What a twisty ride that was! The atmosphere was great and definitely enhanced the story/the seriousness of the characters’ situations. Had a great build up with some surprise reveals along the way. Definitely recommend!

4 former schoolfriends from Iceland reunite for a weekend away in a remote, eastern village in the country. The friends all lead different lives and have grown apart. The hope is that some time together undistracted from modern day life, without cell signal, will bring them back together. As the story unfolds, it is clear that they all have different motives for being there.

The author was able to create such vivid descriptions that the bleakness of the remote landscape was palpable and the characterization was solid- by the end of the book I found each of the characters unlikeable, each for different reasons. This was a quick listen but was fairly slow-paced so felt a little longer than it actually was.

A good listen for those who enjoy Scandinavian thiller/noir.

Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for this audiobook.

A group of 4 Icelandic friends get together and end up in a massive storm. After seeking shelter in an abandoned hunting lodge, a night of terror unfolds. This book had the right formula. The right setting. The right storyline. However, I could not connect with any of the characters so I couldn’t get too into the book. I wanted to enjoy at least one of them, yet it never happened.
**huge thanks to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review

Ragnar Jonasson never disappoints. This was an intense thriller that I could not stop listening to. It tells the story of a group of friends that go on a weekend getaway in Iceland. It was a hunting trip planned by one of the friends. When they are surprised by a terrible life threatening storm, they find shelter in an empty cabin. They leave the cabin for a short time and return to find a man sitting inside holding a gun. This leaves them faced with the choice of freezing to death outdoors in the harsh climate or going inside to face the man with the gun. As their past relationships and grudges unfold, you learn that their is an ulterior motive to this trip. This book is well written and the characters well developed. I found that I disliked all of the characters as their individual perspectives and stories came out. I give this book 5 stars but I do feel like the ending sort of dropped off and the book didn’t feel complete.
As usual with Jonasson’s books, the chosen narrator did a great job. The book was read with feeling and helped me to get to know the characters. It was read at a perfect pace and was clear and concise and allowed the listener to distinguish between which character was speaking.
Overall, this book is a great read!!!!

This one was just ok for me. I didn’t feel any connection to the characters and actually found that I disliked them all. At the end, when the revelation came about and we learned the truth, I didn’t feel that it really flowed. Things weren’t making sense for me and I honestly just wanted to be done with the story.

I listened to this as an audiobook and didn’t feel any suspense through their performance, so it seemed very monotonous to me. I did enjoy that there were three different narrators.

Thank you to NetGalley, Macmillan Audio, and Ragnar Jonasson for providing me with this gifted copy in exchange for my honest review.

I had high hopes for this relatively short audiobook (less than 5 hours) but, sadly was disappointed. Ragnar Jonasson is an excellent author but, this book felt somewhat rushed and unfocused.

OUTSIDE by Ragnar Jónasson translated from the Icelandic by Victoria Cribb is a really enjoyable thriller! It’s about four friends who get stranded in a snowstorm and try to survive while secrets from their past are revealed. I loved how the weather element was such a character in this book! It was great to chill down with this cold and snowy read. I loved the full cast in the audiobook. It was great how the tension between the four friends was so intense as they turn on each other just trying to survive. There were definitely some surprising twists and this is a quick read that would be great for a beach day. I really enjoyed the flashback timeline, multiple POV and short chapters. I’ll definitely be on the look out for his next chilling book White Death coming out in 2023!
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Thank you to Minotaur Books for my advance reader copy and Macmillan Audio via NetGalley for my ALC!

I wanted to really love this one. I was excited by the plot and concept. I just found the story to be really slow, and I didn't connect with any of the characters. I really found myself a bit confused by a variety of things happening, and I didn't care enough to go back and try to figure out what I had missed. I'm sorry this one was a bit of a bust for me.

Not really sure what to say about this one. It was super short, which wasn’t too bad. But the ending definitely left something to be desired. Very anticlimactic. It wasn’t a horrible book, but I don’t think I’d truly recommend. It didn’t have a lot of mystery and fell flat in a few places.

This one was told in the voice of all the characters. Four friends go into the wilderness on a weekend hunting trip, however, there is more going on than meets the eye. Confusing? You bet! I was confused throughout most of it and if I was reading this one I probably would not have finished it. Since I was listening to it I kept going hoping I would figure it out but, alas, all that happened was I really decided I did not like these people. There was took much going on and I was not sure who was really the victim and who was the instigator. Abrupt ending left me with questions.

Four Friends, a deadly snowstorm, and an abandoned hunting lodge set the stage in Outside. The four friends hope to have an enjoyable weekend in the Icelandic highlands, what they get is a nightmare!

The snow is falling, it's bitter cold and four friends seek shelter in an abandoned building. They are trapped in a harsh unforgiving environment. They have no way to call for help, they are miles from civilization and once in the lodge, find that they are not alone. Creepy.

