History Literature / Overenskommelser

* OfficialCoupleOrdealSyndrome: Beatrice and Seth have an extremely difficult time. To be fair, [[IdiotPlot it partly is their own fault]], but they also have to deal with three villains, who do everything to keep them apart. It takes them ''twenty months'' [[spoiler: and alas, Beatrice being raped and almost killed]] before they can solve their misunderstandings and find happiness together.

* IdiotBall / JustEatGilligan: Beatrice and Seth could have solved all their problems at once, just by talking to each other and admit that they loved each other! [[IdiotPlot But alas...]] At least Seth later admitted that he had been an idiot...

While the main theme of a Romance novel should be a love story, how two lovers will find happiness together, it's possible to cover other themes too. And that's what Swedish writer Creator/SimonaAhrnstedt did in her debut novel, ''Överenskommelser'' (first published in 2010). It's so easy to believe that rich people always have been happy. After all, don't they live in big houses, wear fine clothes, go to fancy parties and have servants to do everything for them? But reality behind the façade can be ugly, maybe even terrifying. And we only have to go back a handful of generations to end up in an era when women had much fewer rights than what men had. This is the story about how a seemingly glamourous life in the upper classes of 1880s Sweden could become a nightmare. The title of the novel can be translated as "Agreements" or "Understandings", refering to a forced arranged marriage...

* BittersweetEnding: Maybe it ''seems'' like this story has a HappyEnding. The three main couples obviously will all have long happy marriages. And as for the villains, one is dead and the other two get deserved come-upance. That sounds all fair and good, right? Except for that this doesn't happen until after Beatrice has suffered five years of abuse from her EvilUncle, [[spoiler: who managed to bully her into a short but painful marriage to [[DirtyOldMan a much older]] [[MaritalRapeLicese rapist]]]]. And we also have the subplot about how Beatrice's sadistic cousin Edvard got a fourteen-year-old girl pregnant, and he wouldn't do anything to help her out. [[spoiler: She decided to have an abortion, a decision that lead to her death.]] Yeah, she was only a really minor character with hardly any screen time and no spoken lines in the whole story. But still, yikes! So in the end, too much have happened for a truly happy ending to be possible...

While the main theme of a Romance novel should be a love story, how two lovers will find happiness together, it's possible to cover other themes too. And that's what Swedish writer Creator/SimonaAhrnstedt did in her debut novel, ''Överenskommelser'' (first published in 2010). It's so easy to believe that rich people always have been happy. After all, don't they live in big houses, wear fine clothes, go to fancy parties and have servants to do everything for them? But reality behind the facade can be ugly, maybe even terrifying. And we only have to go back a handful of generations to end up in an era, when women had much fewer rights than what men had. This is the story about how a seemingly glamourous life in the upper classes of 1880s Sweden could become a nightmare. The title of the novel can be translated as "Agreements" or "Understandings", refering to a forced arranged marriage...

Beatrice Löwenström became an orphan when she was fourteen years old, and now she's had to live with relatives in Stockholm for four long years. But it becomes increasingly difficult for her to stay with them... Uncle Wilhelm doesn't like independent women, so he does everything so that the intelligent and assertive Beatrice shall ”know her place”. And cousin Edvard admires his father's ”firm hand with women”. Aunt Harriet is ill and weak, so she can't bring joy or comfort to anyone. However, Beatrice is really fond of her cousin Sofia and their companion Mary. And one day, she meets Seth Hammerstaal, a Norwegian business man. Despite his rather humble background, he has become very rich, but many people still only see him as an irritating upstart. And even though he's had affairs with numerous women, Seth still hasn't been able to find ”the right one”. But then he suddenly meets the unconventional Beatrice, and they soon become attached to each other. But their happiness is ruined, when they learn about something terrible. Her uncle Wilhelm has already promised her off, without even asking her what she wants, to the tremendously heinous Count Rosenschiöld! Beatrice can't feel anything but repulsion about this. For not only would the age difference be enormous (he's like forty years older than her), but she knows that Rosenschiöld only is interested in her young body, and he's yet another one of these men, who enjoys ruling women with iron fists. But to keep Sofia from having to marry him instead, Beatrice forces herself to agree to this betrothal. But the feelings between her and Seth are just as strong as they ever were, and thus begins a hard time for them both. Will they ever get more than short moments of happiness together?

* AgeGapRomance: Beatrice confirms that there was quite some age difference between her parents, her father being older. Beatrice states that her mother was only seventeen years old at their marriage, we have no idea how old her father was at the time.

* BittersweetEnding: Maybe it ''seems'' like this story has a HappyEnding. The three main couples obviously will all have long happy marriages. And as for the villains, one is dead and the other two get deserved come-upance. That sounds all fair and good, right? Except for that this doesn't happen until after Beatrice has suffered five years of abuse from her EvilUncle, [[spoiler: who managed to bully her into a short but painful marriage to [[DirtyOldMan a much older]] [[MaritalRapeLicese rapist]]]]. And we also have the subplot about how Beatrice's sadistic cousin Edvard got a fourteen-year-old girl pregnant, and he wouldn't do anything to help her out. [[spoiler: She decided to have an abortion, a decision that lead to her death.]] Yeah, she only was a really minor character with hardly any screen time and no spoken lines in the whole story. But still, yikes! So in the end, too much have happened for a truly happy ending to be possible...

