Review: Boys Who Hurt, by Eva Björg Ægisdóttir, Translated by Victoria Cribb

PUBLICATION DATE: 20th JUNE 2024
PAPERBACK ORIGINAL | £9.99 | ORENDA BOOKS

Dark secrets from the past threaten everything …

Fresh from maternity leave, Detective Elma finds herself confronted with a complex case, when a man is found murdered in a holiday cottage in the depths of the Icelandic countryside – the victim of a frenzied knife attack, with a shocking message scrawled on the wall above him.

At home with their baby daughter, Sævar is finding it hard to let go of work, until a chance discovery in a discarded box provides him with a distraction. Could the diary of a young boy, detailing the events of a long-ago summer have a bearing on Elma’s case?

Once again, the team at West Iceland CID has to contend with local secrets in the small town of Akranes, where someone has a vested interest in preventing the truth from coming to light.

And Sævar has secrets of his own that threaten to destroy his and Elma’s newfound happiness.

Continue reading “Review: Boys Who Hurt, by Eva Björg Ægisdóttir, Translated by Victoria Cribb”

Book Review: Thirty Days of Darkness, by Jenny Lund Madsen

PUBLICATION DATE: 9 MAY 2024
PAPERBACK ORIGINAL | £16.99 | ORENDA BOOKS

A snobbish Danish literary author is challenged to write a crime novel
in thirty days, travelling to a small village in Iceland for inspiration,
and then the first body appears…

Copenhagen author Hannah is the darling of the literary community and
her novels have achieved massive critical acclaim. But nobody actually
reads them, and frustrated by writer’s block, Hannah has the feeling that
she’s doing something wrong.

When she expresses her contempt for genre fiction, Hanna is publicly
challenged to write a crime novel in thirty days. Scared that she will lose
face, she accepts, and her editor sends her to Húsafjörður – a quiet,
tight-knit village in Iceland, filled with colourful local characters – for
inspiration.

But two days after her arrival, the body of a fisherman’s young son is
pulled from the water … and what begins as a search for plot material
quickly turns into a messy and dangerous investigation that threatens to
uncover secrets that put everything at risk … including Hannah

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Extract Post: THE GUESTS, by AGNES RAVATN, TRANSLATED BY ROSIE HEDGER

P U B L I C AT I O N DATE: 18th JANUARY 2024
PA PE RB AC K O R I G I N A L | £9.99 | ORE N DA B OO KS

It started with a lie…

Married couple Karin and Kai are looking for a pleasant escape from their busy lives, and reluctantly accept an offer to stay in a luxurious holiday home in the Norwegian fjords.

Instead of finding a relaxing retreat, however, their trip becomes a reminder of everything lacking in their own lives, and in a less-than-friendly meeting with their new neighbours, Karin tells a little white lie…

Against the backdrop of the glistening water and within the claustrophobic walls of the ultra-modern house, Karin’s insecurities blossom, and her lie grows ever bigger, entangling her and her husband in a nightmare spiral of deceits with absolutely no means of escape…

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Extract Post: Halfway House by Helen Fitzgerald

PUBLICTION DATE: 18th JANUARY 2024
PAPERBACK ORIGINAL | £9.99 | ORENDA BOOKS

They’re the housemates from Hell…

When her disastrous Australian love affair ends, Lou O’Dowd heads to Edinburgh for a fresh start, moving in with her cousin, and preparing for the only job she can find … working at a halfway house for very high-risk offenders.

Two killers, a celebrity paedophile and a paranoid coke dealer – all out on parole and all sharing their outwardly elegant Edinburgh townhouse with rookie night-worker Lou…

And instead of finding some meaning and purpose to her life, she finds herself trapped in a terrifying game of cat and mouse where she stands to lose everything – including her life.

Slick, darkly funny and nerve-janglingly tense, Halfway House is both a breath-taking thriller and an unapologetic reminder never to corner a desperate woman…

Continue reading “Extract Post: Halfway House by Helen Fitzgerald”