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3.56 AVERAGE
3.56 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
dark
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Really enjoyed this! Mystery was kept alive and it meandered without feeling stale. Enjoyed the setting and cast of characters
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I had the opportunity to review this book thanks to a Goodreads Giveaway.
After spending much of December reading fun and light hearted holiday romance books, this book took me for a RIDE. Genuinely could not put it down, Agnes was an incredible FMC who had depth and vulnerability. I really appreciated the perspectives of family and community members who are impacted by true crime podcasts/media, even generations later. This book has brought me back to my true crime era.
After spending much of December reading fun and light hearted holiday romance books, this book took me for a RIDE. Genuinely could not put it down, Agnes was an incredible FMC who had depth and vulnerability. I really appreciated the perspectives of family and community members who are impacted by true crime podcasts/media, even generations later. This book has brought me back to my true crime era.
dark
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
dark
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
this was good! i wanted a little bit more at the end, but was otherwise engaged. i especially loved the setting.
In some ways, THE LOST HOUSE is precisely the atmospheric mystery that readers of Scandi-noir will immediately recognize. The isolation. The cold. The simplicity of the writing, descriptive and yet just enough, never too much. And yet.
There is an intricacy to this novel, a kind of layered mystery that feels immersive as a reader. The novel asks us how we define ourselves, if our memories of the people most dear to us can be wrong, if we can be haunted by our histories even when we don’t know fully know them. It is not just a mystery about an unsolved murder. It is a mystery about identity and the stories that we tell about our history, about ourselves.
After a devastating accident has left her with chronic pain, the end of a relationship, and her grandfather’s death, Agnes is called back to Iceland. This is a home she has never visited but where her family fled from after the murder of her grandmother and her infant. Unsolved and yet all but resolved because everyone agrees it was Agnes’ beloved grandfather. Why flee, after all, if he was not guilty? These are infamous murders, the image of the frozen woman clutching her child in the snow having formed a kind of cult following since then.
Agnes is there at the invitation of a determined podcast host with a reputation for thorough investigations but she is not quite sure what she wants. It has been a restless year for her, floating between grief and numbness, and in Iceland she finally has a purpose - sort of. Once she learns that there is a young woman missing, she becomes even more entrenched. What unfolds then is the kind of novel that you devour without hesitation.
This is a beautiful, haunting book. I felt the starkness of the landscape in my bones, felt the pain in Agnes’ shattered body, held my breath when she did. It is dark and there are few moments of levity, and yet I ended the book thinking more about resilience than anything else. Brilliantly done. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance copy. All opinions are entirely my own.
There is an intricacy to this novel, a kind of layered mystery that feels immersive as a reader. The novel asks us how we define ourselves, if our memories of the people most dear to us can be wrong, if we can be haunted by our histories even when we don’t know fully know them. It is not just a mystery about an unsolved murder. It is a mystery about identity and the stories that we tell about our history, about ourselves.
After a devastating accident has left her with chronic pain, the end of a relationship, and her grandfather’s death, Agnes is called back to Iceland. This is a home she has never visited but where her family fled from after the murder of her grandmother and her infant. Unsolved and yet all but resolved because everyone agrees it was Agnes’ beloved grandfather. Why flee, after all, if he was not guilty? These are infamous murders, the image of the frozen woman clutching her child in the snow having formed a kind of cult following since then.
Agnes is there at the invitation of a determined podcast host with a reputation for thorough investigations but she is not quite sure what she wants. It has been a restless year for her, floating between grief and numbness, and in Iceland she finally has a purpose - sort of. Once she learns that there is a young woman missing, she becomes even more entrenched. What unfolds then is the kind of novel that you devour without hesitation.
This is a beautiful, haunting book. I felt the starkness of the landscape in my bones, felt the pain in Agnes’ shattered body, held my breath when she did. It is dark and there are few moments of levity, and yet I ended the book thinking more about resilience than anything else. Brilliantly done. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance copy. All opinions are entirely my own.