Reeling from her father's death and ready for a change, Una accepts a teaching job at Skylar in Iceland's far north. Skylar is a insular fishing community on an isolated pennisula with only ten inhabitants and Una's class consists of two little girls. Una is soon daunted by the cold, gray days and the brooding, unwelcoming atmosphere. One night she sees a little girl at the end of her bed and learns of a 60 year old crime. An unexpected visitor goes missing, and Una uncovers hints of other misdeeds. The village has secrets and holds them close. The author has a way with atmosphere playing off the location and climate to slowly darken the mood of each scene making the story line increasingly eerie and foreboding. Although unlikeable, the characters are well fleshed out and realistic. A ghost story embedded in a crime novel is an unusual premise and it was done well.. It did not detract from the main story and connected past and present crimes. I enjoy mysteries with a hint of paranormal and and I found this an engaging and evocative read

3.75 chilling stars

This might just be my first Icelandic noir, but I’ve read a lot of Nordic noir and this one fit right in! Iceland is one of my next vacation stops so this was a good one to read to get ready.

Very atmospheric and set truly in the middle of nowhere! Just 10 residents in the small fishing town of Skalar. Una is headed there from Reykjavik after spotting an ad requesting a teacher. She has a very small class, just two girls to teach. The job comes with an apartment, so she might finally be able to save some money. She agrees to spend the winter there teaching the girls.

Una does not receive the warmest of welcomes from the villagers and always seems to be on the outside looking in. In this bleak setting, it’s easy to fall back on a glass of wine or two. She also didn’t know that her room is haunted by the ghost of the small girl who used to live in the house.

The secrets begin piling up and Una wonders if it’s time to leave Skalar. She has met an intriguing man, but there are too many strange events going on to make her want to stay. This one made me feel the chill of remote Iceland. I wasn’t quite sure how this one would turn out for Una!

I enjoyed this eerie tale, and I would definitely read more from this author.

Ragnar Jónasson’s latest mystery includes one of the best hooks I’ve read recently, although, curiously, it is not the book’s opening line: “Teacher wanted at the edge of the world.” Feeling adrift in her life in Reykjavik, Iceland, Una applies for and then accepts a teaching position to work with two students in the isolated village of Skálar which consists of about ten people. Upon arrival, Una rather quickly revises any idyllic notions she had of the smallest of small-town living. The repeated hauntings of a young girl singing a lullaby and playing the piano in the middle of the night within Una’s apartment only enhance the town’s grim winter atmosphere. Meanwhile, as Una tries to determine if these hauntings are real or simply nightmares, Jónasson interweaves her story with first-person accounts of a murder and wrongful conviction that initially has no relationship to the town of Skálar.

Jónasson is a skilled writer who manages to convey nuance without overwriting or slowing his narrative’s pace. I felt immersed in the story very quickly despite never having been anyplace like Skálar, or even Iceland for that matter. Una’s backstory and upbringing, although parsed out throughout the course of the novel, portrayed a complicated character with conflicting motivations and impulses that made her an interesting protagonist to follow. In addition to his characters, Jónasson’s setting is also unique among so many metropolitan mysteries complete with an experienced police detective. According to the author’s note accompanying my Net Galley copy, Skálar is a real place, although it was abandoned several decades before the 1980s setting of The Girl Who Died. The town provides an ideal location for a Gothic mystery with so many layers of history waiting to be excavated. In fact, the remote setting paired with the child ghost and Una’s teaching position was all reminiscent of Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw. Ultimately, though, Jónasson fails to fully capitalize on this environment. Just as the novel’s various strands come together the book is over, and it’s a credit to the writing that I wanted The Girl Who Died to continue. Without revealing any plot points, I wished Jónasson had written further about the ramifications of the various mysteries he unravels. He sets up so ably the struggle to join a community but then doesn’t really explore the cost of belonging once a character like Una joins such an exclusive group as the town of Skálar.

Even with these criticisms, I look forward to reading more of Jónasson’s work, particularly the Hulda series which received excellent reviews. If you’re not yet ready to travel this summer, The Girl Who Died would be a wonderful escape into a completely different physical and psychological landscape.

