The Inspiration Behind To Risk It All (The Anderssons, Book 3)

Some stories arrive as a whisper and then won’t leave you alone. Lily’s did exactly that. When I first sketched her in Book 1, To Melt A Frozen Heart, I sensed she’d one day demand a novel of her own. By Book 2, when her path briefly crossed with Elsa’s, that whisper became a tug. And then Joak strode onto the page — flinty, principled, impossible — and I knew I had to follow where their love story led.

Lily & Joak: a spark that wouldn’t let go

To Risk It All opens nearly a year after Kat and Mikael’s wedding. Lily, bruised by academia and determined to do something that matters, heads north for Lapland’s ruska, those amber-gold weeks of autumn. She’s there to help with a community festival that suddenly loses its sponsor. A last-minute pledge from Andersson Mining saves the event but lights the fuse: the festival lead is Joak, the uncompromising environmental activist Lily shared one unforgettable night with. Attraction and ideology collide; love has to learn the language of compromise.

Across the novel, Lily’s competence and heart meet Joak’s stubborn courage and scars. They clash over money, power, and principles but find their way back to each other under ruska skies. Just as their fledgling romance is beginning, it's threatened by a surprise visit from Joak's past. Can they overcome yet another challenge and risk it all for each other?

Why Lapland, and why this story now?

I’ve visited Äkäslompolo and Ylläs, the ski resort on the other side of the fell, many times. It’s one of my favourite places on earth; I can close my eyes and be back among the birch and pine, hearing the creak of packed snow and feeling that blue-hour hush. That long familiarity made it natural to set love stories amid those fells — first for Kat and Mikael, then for Elsa and Victor, and now for Lily and Joak.

I’m also endlessly fascinated by Sámi culture — the deep time of reindeer routes, craft, language, song — and by the way communities negotiate change. The idea of a mine cut into reindeer grazing lands is, to me, abhorrent. Yet in The Anderssons I try to honour complexity: livelihoods, pride, survival, belonging. In To Risk It All, both sides are argued (often passionately) by characters who care as fiercely about people as they do about place.

The Anderssons so far (with links)

• Book 1: To Melt A Frozen Heart – Kat & Mikael’s slow-burn, second-chance romance set between Ylläs and Äkäslompolo.
  Ebook & store page: https://helenahalmebooks.com/products/to-melt-a-frozen-heart (HelenaHalmeBooks)
• Book 2: To Love Again – Elsa & Victor’s decade-apart first love rekindled—bridging city life and the pull of the fells.
  Ebook & store page: https://helenahalmebooks.com/products/to-love-again (HelenaHalmeBooks)
• Book 3: To Risk It All – Lily & Joak’s autumn romance about courage, community, and choosing each other when principles collide.
  Pre-order (ebook) & details: https://helenahalmebooks.com/products/to-risk-it-all (HelenaHalmeBooks)

To Risk It All publication dates  & where to read

• Direct-first launch (ebook & paperback): 20 November 2025, exclusively at my shop, with the ebook available to pre-order now at a special price on the book’s store page above.
• Wide release: 4 December 2025 on Amazon, Apple Books, Google Play, Barnes & Noble and other major retailers. https://books2read.com/ToRiskItAll 

A final note

Writing To Risk It All let me braid together the things I love most about Nordic stories: the sweep of landscape, messy families trying to do right by each other, and tender, grown-up love that makes both people braver. I hope Lily and Joak make you ache, argue, and—ultimately—believe.