I was hooked from the moment that I read the blurb and I really wanted to like this book but unfortunately it just wasn’t for me. I felt no connection to Sara whatsoever and she often came across as being emotionless in my opinion. The best thing about this book was definitely Gundersen because he was such an intriguing character and I feel like he really stole the spotlight.

There were some twists that I never saw coming but they weren’t oh wow moments for me.

Moody, atmospheric and intelligent Norwegian thriller. The author writes beautifully and subtlety leading to an obvious but so unobvious denouement.

I read this in 2 days racing to the finish line to find out who, what and how.

Thank you to @quercusbooks NetGalley and @helene.flood For my gifted copy

Thank you to Netgalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I had mixed feelings about this book, a little slow in places. I found the unreliable narrator a little boring. The story itself was ok. Three stars.

4.5 stars rounded up. I love the premise of this book and the intrigue throughout. I love the unreliable narrator trope and this book was perfect for it.

There were a few twists which I part guessed which did not detract from my enjoyment. I found that the different elements of this book worked really well together and there were enough clues scattered throughout that when the twists were revealed I could see how they had been set up without it making them obvious.

I loved the main character and the way the mystery unfolded and would definitely read more by this author.

Wow what a head turner a real psychological thriller. The Therapist really plays with your head will definitely read more by this author

The therapist is the one who listens, who understands, who knows what steps to take next, who can help you make sense of it all. But what if the therapist themselves is stuck? Who helps them? That's the quandary facing Sara when her husband does not show up to his weekend away with his friends. Thanks to MacLehose Press and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

There is a misunderstanding, I think, that therapy is a fix-all, cure-all kind of enterprise. That you can enter your therapist's office and that after speaking to them you will be free, you will be fixed. Sadly, it usually isn't that easy. Your mental health requires consistent work, finding healthy coping mechanisms, knowing your boundaries and accepting set backs. Therapists often pop up in thrillers to provide a sounding board for a struggling main character, someone who can set them back on the right path and help them solve whatever trauma is at the root of their issues. (Or, of course, the other option, the therapist as the villain!) In The Therapist it is actually the therapist who needs a sounding board, who is beginning to question her own memories and actions, who isn't sure what is and isn't real. It is a great reversal and it means Flood gives us a protagonist who has the language for her problems, but no answers. Add a solid Nordic Noir atmosphere and you have yourself a gripping novel!

Sara and Sigurd are trying to make it work, having both just started working independently and attempting to fix up the family house. It's all in a bit of disarray but there is hope there. Until Sigurd goes missing and everyone starts asking questions. How happy was their marriage? Was that hope really there or did Sara imagine it? And where is Sigurd? As Sara deals with his absence, the police's questions and her complicated relationship with her family and her in-laws, she begins to unravel. Told in a first-person narrative, with the occasional flashback to Sara's past, we are with her at every step of the way. This means we don't know what the police is thinking, what their leads are, what Sigurd's mother is thinking, or how Sara's family feels about her changing mood. This is a highly isolating and slightly paranoid experience which, I think, is exactly the way Helene Flood wants us to feel. At the end, when the tension ramps up and Sara begins to find answers it is almost overwhelming, but no less satisfying.

Helene Flood is a great author, someone who can describe late night terrors and quiet moment of contemplation. While already a household name within Norway, this was my first taste of her writing. I loved the internality of it, the way she manages to make the reader feel the isolation, paranoia and sadness of Sara's position. The Therapist is an introspective novel. While there a definitely moments of action and tension, a lot of the latter takes place within Sara herself. It is her mind that is becoming more and more fragile and as the reader you follow her downward step by step. This might feel slow to some readers who are used to "higher stakes" plots, I reveled in it. Allison McCullough does a great job at maintaining the starkness of the language and the building tension and isolation. I will definitely be keeping an eye out for more of Flood's books once they make it into translation.

The Therapist is an introspective thriller, a Nordic Noir that will keep you in suspense until the very end. I have definitely been won over and scenes from the novel, that ending!, kept running through my mind for weeks after reading it.