I went into the book totally blind only because of the author. It's Ragnar Jonasson and if someone knows to tell a tale it's him. I had no idea of the story and that was the best because I loved how the story flowed and panned out.
This is set in the 1980's and is a dark, atmospheric, unsettling slow burn with supernatural elements at its best.
30-year-old Una is struggling and feeling at a low point in her life. It is 1986, in Reykjavik, where the suicide of her father, the remarriage of her mother, the difficulties in trying to get a job has her in desperation responding to an advertisement for a teacher in a remote of the Icelandic coast.
She finds herself lodging in a creepy attic, teaching 2 girls. With time on her hands, Una feels very lonely and isolated as the remoteness of the place and the unfriendliness of the people make her feel alone.
Una starts hearing piano music and the sounds of a singing child, in the night but is she imagining it? There was a murder that took place years ago but how does it all tie up now?

I loved the characters including the remote village with its population of 10 which lent to being an integral part of the story and added to the creepy vibe.

It's a slow burn but so well written that you just suck into the world of Skalar and Una.

Thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for sending a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I love Nordic Noir and I have been getting into ghost or paranormal stories recently, but this just was alittle disappointing. I had heard such good things about this author, but I felt like the atmosphere needed in a ghost story to really creep me out and get me on the edge of my seat was not there. The story kind of went off the rails and felt really forced at the end. I didn’t believe in any of the relationships and all the characters were angry and mysterious but it didn’t help to make the atmosphere any more foreboding. Regretfully, I think I’ll have to give this only 3 stars.

Please don't be too mad at me, fellow thriller lovers, but this book just fell flat. I've heard so many glowing reviews of Ragnar Jónasson and his Nordic Noir, but this new standalone didn't live up to the hype.

The good: It was wonderfully atmospheric. The main character, Una, takes a job teaching in a tiny (only 10 people!) village at the edge of a rugged peninsula in Iceland. Skálar - and the people who live there - are dark, desolate, isolated, and icy. Just thinking about it gives me shivers!

The not good: Una is whiny and off putting. She drinks too much and justifies it because she's so lonely and bored - but wtf did you expect moving to a village of 10 people at the edge of the world?! There's a subplot that is narrated by a different woman, that very, very loosely ties into the main plot at the end, and seemed only to be included for a false sense of drama. Una has her own subplot that is also more drama than substance. There's a ghost, but she's more comforting than scary, and the ghost's story is just completely unbelievable. *Sigh*

While this one wasn't for me, I do promise to give another one of Jónasson's books a try!

I did it! I finally read a book by Ragnar Jónasson! I will admit that this author has been on my radar for quite a while now, but I hadn't gotten around to reading anything by him. The Girl Who Died: A Novel is a little bit supernatural, a little creepy, and VERY claustrophobic. I was a big fan of the ghost aspect although I could have taken a lot more of it, and I especially liked the mystery of Skálar's past. It becomes evident fairly quickly that the townspeople are keeping things from Una, and I loved that she was sleuthing away trying to figure out what was going on. I think this is actually my first time reading a book set in Iceland, and the isolated village made for a very ominous and atmospheric setting. There is one other viewpoint besides Una, but I don't want to give anything away, so I won't say who it is, but I really liked the mix of the two for the sake of the plot.

I listened to the audiobook of The Girl Who Died and quite enjoyed it. The narrator is Amanda Redman who I've never listened to before, and she did a fantastic job. This is a slow burn mystery as well, so I'm happy I did the audio which really helped with the pacing. I basically listened to the whole thing in one sitting, and while I wouldn't call it SUPER twisty, it still has some great twists, and I didn't suspect the end even a little bit. I was hoping to be more creeped out by the ghosts, but I found that to be a really small part of the actual plot and you can definitely leave the lights off for this one. I thought the translation was great which to me can really make or break a translated novel, and I loved this taste I got of Jónasson's writing! I will be looking forward to reading more from him very soon.

