A book is a promise. Its pages can offer adventure, an escape into a world from another time or place.

The first book in The Moonwind Mysteries, The Night Raven, and its sequel, The Queen of Thieves, are gripping upper MG novels that fulfill this promise—and then some. Set in a gritty, Dickensian version of 1880s Stockholm, The Night Raven will be released on November 1, 2023. The Queen of Thieves is scheduled for release on March 5, 2024.

As The Night Raven begins, we meet 12-year-old protagonist Mika, who has spent her life in the Public Children’s Home orphanage. Mika helps take care of the younger children and works under the table at a local bar.  Savvy, clever, and street smart, she has a mysterious origin story that she is convinced the orphanage director Amelia knows something about, which constantly compels her curiosity.  Mika is casually but profoundly observant of tiny details, in the way that someone whose survival has always depended on the capriciousness of others can be.

During a bitterly cold winter, Mika encounters the rough-hewn Detective Valdemar Hoff, who finds her penchant for observation useful as he tries to solve a terrifying murder. Suspicion arises that the murderer might be the supposedly caught-and-executed serial killer, the Night Raven. But how could that be possible? Might he, in fact, be the mysterious “Dark Angel” mentioned when a boy deposits a newborn at the orphanage?

Each well-carved character in this engaging, fast-paced tale has their own back story, and the city of Stockholm emerges as a character in its own right. (One note for the squeamish or faint of heart: this dark story doesn’t shy away from violence and abuse, although it mostly alludes to them.)

I don’t intend to spoil this well-written historical thriller for you: you will simply have to read it to find out more. And once you read the first volume, you’ll be clamoring to read the second.

It’s no hyperbole to say that The Night Raven may well clock in as my personal favorite read in 2023. With the original Swedish series now at five books, if Amazon Crossing Kids publishes the translation of all of them—and I fervently hope they do—the remaining ones promise to be equally thrilling reads.

I can’t wait.

The Night Raven
Written by Johan Rundberg
Translated from the Swedish by A. A. (Annie) Prime
ISBN: 978-1662509582
November 1, 2023, Amazon Crossing Kids

Awards (for the original): Awards: Crimetime Award for Best Children’s Book 2021; Winner of: the 2021 August Prize; the Karlstad Children’s Novel Award; Sølvbergets Reading Competition for “The Book of the Year” category 9-12, Norway 2023

Reviews: Kirkus Starred Review; Publishers Weekly

You can buy a copy here* and here* or find it at a library.

*Book purchases made via our affiliate link may earn GLLI a small commission at no cost to you.

Award-winning opera singer Nanette McGuinness is the translator of over 100 books and graphic novels for children and adults from French, Italian, German and Spanish into English, including the much-loved Geronimo Stilton Graphic Novels, as well as Tiki: A Very Ruff Year (nominated for the 2023 Eisner and Harvey Awards) and Alice on the Run: One Child’s Journey Through the Rwandan Civil War (2023 GLLI YA Translated Book Prize Honor Book, 2023 Mosaic Prize winner, 2023 Excellence in Graphic Literature Finalist and 2023 Harvey Award nominee). Accolades have also gone to her translations of Magical History Tour: Vikings and of Magical History Tour: Gandhi (both 2023 Excellence in Graphic Literature Finalists), Luisa: Now and Then (2019 Stonewall Honor Book; 2020 GLLI YA Translated Honor Book; YALSA’s Great Graphic Novels for Teens in 2019) and California Dreamin’: Cass Elliot Before the Mamas & the Papas (2018 Harvey Award; YALSA’s Great Graphic Novels for Teens in 2018).