Look at the book cover!
And here is the blurb incase you haven't read it yet
THE BOY AT THE DOOR:
Everyone
has secrets. Even those who seem to be perfect...
On a rainy October evening, Cecilia Wilborg – loving wife, devoted mother, tennis club regular – is waiting for her kids to finish their swimming lesson. It's been a long day. She can almost taste the crisp, cold glass of Chablis she'll pour for herself once the girls are tucked up in bed.
But what Cecilia doesn't know, is that this is the last time life will feel normal. Tonight she'll be asked to drop a little boy home, a simple favour that will threaten to expose her deepest, darkest secret...
About the author
Alex Dahl was born in Oslo and is the critically acclaimed author of The Boy at the Door. She graduated with a B.A. in Russian and German linguistics with international studies and went on to complete an M.A. in creative writing at Bath Spa University, followed by an M.S. in business management at Bath University. Alex has published short stories in the U.K. and the U.S. and is a serious Francophile. You can read more and sign up for the newsletter HERE.
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You can buy the book from Amazon by clicking HERE.
And here is my excerpt, enjoy.
Here in Sandefjord we have everything. Or, rather, we don’t – and that is my point exactly. We don’t have any of the undesirable components that make life so unpalatable in many other places: pollution, poverty, property crises, excessive crime, immigration issues – I could go on and on. This is not the kind of place where little boys turn up out of the blue, with empty eyes, no parents and nothing but a plastic bag containing a pair of Batman swimming trunks and a frayed baby-blue towel. Sandefjord isn’t that kind of place. Wasn’t.
Sandefjord is the kind of place people want to live. Postcard-pretty, snug and sheltered at the top of its fjord, Sandefjord is the kind of place less attractive places bad-mouth. Can’t blame them, of course – it’s not everybody’s privilege to be able to live somewhere like this. Here, everybody has a nice home that they own, a new car in the garage, a well-paid job, numerous foreign holidays a year and a mountain cabin, too. Everyone I know, at least.
The call came at lunchtime. I’d only just begun to relax after the events of the last twenty-four hours and though I’d only been at the office for an hour, I decided to take an early lunch break so I could get my eyelash extensions done – Johan likes them. Walking from my office in Kilen, past the fish shop and the boats pulled up for winter, and the steel-gray water of the inner harbor, it occurred to me that the whole town resembled how I felt; cold and drained from all the rain. I checked my phone a couple of times as I walked along; I’m not sure why, really. And then, when I lay atop the table and the young girl was working painstakingly on my new, feathered lashes, I heard my phone vibrate from where it lay in my bag. Again and again. It couldn’t be work – nothing I do is urgent enough to merit repeated missed calls. The eyelash girl stopped for a moment and asked if I wanted to pick up. ‘Nope,’ I said, trying to fight off waves of annoyance. Did I, on some level, know then what I know now?
‘Cecilia Wilborg?’ said a smooth, female voice when I picked up on the sixth attempt, walking back out of the salon into the bleak day.
‘Yes?’
‘Hi. This is Vera Jensrud calling from Østerøyparken School. I’m glad I’ve got hold of you. Finding your number wasn’t exactly easy. Presumably you know why I’m calling?’
‘I’m afraid I don’t. I’m… uh, actually in the middle of something here,’ I lied, picking at my cuticles. ‘How can I help you?’
‘Is it correct that you dropped off a little boy here at the school this morning?’
‘Yes. Yes, it is.’
‘May I ask what your relationship to the child is, Mrs Wilborg?’
‘None. None whatsoever. Now, I’m afraid I’ll have to…’
Vera Jensrud interrupted me. ‘But Tobias lives with you and your family, is that correct?’
I burst out laughing, an exaggerated, outraged squawk. ‘Excuse me?’
‘Look. This boy does not attend this school.’
‘So which school does he attend?’
‘We don’t know. He refuses to say. You can only imagine how upsetting this is for everyone, most of all, of course, this little child. Now, we need to immediately establish who he is and where he belongs, and the only thing we have been able to get out of him is that he lives with you.’
I glanced briefly up at my office building, trying to stop myself from screaming. ‘He most certainly doesn’t live with me! I don’t know this child!’
‘But you dropped him off here this morning?’
‘Well, yes, but I met him for the first time last night.’ ‘Right.’ Vera Jensrud sounded uncertain, as though she didn’t quite know whether to believe the half-mute eight-year-old or me. ‘Wait. You say you met him last night? But he stayed at your house?’
I hesitated. Fear seeped into me, ugly and cool, like poison through the pores of my skin. The wind ripped at my jacket and I ran the short distance back to the office. ‘Yes. Look, it was a very strange situation. He told me he attends your school, so I figured it would just be best to drop him off there.’
‘Presumably you spoke with his parents last night before taking him back to your house? That’s why I’m calling, really, to see whether you’d be aware of some way of getting in touch with them.’
‘I… uh... The lady at the pool tried calling them several times and they didn’t pick up the phone.’
‘What about when you tried, later, from home?’
‘I… I didn’t. Tobias asked me explicitly not to.’
‘Mrs Wilborg, this is a boy no more than eight years old. Did it not occur to you to call the parents before taking in a small child overnight?’
‘I’m sorry I wasn’t able to help you. I’m afraid I’m going to have to go now…’ I stuttered, and hung up the phone. It began ringing again before the screen had even gone dark, and when I realized I was being watched by the guys in the office across from mine, I picked up. I pushed my chest out but turned my face away from them so they wouldn’t notice my intense annoyance.
‘What? I’ve said I can’t help you!’
‘Mrs Wilborg, this is Police Inspector Thor Ellefsen. I’m sitting here with Vera Jensrud, the social environment teacher at Østerøyparken School, as well as a representative from social services. We really need you to come down here as soon as you can so that we can discuss this situation.’
