Una is a teacher, she lives in Reykjavik and sees a job to teach two girls in the tiny village of Skalar. When she arrives she discovers a place in the middle of knowhere, she feels very unwelcome and is staying in an attic in an old house. On arrival she thinks she sees one of the girls she is teaching, then out for a walk she meets someone who doesn't appear to be from the village. The house is haunted or is she losing her mind. Then one of the girls she is teaching suddenly dies. She recognises somebody who came to the village and has now disappeared. What is happening....chilling, tense, brilliant and a fantastic twist to boot.

This is a dark story set in a bleak landscape. Una decides to take a job as a teacher in a small hamlet with only 10 inhabitants, including her two prospective students. Still struggling to cope with her fathers suicide, drinking too much and barely living, she hopes this will change her life around. However, the isolation and the inhospitable villagers makes her more unhappy than she had been in Reykjavik. The village appears to have no redeeming features, their leader seems to have taken an instant dislike to her and then she starts hearing about the young girl who haunts the flat she is living in.

The unremitting bleakness of the location and the general ‘Scandi noir’ feel was very down beat and you keep wondering why Una didn’t just get back in her car and go home to Reykjavik. The underlying thoughts of an unknown woman didn’t make a lot of sense until nearer the end of the book, and along with a final couple of twists did give it a proper ending. Not the book for me, unfortunately.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.

A highly enjoyable mystery about a teacher who accepts a job in a highly remote village in northern Iceland. Having visited Iceland and seen for myself how tiny and remote some of its communities are, I found this portrayal of a remote community and how it treats an incomer fascinating. Overlaying this with a ghost story, a mystery and a dramatic event made the story interesting and compelling. I thought the portrayal of Una, the main character, was slightly under-developed and you don’t see any growth or self-awareness in her as the story progresses, only adaptation and acceptance, which meant that it was slightly less intense and suspenseful than it could have been. Still enjoyable to read, however.

Una wants nothing more than to teach, but she has been unable to secure steady employment in Reykjavík. Her savings are depleted, her love life is nonexistent, and she cannot face another winter staring at the four walls of her shabby apartment. Celebrating Christmas and ringing in 1986 in the remote fishing hamlet of Skálar seems like a small price to pay for a chance to earn some teaching credentials and get her life back on track. But Skálar isn't just one of Iceland's most isolated villages, it is home to less than a dozen people.

This is a slow burner to start with, which is quite common with this author apparently. It has everything you need for a thriller and a mystery with murder being an element. It is all-consuming and keeps you hooked throughout.

This is a first for me by the author and one I enjoyed and would read more of their work. The book cover is eye-catching and appealing and would spark my interest if in a bookshop. Thank you very much to the author, publisher and Netgalley for this ARC.

3.5/5.

This is the story of Una who takes a job at 'the edge of the world' as a teacher in a small village in the north of Iceland. There are only ten inhabitants of the village and she only has two students to teach. The place is bleak and as winter approaches there is nothing to do and few people to speak to. Una does not find the villagers welcoming with the exception of Salka who arranged for her to come and who has offered her accommodation in an upstairs flat in her house. Add into this mix the fact that Una is still grieving for her father who committed suicide and is struggling to cope with her own emotions and all the elements are there for an unsettling experience.
Una's unease grows as she hears the piano playing in the house she is staying in and a nursery rhyme being repeated. When a stranger arrives and the villagers close ranks against her Una wonders if she is to blame.
The plot unfolds slowly in The Girl Who Died, filling the reader in on the unsettling details rather than bombarding them with action and affect but the way the two strands of the story weave together at the end and the atmosphere the author creates are chilling and creepy.
A good mix of crime and supernatural, that is well written and in a very different setting. I enjoyed this and would be very happy to read more from this author.
Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for my advance copy.

This wasn’t the chilling and unbearably tense book that I’d hoped for. I’m really sorry but I didn’t enjoy it at all. A 30-year old teacher from Reykjavik, who only seems to have one friend, decides to up sticks and takes a teaching job in a remote village miles from anywhere – with only 10 residents and 2 children. The residents are mainly unfriendly, and even though she feels vulnerable there are several times when she leaves the safety of her room after midnight to wander around the dark and gloomy village. She dreams of a girl in a white dress, and even at the start of the story she is filled with an ominous sense of dread. After being summoned to an unpleasant meeting with ‘the big man of the village’ she knows she is not wanted there. Why on earth does she stay? She went there to teach but there is hardly any conversation with her and her 2 strange ‘pupils’ in the whole of the book. I felt the story, and the writing of it, was very weak and the ending was unsatisfactory. Maybe I’ve missed something, but this book was not for me. Sorry.

I enjoyed reading this, but it wasn't my favourite of his. :/

Ragnar Jonasson writes such fantastic Nordic creepiness, even when there aren't supernatural elements, so when this one popped up I knew I had to read it. And I am so glad that I did.

Una goes to teach at a small village with only 2 pupils. She's in this new village, with new people, surrounded by, well, not a lot. When ghostly apparitions start appearing, the creep factor is ramped up and the story really begins.