The Therapist
Helene Flood
July 8 2021
Loved it it’s a great thriller that plays with you mind I mean I loved learning about the stories of these people woh they were some twisted scenes in this story that made you cringe. Every page a turn over a great thriller got my mind working 💜

Sara, who works as a therapist, and her architect husband Sigurd have a seemingly normal relationship. Sigurd is planning to spend a weekend away in a cabin with his friends and leaves an answerphone message for Sara that morning to let her know he has arrived safely. A few hours later, Sara receives a call from his friends to say that he never turned up. As the police investigate Sigurd’s disappearance, Sara feels like her life is falling apart – under suspicion from the detective in charge of the case and at the same time, convinced that someone has been inside her house. She begins to question everything including her own sanity – was her husband really who she thought he was and why would he lie to her?

The Therapist is translated from Norwegian but this isn’t your typical Nordic Noir. The author, Helene Flood is a psychologist and this definitely shines through in this tense and frustrating domestic thriller. Her background gives a sense of realness to the story and all of the details from both Sara’s work with troubled teenagers and the psychological toll the police investigation takes on her are very believable.

I love stories with an unreliable narrator - Sara is the perfect example of someone you desperately want to believe, but as the flashbacks gradually reveal more about the state of her relationship with her husband and her own mental wellbeing, her credibility is seriously questioned.

The Therapist is not a fast-paced thriller but the atmosphere is perfect for this type of novel. Intense and creepy, the details learned in the flashbacks slowly piece together the story until all is revealed in a conclusion that I didn’t see coming. A really interesting take on a psychological thriller, concentrating on the emotional impact of a destructive relationship and the effect this has on everyone involved. An impressive debut, I am very much looking forward to the author’s second novel next year.

Thanks to NetGalley for the chance to read and review an ARC.

Sara is a therapist living with her husband Sigurd in a work in progress house. They are like any other couples who sometimes argue, but all in all nothing out of the extraordinary. Until Sigurd disappearance starts unveiling secrets and lies.

Since Sigurd has left early on a morning and not come back, Sara feels watched and has noticed things moving around the house. Is Sara safe?

Such a great psychological thriller, the story moves at quite a fast pace and I couldn't figure out the plot. A very great read.

Thank you Netgalley and Quercus Books for my free digital copy in exchange of a honest review.

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and the author for allowing me this ARC!!

I really enjoyed this book, so thought provoking and I really couldn’t guess the ending!

I believe this book was a really good read and would recommend it to anyone.

When Sara's husband Sigurd goes away for the weekend she is pleased that he is taking a well deserved break.
Since moving home and both setting up their own business Sara as a psychological therapist life has been hectic to say the least.
Sara only has three clients to see on Friday and has the rest of the weekend to herself.
Whilst Sara is with one of her Sigurd leaves her a voicemail to say he has arrived safely and will call again later.
But when she takes a phone call from one of Sigurd's friends asking where he is as he hasn't arrived Sara starts to panic.
Also strange things start to happen around their new home things going missing but later turn up and the front door being open but she knows she locked it.
The novel gives you flashbacks to Sara and Sigurd's life and Sara's childhood.
It does take awhile to get into the book as its a bit of a slow burner, having said that I thoroughly enjoyed it.

A brilliant domestic thriller that keeps you guessing. I find it hard to love a book when you don't warm to any of the characters, and although Sara frustrated me endlessly, I was pretty invested.

My thanks to Quercus Books MacLehose Press for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘The Therapist’ by Helene Flood in exchange for an honest review. This novel was originally published in Norway, 2019 and was translated from the Norwegian by Alison McCullough. I was invited to take part in its blog tour on 8 July, its hardback publication date.

With novels that are domestic noirs/psychological thrillers I feel that they are best read ‘cold’, so I will only touch on the novel’s premise.

Sara Lathus is a therapist whose practice focuses upon troubled young adults, meeting with them at her home office. This particular Friday her architect husband, Sigurd, has gone away with two friends for the weekend. Sara picks up a voicemail from him saying that he has arrived safely at the holiday cabin. Yet in the early evening she receives a call from one of his friends asking if Sigurd was there as he hadn’t arrived. So where is he?

