provides psychological depth. Perhaps it is the combination of the two perspectives that makes the result so excellent. Which shows how subservience erodes the soul ... Haawind chooses to be quietly present, like a voice that has researched the Royal Library's archives, searching for traces of Malin Blomsterberg. The approach works unexpectedly well with just the right amount of distancing effect. We are to realize that it is both fact and fantasy that become the truth of the novel. I am deeply moved by Malin's fate."- Arbetarbladet