An entertaining, and moody dive into the world of the Danish social state. Ella Nygaard has suffered from PSTD since childhood when her mother was murdered and her father sent off to prison. Now at 27, she and her son, age 11, live on government handouts because she suffers from sudden and debilitating panic attacks which leave her unable to function for hours at a time and land her in hospital. Upon release she learns that her son was sent to live with foster parents. In desperation, Ella grabs Alex and runs to her Grandmother’s seaside ramshackle cottage in sparsely populated North Denmark. Once there, Ella begins to recall the actual events of her mother’s death and discover that danger still lurks for her and her son. A dark, nourish thriller that is certain to satisfy fans of Scandinavian mysteries.

This is not a light summer read, but rather an intense character study into a flawed but potentially redeemable woman. Ella is not a particularly likeable character, but you find yourself rooting for her for the sake of her son and the person she could have been. When her son is taken into foster care, Ella decides to kidnap him and run to the town she grew up in. There, Ella runs headlong into her past. Ella cannot remember anything from her childhood before her mother's murder when she was seven. Ella's only chance to heal herself of the crippling panic attacks she suffers is to face her past and figure out what really happened that night. While the mystery is not too difficult to figure out, the suspense comes from watching Ella's journey through her own past and her attempts to discover the truth.

I wanted to fall deeply into this novel, but I didn't and couldn't.

You know how you just struggle to get on with some books - that was this book for me. Maybe it was my mood when reading it but never really 'grabbed me', so I failed to really engage.

Ella is a mess, This story is so engrossing and different. I was longing for this story, so glad I picked it up. No regrets.

At times confusing, so many people with different names. But keep reading it all comes together in the end.

Could not get into this one. Characters feel so dumpy and the writing, rushed.

Ella Nygaard has suffered from PSTD since childhood when her mother was murdered and her father sent off to prison. At 27, she has a son, Alex, age 11, but they live on government handouts because Ella suffers from sudden and debilitating panic attacks which leave her unable to function for hours at a time. During the latest attack, Ella is hospitalized and upon her release she learns that Alex has been sent to live with foster parents. Desperate, Ella kidnaps Alex and runs to her Grandmother’s seaside ramshackle cottage in sparsely populated North Denmark. Here, Ella will begin to recall the actual events of her mother’s death and discover that danger still lurks for her and her son. A dark, nourish thriller that is certain to satisfy fans of Scandinavian mysteries.

Didn't finish this one -- a little too dark for my tastes. I should have known by the title.

Ella Nygaard, is suffering from post traumatic distress, and memory loss, after a childhood in care, because her father murdered her mother when she was only 7 years old. Still in the ‘system’, whilst being monitored as an unfit mother to Alex, her son, Ella struggles with life, but loves her son unconditionally, and tries to keep him with her, despite the state placing him in foster care.
Removing Alex from foster care, Ella decides to run away with him to her childhood home, to try and sort out her life. From here the novel explores what really happened in Ella’s childhood, and what she begins to remember. I did guess who the culprit of the murder was, but ultimately, it doesn’t detract from the main story, which is how Ella deals with her childhood trauma, and the damage it has caused.
This novel is rather dark, and although it is a compelling story, I did find it rather a slow burn. However, it does reward your patience, if you stick with it, and you are definitely rooting for Ella and Alex throughout.

This page turner kept me up late. I really enjoyed the plot and would recommend this.

Book was archived before I read it even though no archive date was set, so no comments

Broken lives, broken people. Ella has been under state care since the age of seven when her father killed her mother. She was there, but remembers nothing of that time, and little from the time before. Her body though, does remember and she has severe PTSD, panic attacks that are crippling. She has a son now, a son she loves but is unable to handle a job, so, she receives money from the social services available. She drinks too much and is under the supervision of a social worker. When a severe attack hospitalizes her, the social services take her son, a son she recovers and then runs back to the town she is from. There she begins to gain control of her life, she also begins to remember, pieces here and there.

There was something about the atmosphere in this novel that I found captivating. Melancholy and almost haunting, this story is well written and well plotted. Although it is easy to dislike Ella and the things she does, I found myself rooting for her and her son, Alex. Suspenseful without being horrible graphic, was quite caught up in the story and once again did not guess the outcome.

ARC from Netgalley.

I so wanted to love this book, The Boy in the Suitcase is a book I loved to bits, I liked it because it was a different kind of mystery, one where I was guessing all the time, where I really liked the characters and where I really connected with the story. With this one though, I’ve just become really tired of it, I feel like I’m reading a puzzle with a bunch of missing pieces, but with so many missing pieces I can’t even get the edges done, let alone fill in the middle bits. At times the pace is great and the story races along but at others, I feel like I’m reading a scene I’ve already read.

The book was quite difficult to read because the formatting hadn’t been completed in any way, lots of running words together, odd pagination and it was a long way from fully formed, but that doesn’t usually worry me, this time because of the slow pace I found that it really did make it hard to read.

Thanks to Netgalley for giving me access to this, I’m sorry I didn’t love it more.

A page turning master piece. I had read books by this author before, but I think this is the best so far. It will not disappoiont

What My Body Remembers troubled me. I hope it was just the translation, but similes like, "she stuck out like a hair on a porn star's pussy" really put me off. I can see how this book would appeal to some, but after the protagonist shoved a dirty baby diaper into another character's mouth, I didn't think I could take anymore.

Ella was just seven when her father killed her mother, twenty years on, she still suffers from debilitating PTSD. When one episode lands her in a psych ward, authorities place her son in foster care. Ella, who spent most of her young life in the system doesn't want her son facing the same horrors, so she kidnaps him. She and her son escape to her grandmother's abandoned house in an oceanside town in Denmark where she begins to remember what happened the night her mother was killed. This is a first class example of Nordic noir. Loved it