Sara is naturally worried and as the hours pass her anxiety grows. After listening to the message a number of times, she deletes it in frustration. She makes a report to the police the next day though she feels as though they brush her off. However, on Sunday evening two police officers are at her door with devastating news. Oh, and deleting that message turns out to have been not such a great idea. No further details to avoid spoilers.

Helene Flood is herself a psychologist and as such ‘The Therapist’ is strongly grounded in psychology, including Sara’s sessions with her clients and her thoughts about them.

This was quite an intense novel with the majority told in the first person by Sara with flashbacks to earlier events that presents a more complete picture of their marriage. Its conclusion came as quite a revelation.

‘The Therapist’ is not a flashy thriller but one that unfolds at a slow, measured pace, which is quite typical of Scandinavian Noir.

Overall, I found this a fascinating novel. It was an assured debut and I certainly will look forward to reading her second novel,currently set for publication of its English edition in the summer of 2022.

Sara is living with her architect husband Sigurd in a house that is being renovated though that seems to have come to a halt as they run out of money and time. The house is a great metaphor for the owners, the disruption and mess reflects their relationship together. One day Sara gets a call from Sigard's friends wondering where he is as he hasnt arrived for their weekend away, A few hours earlier Sara had received a voicemail from him claiming hed arrived and was drinking with his pals. Where is he? Why has he lied? Sara can get no answer from his phone and immediately feels uneasy.
This a really tense thriller, strange things keep happening in the house like missing items from the fridge, items appearing and disappearing, a felling of being watched. Sara's mental state creates a very tense atmosphere as a reader your unsure whether to believe her as a narrator. I really enjoyed this novel and was glad that I had worked out the culprit after a few red herrings.
Thank you to Netgalley for an advanced copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review.

I was really quite excited to read this book, the name and the cover enticed me in and then the synopsis made sure I wanted to start this. Boy was I wrong. I usually try and focus on what I like in a book but there are absolutely no redeeming qualities. The author I think thinks she is writing for psychologists only as portions of the book are written in a way that regular people like myself struggle to find out what she's meaning. The character of Sara is just irritating, everything that is happening to her and she doesn't seem bothered one bit, not to mention some of the things she does it's like she hasn't the brain cells she was born with with. There were large passages I had to skim past it was just so dull, did we really need a description of the inside and outside of her father's house? I mean it was almost an entire chapter. And then the twist at the end would have been good if it didn't just end abruptly, no definite answer on whether her thoughts were true; also I had to read through so much dull nonsense that by the end I just didn't care. I was really excited to read my first Norwegian book but this wasn't it.

*Thanks to NetGalley, Quercus Books and Helene Flood for the copy of this book. All views are my own.*

The Therapist of the title is Sara whose husband Sigurd walks out of home one morning never to return. He has told Sara he is spending the weekend with friends but he never arrives and is later found murdered.

This is a slow moving story interspersed with Sara's work with young people in her practice. I enjoyed it as an easy read but it didn't grab me as much as I expected a Nordic Noir would. Thanks to Netgalley and Quercus for the opportunity to read and review The Therapist.

Thank you to NetGalley and Quercus Books for the opportunity to read and review an ARC of The Therapist by Helene Flood.

Sara is a Psychologist and Sigurd is an architect, and they are living in a house that has been gifted to them by Sigurd’s mother when her father (Sigurd’s grandfather died). Needing a great deal of renovation, the house is in a bit of a state, to say the least, but work has halted due to lack of funds and because Sigurd is so busy at work. One morning Sigurd kisses Sara goodbye and heads off for a weekend away with his friends...never to return!

The novel follows the police investigation, which arises after Sigurd’s disappearance and we become involved with Sara’s life as she becomes paranoid that someone is breaking into her house and following her as she tries to continue with her life. Throughout the story, we are introduced to Sara’s sister Annika, who is there for her every step of the way, and their father, who appears to be somewhat of a mysterious academic!