I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Teacher wanted at the edge of the world...
Substitute teacher, Una, responds to an ad proclaiming a teaching position in a remote Icelandic village with only ten inhabitants. When she arrives in the tiny insular town of Skalar she soon wonders if she made a mistake. The villagers are standoffish. Even her employer, a woman named Salka, is guarded. Worse, her accommodations are haunted. At least if Una's recurring nightmares of a little girl singing a plaintive lullaby are anything to go by. And thus starts a psychological thriller that twists and turns through local legend and old murder that draws Una in and slowly ratchets up the tension until the plot strands weave together in a memorable climax.
The Girl Who Died might be Ragnar Jonasson's best work yet. A chilling and atmospheric page-turner that perfectly captures the solitude and isolation of a small Icelandic village-which he deftly makes a character in its own right. Interspersed with passages relating to a double murder, and the woman accused of the crime, A gripping, haunting book that is sure to keep you up at night!

Special thanks to St. Martin's Press, Minotaur Books and Goodreads for the ARC of this book.

This book is about Una. In a is living a pretty nonexistent life. Unemployed, alone, she definitely needs a change. The best thing for her, though, is to start over somewhere else, and that place is a town in Iceland, very small population. Put it this way, she has two students, a 7 and 9 yr old, and she is living in an attic, that's spooky.

In a falls for a man here too, but she's been having dreams, and not good ones. She can't figure out why she keeps dreaming of a small child, but what she finds out from these dreams is scary, and just who exactly is the child?:

I give this book a 3.4 so I'll bump it up a notch bc I did like to hear about Iceland! Decent story.

Thank you to NetGalley, Ragnar Jonasson and St Martin's Press for the free e-book in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoy Jonasson's novels with the dark and glum Icelandic atmosphere, and this one was no different. It wasn't my favorite of his, but I was a sucker for the Ari Thor novels (which I highly recommend). But this one was enjoyable and a really quick read with easy to cruise through, short chapters. I loved the small town atmosphere and how untrusting they are of new residents. I also really enjoyed the main character and how different she was from the other residents. I really didn't see the few plot twists in the ending and how twisted it was. It was really unique and I overall would recommend this one to any fans of Nordic Noir.

Published in Iceland in 2018; published in translation by Minotaur Books on May 4, 2021

Multiple mysteries intersect in The Girl Who Died. What happened to the little girl who seems to be haunting the house where Una is staying? What caused the death of another little girl decades later? Why is Thór, despite his obvious attraction to Una, resisting any kind of relationship with her? Why is a woman serving time in prison for a murder she didn’t commit? Why is an entire village lying about seeing a man who appeared in the village after he vanished from Reykjavik? Why does nearly everyone in the village want Una to leave?

Una begins the novel in Reykjavik, where circumstances have conspired to make her unhappy. A friend shows her a notice for a teaching position in the remote fishing village of Skálar. Una applies and, by virtue of being the only applicant, is hired. The village only has two children, two girls who are not far apart in age. As part of Una’s compensation, she’s given an attic room in the house where one of the girls lives with her mother.

Arriving at the village after a long day of driving, Una finds the place where she’ll be staying. (It’s the first house she sees, but there aren’t many houses in a village that only has about ten residents.) As she approaches the front door, Una sees a child dressed in white peering at her from the window. She assumes the child is Edda, the child who lives in the house, but when she introduces herself, Edda denies having seen her from the window. We later learn that the villagers regard the house as haunted by the spirit of a girl who died decades earlier under circumstances that nobody wants to share with Una.

Much of the story develops Una’s sense of being an outsider. Apart from Edda’s mother, who insisted that the two village children needed a proper education, nobody wants Una to stay. Una reacts to her ostracization by drinking a bottle of wine most nights, which the village gossips — meaning nearly every villager — soon notice. One of the few villagers who is friendly to Una is Thór, a single man who lives in a platonic relationship with a woman. He makes Una feel even more lonely by politely resisting her advances for reasons he refuses to disclose.

Against that background, a plot gains ground when a man appears in the village. He tells Una he is looking for a particular residence where he heard he might be able to rent a room for the night. Days later, after Una learns that someone resembling the man has been reported missing from Reykjavik, she wonders why everyone in the village is denying knowledge of the man’s existence.

