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A review by twicomb
Yule Island by Johana Gustawsson
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
4.0
Recipe For a Dark Holiday Read: take this book on winter vacation in a snowy cabin in the woods, and read with a big mug of steaming coffee and a plate of crispy Swedish vaniljkakor (vanilla cookies).
It's a twisty whodunnit set on a remote island of Sweden, where the answers that art appraiser Emma Lindahl is searching for may be closer than she realizes. But on Storholmen, nothing is at it seems, and as the nights grow longer and the snow grows deeper, she's going to discover that her sister's long-ago death on this very same island is at the center of a bloodcurdling series of murders that are still going on today.
I'm a fan of great thriller novels. I like them confusing, mysterious, and not too gory. This title does a good job of satisfying on all those counts. It did get a little *too* twisty in some places...I found myself getting confused a few times while trying to follow all the events, keep track of varying timelines, and multiple characters. It doesn't help that these are often presented without clarifying information about the dates or locations (in order to keep twists more of a surprise when revealed), but until you get to those twists, you just find yourself a bit muddled as to what's going on. But the overall pace of the book kept moving along well enough for me to remain interested. The ultimate reveal was...without going into spoilers, I'll just say that I would have liked more "why" behind what happened. Why was this thing done? Why did that person make that decision? We find out the Who, What, Where, and When...but never really the Why. That irked me a little since if you're going to read an entire book about a series of terrible murders, you expect there to be some payoff explaining why it all happened. But nonetheless, I enjoyed the journey and the twisty turns along the way.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this eARC for unbiased review.
It's a twisty whodunnit set on a remote island of Sweden, where the answers that art appraiser Emma Lindahl is searching for may be closer than she realizes. But on Storholmen, nothing is at it seems, and as the nights grow longer and the snow grows deeper, she's going to discover that her sister's long-ago death on this very same island is at the center of a bloodcurdling series of murders that are still going on today.
I'm a fan of great thriller novels. I like them confusing, mysterious, and not too gory. This title does a good job of satisfying on all those counts. It did get a little *too* twisty in some places...I found myself getting confused a few times while trying to follow all the events, keep track of varying timelines, and multiple characters. It doesn't help that these are often presented without clarifying information about the dates or locations (in order to keep twists more of a surprise when revealed), but until you get to those twists, you just find yourself a bit muddled as to what's going on. But the overall pace of the book kept moving along well enough for me to remain interested. The ultimate reveal was...without going into spoilers, I'll just say that I would have liked more "why" behind what happened. Why was this thing done? Why did that person make that decision? We find out the Who, What, Where, and When...but never really the Why. That irked me a little since if you're going to read an entire book about a series of terrible murders, you expect there to be some payoff explaining why it all happened. But nonetheless, I enjoyed the journey and the twisty turns along the way.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this eARC for unbiased review.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Kidnapping, Blood, and Murder
Minor: Dysphoria, Torture, and Animal death