* DeathByChildbirth: This trope is played straight at first, when we find out that Beatrice's mother died in childbirth (her baby sister died too), but [[SubvertedTrope subverted]] with Sofia (she gets ecclampsia and becomes very ill, but survives).

* DiabolusExNihilo: Wilhelm and Edvard have backstories, which can somewhat explain how they became what they are. But with Carl-Jan Rosenschiöld, we never get this. He's simply there to be evil. After he finally dies, he gets some backstory. We find out that he had murdered one wife and driven another wife into sucide. But we never find out how he could become so evil.

* DoWrongRight: ''Very much'' PlayedForDrama. Rosenschiöld is angry with Edvard for making a fourteen-year-old girl pregnant and abandoning her to die after an abortion. But not because doing it was wrong, but because Edvard was stupid enough to do this to a girl from an upper class family! If the girl had come from a working class family, Rosenschiöld couldn't have cared less.

* GeniusDitz: While you can't call Sofia ''stupid'', she still comes across as a fragile pretty-face, who never could manage in the world on her own. But at least she's really good at playing the piano (which ironically seems to be the only thing, that the otherwise super-competent Beatrice ''can't'' do).

** Rosenschiöld cuts off Beatrice's hair [[spoiler: after raping and battering her]]. That was a pointless act of evil, that he only did to further humiliate her.

** Wilhelm has to lose everything in the end. [[spoiler: His son has been maimed, his daughter no longer wants to see him, even his doormat wife has left him, and Beatrice also claims the right to "his" house, which turned out to be her inheritence from her grandmother]].

** DeathByChildbirth: Sofia does get ecclampsia and becomes very ill, but survives.
* TraumaticHaircut: We get a terrible scene, where Rosenschiöld not only [[spoiler: rapes and batters Beatrice]], but just to further humiliate her, he decides to cut off her hair. But it turns out that she's way more bothered by the other things that he did to her...

** DeathByChildbirth: Beatrice's mother did die from childbirth; Sofia is lucky enough though to survive despite getting ecclampsia.

* DiabolusExMachin: Beatrice and Seth have what can only be described as a really hot date. Surely they will sort things out now, after eight months of misunderstandings? Surely now Beatrice won't have to marry Rosenschiöld? But alas, Edvard now cruelly makes sure that she's separated from Seth. Cue a whole year of more misery for Beatrice...

* GoldDigger: Lily Tremaine is a [[ReconstructedTrope reconstructed case]]. She got married to an old British lord, who turned out to be an abusive alcoholic, rather than accepting the proposal from Seth (who wasn't rich yet at the time). And even when she later does get engaged to Seth, she does it only because she needs someone to help her with financial issues. But then, [[spoiler: she does find true love at the exact same time as Seth gets reunited with Beatrice, and they decide to not get married after all]].

* ReconstructedTrope:

* WrongAssumption: This story has a [[ReconstructedTrope reconstructed case]]. Beatrice assumes that Seth is [[TheCasanova a casanova]], who doesn't care more for her than for any other woman. Seth assumes that Beatrice is a shallow gold digger, who only sees him as a fun fling before she gets married to an old aristocrat and becomes a countess. And several unfortunate circumstances (including her cousin completely screwing them over) only makes them even more sure that they can't trust each other. Of course, all of this could have been solved if they only had talked to each other, but it takes them twenty months to actually reach that point...

* DiabolusExMachina / HopeSpot / YankTheDogsChain: Beatrice and Seth have what can only be described as a really hot date. Surely they will sort things out now, after eight months of misunderstandings? Surely now Beatrice won't have to marry Rosenschiöld? But alas, Edvard now cruelly makes sure that she's separated from Seth. Cue a whole year of more misery for Beatrice...

* DirtyOldMan:
** Carl-Jan Rosenschiöld wishes to marry Beatrice, who's like forty years younger than him, just because he wants a virgin. He's also a serial abuser of women, and a brutal rapist.
** Beatrice confirms that there was quite some age difference between her parents, so her father might come across as a milder case of this. But while Beatrice states that her mother was only seventeen years old at their marriage, we have no idea how old her father was at the time. We're most likely talking about a May-September Romance rather than a MayDecemberRomance though.

** Beatrice confirms that there was quite some age difference between her parents, so her father might come across as a milder case of this. But while Beatrice states that her mother was only seventeen years old at their marriage, we have no idea how old her father was at the time. We're most likely talking about a May-September Romance rather than a [[MayDecemberRomance May-December Romance]] though.

* DomesticAbuser:

** Sofia, a flawless good-hearted ProperLady, and Edvard, a serial abuser sadistic [[TheSociopath sociopath]]. They only have one thing in common: They're both good-looking. It becomes very clear that Sofia has taken after their ExtremeDoormat mother, while Edvard has taken after their DomesticAbuser father.