Compounding the mystery are chapters told from the perspective of a young woman in prison. She and two other people were convicted of murdering two victims whose bodies were never found. She confessed to the crime after the police convinced her of her guilt, but she has no memory of committing the murder. The book is nearing its end before we learn how the apparently innocent woman fits in with the other plot elements.

The notice for the teaching job describes the village’s location as “the end of the world.” It seems that way to Una. Her sense of isolation, loneliness, and self-doubt is amplified by the bleakness of the landscape in which Ragnar Jónasson set the story. The atmosphere gives the novel an eerie feeling, while Una’s reaction to living at the end of the world makes her a sympathetic character.

The Girl Who Died blends a multifaceted mystery plot with elements of the supernatural. I’m not a big fan of the supernatural, but whether the ghost is real or the byproduct of Una’s anxiety, perhaps combined with her alcohol consumption, is ambiguous for much of the novel. The sense of living in a haunted place does add to Una’s distress, so the ghost, real or imagined, contributes to the story. A reader may need to suspend belief in the supernatural to appreciate the last brief chapters.

The story raises intriguing moral issues that I can’t discuss without revealing the novel’s secrets. Doing the right thing for one person will harm another person, creating the kind of a moral dilemma that makes the reader think about how the reader might respond to the same situation. Whether Una makes the right choice is certainly open to debate, but I regard that as a good thing. A surprising conclusion resolves the story elements in way that is true to the novel’s macabre tone. I’ve only read a few of Jónasson’s novels, but I’ve read enough to know that he’s a skilled mystery writer.

RECOMMENDED

This was an amazing book: spooky, yet realistic. The writing was excellent, interesting, and had a nicely linear timeline which I very much appreciated. The setting, while spooky, was cozy. The setting is a village of just ten people and we get to meet and come to know every one of them. The main character struggles with mental health, which is something I think many can relate to. The reader can relate to her feelings of loneliness and abandonment and her traumatic experience. There were two stories (a “main” and a “sideline”), and at first I wasn’t sure how the two would come together, but it was revealed to be a nice, conclusive, satisfying connection. This book had it all: romantic, thrilling, spooky, and icy vibes. The translation was also amazing; kudos to the translator for keeping the magic of the story alive as well as the writing, and not allowing the beautiful words or the story to become muddled in translation.

My first book by this Author and it did not disappoint.
While I'm not normally a fan of the supernatural, this supernatural thriller was a great read.
A slow building story that takes place in an interesting town with characters that appear strange to outsiders and a protagonist that you can't help but root for.
Thank you to Netgalley, St. Martins press, Minotaur books and the Author Ragnar Jonasson for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I struggled with this story somewhat at first because the main character and the setting were hard to like. The plot did eventually come together and resulted in a good ending, giving the character a chance to redeem herself. I finished the book just being glad I wasn’t her.

3.50 stars
-
TW; Child Death, Death of a Parent, Alcoholism, Murder, Suicide.
-
After the tragic death of her father, Una is worried her life will end up just like his. When an opportunity arises for her to teach two young children in the small village of Skálar, she is quick to jump at the chance in hopes for a new lease at life. It is clear that from the start, things are not as they seem - the villagers (a handful of them) are unfriendly, the winter is bleak, and a chilling ghost story that just so happens to have happened in the attic she is staying in lead to Una believing she's bit off more than she can chew. Everything changes when a few days before the holidays there's a tragic murder that leaves the villagers stunned.

I went into this under the impression that it was a ghost story, and although it does dabble in the supernatural, it wasn't what I expected. I found the plot to be a little confusing at times as some of the book is told from an alternate perspective of a crime that happened in the past. It was really interesting to see how it all tied together in the end - I think that without the ending I wouldn't have liked this book as much. If you're into a slow-burn book, this is the one for you. I will applaud Ragnar for an amazing job at setting a chilling atmosphere, reading this book made me feel just as isolated as Una was in this book.

I would like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review, all thoughts and opinions are my own.

A slow burning atmospheric mystery.