I thought this one was a bit underwhelming overall, but I definitely did enjoy it. Jonasson is a master storyteller and uses his words so fluidly, that the story pretty much tells itself. The atmosphere is desolate and heavy, much like the setting and we can really feel what Una is thinking and feeling.

Top marks for location, writing and setting a curious scene. Let down slightly by the slow pace.

I'd recommend this to Jonasson fans, Nordic thriller fans and people wanting a slow burn with supernatural elements.

Una is not happy in her life so she answers an advert for a job out in the middle of nowhere teaching 2 children. As soon as she arrives she begins to experience strange dreams about a child dressed in white. The bleakness of her surroundings and the unfriendliness of the residents begin to get to her, but she is determined to stay for the whole year.

The Girl Who Died was an ok read, but I felt unable to connect with Una or any other character. I didn’t much care what happened to them and I wasn’t very keen on how it ended.

I thought this book was well written, but in the end, it wasn't one for me. Not quite sure why, perhaps I just don't like ghost stories.
So I won't be posting a review of it, since it would be unfair to give a negative one. I would read another by the same author, though.

An unusual story about an unusual place. A village almost as far from Reykjavík as you can go and a need for a teacher in the village although there are only 2 pupils attracts Una, whose had a strict upbringing but who mother has re-married after the death of her father. Ghostly goings on and unwelcoming villagers add the Una's homesickness but the disappearance of a stranger who had called at the house seeking directions lead Una on a trail of discovering village secrets

Una, takes up a position as a teacher in a small village at the end of the world. The total population of the village is 10 and they aren't exactly welcoming. It is a world apart from Rejkavik.
There are only two children to teach and time passes slowly. She meets Thor, a young bearded guy and is drawn to him, but he makes it clear that nothing can happen between them.
All through this Una has been feeling haunted. Haunted by the ghost of a young girl who used to live in the house. When her landlady is away she struggles to cope on her own and the reader gets her sense of hopelessness.
We feel Una's isolation, but geographically and physically, where she feels that she can't trust anyone in the village. All through the story there is another narrative, which is a little disconcerting to begin with, but does make sense in the end.

This one won’t be for everyone. I can see a lot of people finding this one a bit boring even but me personally, I really really enjoyed it. And I will tell you why.

First of all, I like everything I have read by the author so got this book on his name alone. I also went into the book totally blind so had no expectations of what the story may be about or how it would or wouldn’t develop. I’d advise the same if you can, not because there are lots of plot twists etc but because the book will do what it’s supposed to do best if you know little about it.

I’m not even going to give a synopsis of the story. Read the spiel on the cover if you want a taste of what it’s about.

So why do I think a lot of people may not like this? And why did I really like it?

Point 1. This is a fairly simple small story. The book is very linear in its pacing. There are very few peaks and troughs. It goes along at its linear pace telling its story. I fear there may be not enough excitement for some in this. Not enough meat on the bone per say. It is set in the middle of nowhere after all in a town with a population of 10. The book just takes its time and tells its little story without any crash bang wallop or major twists etc. I do think a lot of people might find this book not what they expected and dare I say again, a little boring.

Point 2. I loved this book because of its format. It suited the story and setting perfectly. It was brave enough to keep the reigns in and let words, not matter how mundane they seem, set the tone and the atmosphere, and for me they did it in spades. This was like another worldly fairly tale, just told with a constant metaphorical cloud hanging over the whole story, the town and its inhabitants. There wasn’t room here for crash bang wallop such was the somber mood of the world we are brought in to.

I loved all the characters here. I loved the town, the supernatural element, the reserved story telling. Most of all I loved the atmosphere of the town and therefore the book. It felt like that had to dictate everything that happened on the page for it to work and the words had to fit around this atmosphere.

I was taken away for 400 odd pages in to a small world that seemed as real and supernatural as could be. I am so happy that the tone of the book suited the tone of the town. The isolation of both the characters and the reader(I felt like I was outside looking in) is beautifully and patiently told and an experience not to be missed.

Thanks to Netgalley and Penguin Michael Joseph UK for an ARC

Ragnar is always an author I go to now. He's also an author that keeps surprising me as he pulls new styles and new ideas out of the bag with every novel he writes.
This is good. Set in a VERY remote village of Iceland, there's a teaching job advertised as being 'at the edge of the world'. Una goes to teach the only two children in the village. The villagers don't want her there. She feels hunted. There's someone in the house, her room that shouldn't be.....

I enjoyed the experience of reading this. Totally engrossed from the start. It's slow paced but there's tension and chills throughout. It builds to a very satisfying ending. Ooh that was twisty!

Highly recommended !

This was the first book I have read by this author and it certainly will not be the last. It is beautifully written, atmospheric with a wonderful sense of time and place. I relished the plot and the excellently depicted characterisations but sometimes the book dragged a little although it gave me the chance to admire the quality of Ragnar Jónasson's writing.