Helene Flood included many tiny sub-sections to the story which hardly seemed relevant at the time of reading but all came together as the novel progressed as we begin to understand the whys, where’s and what-ifs.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Therapist, the author kept me guessing right until the end, and there were so many plot twists I wasn’t sure what would come next.

As a thriller, The Therapist isn’t the fastest paced book I’ve read, but it was far from boring, keeping me entertained from beginning to end.

ARC REVIEW.
2 stars.

Unfortunately the word I’d use to describe this book is dull.
The first 20% of the book is irrelevant details of the protagonists therapy sessions with her clients.
We then discover that her husband has been murdered and she goes on to try to understand why. But NOTHING HAPPENS. It’s just her walking around her house and thinking there’s an intruder.

However, there’s a couple of twists at the end that I did really enjoy but they weren’t enough for me to rate this book more than 2 stars.

Anyone expecting a fast-paced thriller will be disappointed in this novel. It is, instead, a study of a woman – the therapist of the title – coming to terms with the fact that her husband has been murdered.

Sara and Sigurd, a young childless married couple, live in the old family house they inherited. It's a ramshackle old place which Sigurd, and architect is slowly renovating, but lack of funds hinders the progress. Sara works as a therapist from her office over the garage. Her clients are teenagers suffering, mainly, from typical teenage problems. One evening she gets a voicemail from Sigurd confirming his arrival at the cottage where he is to meet a couple of friends. A few hours later one of those friends calls to say he hasn't arrived.

The police after initial disinterest eventually become involved but the relationship between Sara and Gundersen, the one handling the case, is strained as she struggles to convey how frightened she is. She's convinced someone is watching her, that someone has broken into the house.

There is a certain amount of hopping back and forth as Sara talks about her childhood and her relationship with her emotionally distant father, ut it's easy enough to follow, and gives depth to the story.

I really enjoyed the author's writing style, the way she gets inside Sara's head. I thought I'd worked out WhoDunnit a couple of times, but have to admit I was wrong.

Fast paced this is not, but intriguing, interesting and well written it most certainly is. I hope Ms Flood writes more.

Sara, a thirty-year-old psychologist, runs a private studio for problematic young people in the new big house that she is renovating together with her husband Sigurd, an ambitious architect who is always overworked. One day, after leaving his wife a phone message in which she says she joined a couple of friends for a short vacation, Sigurd disappears into thin air. Friends confirm that they were waiting for him but that he never made it to his destination. Where did it go? Why did he lie? Sara has no idea what happened and, as the hours go by, anger begins to turn into fear. When the police finally take an interest in her disappearance, she becomes one of her prime suspects because she deleted her husband's voicemail too quickly. Sara, therefore, finds herself alone in the dream house that has remained unfinished, where every room becomes less and less hospitable and more and more disturbing, even the study where she receives patients. But is she really alone?

In fact, she cannot shake off the sensation of being observed, she is convinced that the objects disappear and mysteriously reappear and that she hears footsteps in the attic during the night. Is this really so or is she losing her mind? As terrible truths come to light, Sara finds it increasingly difficult to manage her life and thoughts. Can she trust her memory of her? Will she, an expert in interpreting the emotions and intentions of others, be able to really look inside herself? And where can she consider herself truly safe? A compulsive and intelligent piece of crime fiction, The Therapist is an effective and unpredictable thriller about restraint, wrong choices and destructive self-esteem. A story where nothing is what it seems. It combines a frankly contemporary and realistic environment with haunting suspense and a disturbing view of our innermost facets, both in family life and in relationships.

This a chilling psychological thriller that dissects a young couple's relationship, in which emotions play the main role. Nominated for the Norwegian Bookseller's Prize in 2019, it features a cast of all-female protagonists and takes place in the city of Oslo. In an approach totally different from that of her Nordic counterparts, but equally brilliant, the young author shows great talent for managing both the plot and the quality of the writing. It is a deeply incised account of the fragility of the human mind in times of need, and of all that we are prepared to do to protect our loved ones. Helene Flood, a Norwegian psychologist who specialises in shame, violence and guilt, has written a poignant thriller about the destructive emotions in a relationship and the impact of family heritage on the choices we make as adults. Highly recommended.