Set in the 1980s, Una takes a job as a teacher in a tiny little place called Skalar in Iceland, a village with only 10 inhabitants.
She soon realises that things aren’t quite right and that the villagers are hiding something from her, the only outsider.

The supernatural element of this story wasn’t something I particularly enjoyed. I’d heard this was a really creepy one but to be honest I felt the creepy factor was lacking and that it was more eerie.

The writing itself was excellent which isn’t a surprise from such a well established writer however I found the plot to be a little slow and the ending to be very anticlimactic. There was an alternate story from an initially unknown perspective woven through and I felt these sections were really repetitive and I’m not sure it really brought anything to the story.

A quick, mystery but not one I can say I loved.

“The Girl Who Died” by Ragnar Jonasson
⭐️⭐️⭐️
Book 11 in May
Release Date: 5/4/21

I got this as an arc through Netgalley and somehow missed the release date. I will start by saying this is a fast read and the reveal is great. I mostly enjoyed the last 20% of this book. My main problem was the characters were kind of boring. This is a paranormal suspense, but not scary. It was missing something, which stinks because the reveal had me worked up.
This is set in a rural town in Iceland called Skalar. It was also translated, so a few things I had to look up.
Una had been trying to escape her dad’s death for the last two decades. When she applied for a job as a teacher to two kids in a town of 10 people she sees it as an escape. What she doesn’t realize is how isolated she will feel. When she arrives she is not welcomed, but what can she expect she is an outsider. Her two stufents are 9 and 7. One is super outgoing and ready to learn. The other is so introverted and highly intelligent that her answers are short and to the point. With little adult interaction Una finds herself relying on wine to keep her company. Her only semi friend is Thor also a transplant to this lonely fishing town. While she finds herself drawn to him he keeps her at arms length. This town is keeping secrets, but she doesn’t know what. A girl died in the house she lives in 60 years ago and now a strange man shows up at her doorstep looking for directions then days later his face shows up in the newspaper as a missing person. Una wants to find out what’s going on, but is she putting herself in danger?

I loved this book! It was a slow burn mystery but I was creeped out the whole time. Una agrees to move to a town of 10 residents to be a teacher of a class of 2. There's a death (or two), a ghost, secret town meetings and shady characters. Need I say more? The story takes place in Iceland in the winter in a town on the end of a peninsula and the author did so well describing the setting and the weather that the cold wind just added to the creepiness factor of the town. This was my first book by this author and I will definitely be checking out more! He comes highly recommended by @crimebythebook so I was excited to read his latest.

A huge thank you to NetGalley and St.Martin's Press for ARC ebook!

So I was really excited to read this one, but honestly if I had skipped it, it would have been no big deal. I felt like this book didn't really know what it wanted to be. It seemed like it was going to be a ghost story, but the creep factor was practically non-existent and the scenes with the ghost seemed like they were trying way too hard. But then there was also this random murder storyline, which was confusing because it wasn't so much introduced as just plopped into the book with no kind of forewarning. And then it felt like the book just ended. So not only did this book kill a girl, it killed my weekend reading time as well.

Thank you to NetGalley and Minotaur Books for the Advanced Release Copy in exchange for my honest review.

Oh where to start? I enjoyed the beginning and the middle of this book but the ending was terrible! It was like someone pulled the plug of the washer mid-cycke. Everything was still up in the air and many questions remained unanswered. There are essentially two different stories going through most of the book It doesn't become apparent why the second story is there until almost the very end.. I did find this book to have a lot of build up, a deliciously soooky atmosphere and a good twist..

The story itself also seemed rather contrived. A town of only 10 people, far away from anything else, keeping secrets to protect each other...I don't think so! To top things off, the main character often behaved in a highly irrational manner which made the story feel implausible and difficult to buy into. She saw everything as a personal affront and conspiracy to get her...yet she was never at fault. The author had lots of great ideas and touched on some hot-button issues but there were so many ideas that none of them was actually dealt with.

Overall, I enjoyed this and will continue buying and reading Jónasson's books. I wouldn't put this one at the top of my TBR!