The Eavesdropper
About the book
Broken Legs and Broken Hearts – a Completely Impossible Christmas, is a humorous, warm and slightly twisted story about the expectations we have of ourselves and others. It is a story about loneliness and friendship, white and black lies and unconventional tricks to get what you want. And it is about possibly finding love but above all yourself – even in Christmas times.
Things do not really work out for 38-year-old Lisbeth Cederström. She does of course like her little house by the sea, enjoys her work as a teacher and has settled down in Frillesås, a small village on the Swedish west coast where she moved five years ago. And she is single. Which might after all be better than being unhappily in love.
But when Christmas approaches, things turn out for the worse. The headmaster of her school wants her to leave her sports lessons in favour of a male alpine champion.
Her old boyfriend Harry suddenly stands on her doorstep and is tired of his glamorous girlfriend. Her sister Helena wants to give birth to her fourth child at home – much to the agony of her family – and her best friend Sara’s daughter is having trouble with the police.
When her kitchen has to be demolished and get fixed by an unknown craftsman everything seems to go down the drain and on top of that, mum wants to serve the big Christmas meal at eleven o’clock in the morning.
What other people have said
A positive review is always a pleasure. These ones made me really happy.
Maria Ernestam knows her craft as an author […] The story contains a number of threads that Maria Ernestam weaves together forming just that kind of novel that you read in the winter darkness on an evening when you want to feel a little bit better without any screens or the noise from the radio […] Upsala Nya Tidning
A mulled wine scented story that attracts much laughter. Amelia
Broken Legs and Broken Hearts is a warm and sensible story […] Maria Ernestam writes well about loneliness and friendship, about how tricky it can be to be a human being, but of course makes sure that the ending is a very, merry Christmas. Femina
Maria Ernestam gets all the details just right to make the story both subtle and entertaining. To finally, in the middle of life, make your own decision on how to celebrate Christmas. Beautiful writing about friendship, seasoned with life’s small nuggets of wisdom. Tara