Una is a supply teacher in Reykjavik but her life isn’t really going anywhere. When her friend shows her an ad for a teacher’s job in the isolated village of Skalar she decides to apply. She’s successful, in fact the only candidate, and arrives in Skalar to discover that there are only two pupils she will need to teach, two girls, and that only 10 people live in the whole village. Right from the beginning Una feels a presence is the room she is boarding in and soon discovers that a young girl died there over half a century earlier. Una struggles to fit in in the village and when one of her pupils dies she feels even more of an outsider and is convinced the villagers are keeping secrets from her.

Struggled with this one to be honest. It’s an interesting enough story - an isolated village, a hint of the supernatural and a terrible tragedy - but it was very, very slow. Disappointed really as I normally race through Ragnar Jónasson’s books.

Thanks to Netgalley, Penguin Michael Joseph UK and Ragnar Jónasson for the ARC of this book in return for an honest review.

This book is the epitome of darkness and despondency.
Dark, for the underlying themes and tones that sit underneath the main story and despondent for stripping away any hope and optimism and for the frank & stark realisation that things may not always get better and people aren't always good or kind.
Nihilism aside, this is well conceived and interesting read, populated with puzzling characters and a plot that simmers away on the pot. If you can appreciate the darker things in life and a blacker portrayal of individual lives full of suspicion and deceit, then this is the book for you.
Misery loves company.

A story of mystery set in a cold and distinctly chilly Declining village

This book has some interesting twists and turns and uses a nice little writing technique tonreinforce the force of mystery. The time lines twist between two parallel stories using different texts to high light each story.

I found this story a little bit over played, the main protagonist displays feelings of feeling haunted almosr from the off and the author continually tells you what the main character is thinking.
I personally couldn’t enjoy the story although the main concepts were great.
Not one I’d recommend unfortunately

3.5/5

"the world is difficult, dangerous and unfair enough without needing to believe in ghosts and monsters."


Apparently, Ragnar Jónasson is climbing the ranks to become an auto-buy author for me. I first discovered his writing when I was sent an ARC of the third book in the Hidden Iceland series, The Mist. I genuinely enjoyed that series and, ever since, I have wanted to read more from him. The story of The Girl Who Died feels somewhat different from Jónasson's usual writing, but somehow it's so easy to find his voice throughout the narrative. It's unusual and unexpected, but it's very much on-brand.

One of Jónasson's strongest suits is his ability to craft characters who exist beyond the page. He makes you love characters like they're your family, hate them like they've betrayed you, suspect them as though it was, in fact, your daughter who was killed. There's always so much intensity to the writing that makes you feel as though you are the protagonist yourself, feeling their emotions and solving their mysteries. Though this isn't Jónasson's typical detective thriller, there is nonetheless a perfectly flawed detective figure in Una, who works to uncover the mysteries of the ghost hiding in her flat and perhaps the metaphorical ghost haunting the small village of Skálar on Langanes.

There were times around the middle where it felt a little bit too long for my liking. That being said, I truly don't know what I would have removed as it all felt very relevant to the story. Perhaps that means I would have enjoyed the book more if the suspense had come sooner and had been interspersed throughout the story, rather than suddenly being amplified around the halfway point. I would also recommend that readers don't go into this expecting the story to be about a specific character - I honestly didn't think the title was relevant until the 95% mark, at which point everything started to tie together and truly make more sense to me.

Overall, I enjoyed this and I honestly will continue buying and reading Jónasson's books. His writing is something familiar to me and I genuinely love becoming engrossed in his work.

Content warnings: adultery, alcoholism, death of a child, death of a father, death by liver failure, suicide, poisoning, drugging.

Thank you to Netgalley, Ragnar Jónasson and Michael Joseph for providing me with an e-arc in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.

As is expected from a writer of this quality, a totally immersive story, atmospheric and claustrophobic producing an atmosphere where anything can be expected. The story builds and builds leaving us, the readers, completely in the dark as to what is happening here. Somewhere around the middle I did find myself feeling that everything has stalled, however this could have been my mood swing and not that of the story. However This soon passed and I had to keep reading to the finale.Then neatly and totally unexpectedly everything comes together in a way that makes the unbelievably completely believable. Thank you Netgalley, publisher and author for the opportunity to read this in exchange for an honest review

I love Ragnar Jonasson's writing after only finding him last year, his nordic noir style thrillers keep you constantly assessing and reassessing the culprit of the death centred around the plot.

However, this felt different from the other books I have read, this was based on the view of a character entering an extremely small and isolated community in Iceland to teach their 2 resident children. What follows begins to feel like a ghost story, which it is of sorts, but there is alot more than meets the eye going on in this community.

The death of the girl triggers a spiral of events which cause you as the reader to change your perspective of the limited characters and their behaviours following these events.

Although I really enjoyed the book and both the ghost story and the death are neatly explained and tied up for us, I feel we could have had more exploration into the presence and reason for the ghost.

I also felt somewhat frustrated that the narrative of the women in prison which was interesting, seemed to fall short and almost feel unnecessary in the progress of the story which is the one and only reason I gave it 4 starts.

Thank you to netgalley, the publisher and Ragnar for the opportunity to review this book and I greatly look forward to the next one.