Eva Bjorg AEgisdottir – Everything Is Better With Dragons

Review: HOME BEFORE DARK, by EVA BJÖRG ÆGISDÓTTIR, Translated from the Icelandic by Victoria Cribb

PUBLICATION DATE: 17th JULY 2025
HARDBACK ORIGINAL | £ 16. 99 | ORENDA BOOKS

November, 1967, Iceland.

Fourteen-year-old Marsí has a secret penpal – a boy who lives on the other side of the country – but she has been writing to him in her older sister’s name. Now she is excited to meet him for the first time.

But when the date arrives, Marsí is prevented from going, and during
the night her sister Stína goes missing – her bloodstained anorak later
found at the place where Marsí and her penpal had agreed to meet.

November, 1977.

Stína’s disappearance remains unsolved. Then an
unexpected letter arrives for Marsí It’s from her penpal, and he’s still
out there…

Desperate for news of her missing sister, but terrified that he might
coming after her next, Marsí returns to her hometown and embarks on
an investigation of her own.

But Marsí has always had trouble distinguishing her vivid dreams from
reality, and as insomnia threatens her sanity, it seems she can’t even
trust her own memories.

And her sister’s killer is still on the loose…

TBR Review: The Creak On The Stairs, by Eva Bjorg AEgisdottir

I enjoy an Icelandic Noir, Scandi Noir in general, and books from Orenda Books especially. The team have excellent taste and employ brilliant translators. I also collect first editions, usually of sci fi and fantasy from Goldsboro Books, but this was a special case – a new author from Orenda! I was intrigued buy the blurb and ordered it to support the author and publisher. I am so pleased I did.

I bought it when it first came out and started reading it but other books and work took precedent, so I put it down. Then I got the second book, which I was ever more intrigued by. I reviewed it for the blog tour, and have the same special edition. I read that quickly and promised myself I would read the first book. And today I have.

I don’t regret spending several hours today reading, it’s been rather relaxing reading a book because I want to rather than because I need to for blog tours or work. I had time to really get into it.

It was a tense read, as Elma navigates both her complex relationship with her family and her new colleagues in Akranes CID. Then an unknown woman is found dead on the beach by the lighthouse. It takes a lot of digging to find out who she is and how she ended up in the sea by Akranes. The investigation drags up 30-year-old secrets, crimes against children, and an unexpected killer.

I was so engrossed I was late for a coffee date with a friend I haven’t seen in six months. and then once I got back I settled down with a mug of hot chocolate to finish reading the second half of the book. It was gripping. I really needed to know who did what, but also found Elma a fascinating and complex character. Her willingness to sidestep her boss when she identifies his unwillingness to upset and important family. Elma doesn’t care, her years away from Akranes have broken any connections she might have had, had she stayed. Her mother’s gossip is actually helpful.

I found the ending a bit frustrating, because the killer is caught but the instigators escape punishment. I know things continue in ‘Girls Who Lie’, but if I’d read this one first I’d have been a bit unhappy.

I recommend getting both, blocking out your weekend and settling in with snacks, coffee/tea/hot chocolate and possibly a commode, because you will not want to be disturbed.

Review: Girls Who Lie, by Eva Bjorg AEgisdottir

PUBLICATION DATE: 22 JULY 2021 | ORENDA BOOKS | PAPERBACK ORIGINAL | £8.99

At once a startling, tense psychological thriller, and a sophisticated and twisty police procedural from a rising star in Icelandic literature.

When single mother Maríanna disappears from her home, leaving an apologetic note on the kitchen table, it is assumed that she’s taken her own life – until her body is found on the Grábrók lava fields seven months later, clearly the victim of murder. Her neglected fifteen-year-old daughter Hekla has been placed in foster care, but is her perfect new life hiding something sinister?

Fifteen years earlier, a desperate new mother lies in a maternity ward, unable to look at her own child, the start of an odd and broken relationship that leads to tragedy.

Police officer Elma and her colleagues take on the case, which becomes increasingly complex, as the list of suspects grows ever longer and new light is shed on Maríanna’s past – and the childhood of a girl who never was like the others…

Extract Post: The Creak on the Stairs, by Eva Bjorg Aegisdottir

PUBLICATION DATE: 28 MAY 2020 | PAPERBACK ORIGINAL | £8.99 | ORENDA BOOKS

The first in the electrifying new Forbidden Iceland series, The Creak on the Stairs is an exquisitely written, claustrophobic and chillingly atmospheric debut thriller by one of Iceland’s most exciting new talents.

When the body of a woman is discovered at a lighthouse in the Icelandic town of Akranes, it soon becomes clear that she’s no stranger to the area.
Chief Investigating Officer Elma, who has returned to Akranes following a failed relationship, and her colleagues Sævar and Hörður, commence an uneasy investigation, which uncovers a shocking secret in the dead woman’s past that continues to reverberate in the present day…

But as Elma and her team make a series of discoveries, they bring to light a host of long-hidden crimes that shake the entire community. Sifting through the rubble of the townspeople’s shattered memories, they have to dodge
increasingly serious threats, and find justice … before it ’s too late.