They synopsis drew me in. I love books set in extreme cold for some reason. I, myself, hate being cold and perhaps that is why I am drawn to them. Who knows? But this is not a simple book about survival. It is about the ties that bind, about secrets, about conscience, about memories, about the past and about the here and now.

I found this book to have creepy elements, but it was also about dark memories, consequences, and secrets. Readers also get the POV of each of the friends. We learn more about them and their thoughts on the others. This was a nice touch, and I thought the narrators did a great job with their parts.

I had both the kindle and audiobook version. I enjoyed going back and forth between the two but found myself listening to the audiobook more out of convivence more than anything else. I felt that this book moved at a nice pace and the sense of tension flowed throughout the book. As other reviews this book does end abruptly. It was as if the author thought "that's it. I'm done."

Although I enjoyed this book, it was missing that little bit of something that would have garnered a higher rating. None of the characters pulled at my heartstrings. I didn't really feel a connection with them to care for their plight.


#Outside #NetGalley

Thank you to St. Martin's Press, Minotaur Books, Macmillan Audio and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts and opinions are my own.

I love all things Scandi-Noir! This was a good Icelandic revenge thriller. Four friends set out for a weekend trip in the Highlands but, when secrets and lies are revealed, will they all come back?! 😱
The narration was spot on. Kudos to the narrators!
*Thanks to the author, Macmillan Audio, and NetGalley for this audio copy for honest review

I really enjoyed Ragnar Jonasson's last book and was excited to read this one. It has the chilly bleak Icelandic setting, and four friends who aren't who they pretend to be. I enjoyed this story and flew through the pages, but I admit it did not live up to the previous book for me. Why? I found the whole story line a little weak. I did not fully engage with any of the characters either, as none of them were particularly likeable.

Four friends go hiking into the Iceland highlands. They all have something to hide. When a storm forces them to seek shelter in an old hut, they think they've found respite but really their troubles are just beginning.

What I liked about this book was the short chapters from the four friend's point of view. It kept the story propelling forward nicely and at a quick pace. I liked the atmosphere of being in Iceland. I just found that the story was not totally absorbing. A little of that, I think, could be due to the fact in Iceland it sounds like a gun is enough to inspire terror in the characters in the book. After a particularly violent beginning of summer here in the US, this lone man holding a gun just didn't seem that threatening, which is a sad comment on our society.

While this book was not my favorite by Mr. Jonasson, I am still eager to read whatever new books he may publish.

Four friends travel into the icy Icelandic wilderness for an adventurous ptarmigan hunting vacation - but when they get trapped in a remote cabin with a menacing presence alongside them, secrets come to light, and their dynamic is forever changed. Who will survive the night?

Armann, Helena, Daniel and Gunnlauger are going on their annual vacation - this time it's an outdoor adventure planned by Armann, who has his own adventure travel company. They all bring baggage with them that you learn over the course of this short book via its rotating perspectives, from recent deaths that have hit one of them hard, their career struggles, or their criminal pasts. Slowly, you also begin to dislike every one of them, and realize that every one has a motive against another.

This was a bit of a slow burn novella with a creepy, chilling (no pun intended) atmosphere, heightened by the presence in the emergency cabin they break into. You feel a sense of ominous dread, knowing that tensions are going to boil over soon. That being said, the ending didn't quite live up to what I was expecting - I wish it had been a bit more dramatic and twisty to match the rising action in the book.

Overall, this was a solid mystery novella, recommended if you're looking for something dark and atmospheric with hidden reveals about a small group of characters. Thank you to Macmillan Audio for the audio ARC via Netgalley.

Thanks to NetGalley & MacMillan Audio for providing an audio ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Four friends meet for a long weekend hunting ptarmigan in Iceland, but a gale blows up and they are forced into a small hunting shack for shelter. Unfortunately, there's a man sitting motionless inside, with a gun trained on them ...

This was a quick book; I listened to it in a day. Interesting premise, and rife with unreliable narration. The voice acting is good, but the direction is less so. There are several mispronunciations (perhaps an issue with translation?) and certain characters' names are pronounced different ways depending on who's speaking ("Helena" is pronounced THREE different ways, by 4 characters). So that's a little frustrating, but the acting itself is quite good. Each chapter is handled by a different character/voice, so there are no issues figuring out who is who.

Now for the story: it's the sort of story that is very, very tense. I could easily imagine it being a TV movie. We get some background on the characters to give us a feel for the situation: Armann is an entrepreneurial sort who runs his own trekking company, and he has put together this trip, making all the arrangements for himself and his friends, but he also has a shady past and was involved in the drug trade when he lived in Denmark years ago. Helena helped him out of that situation and helped him get clean and start over. She is still in mourning over her boyfriend, who died of exposure out in the highlands 5 years previous ... the same sort of conditions they are in now. Daniel is an actor living in the UK, back in Iceland only for this special weekend. He has escaped Iceland and rarely returns except for very special occasions. Finally, there's Gunnlauger. No one seems to like him. Perhaps that's because of those persistent rumors that he raped a woman at a party some years ago?

The four friends are all in mental competition with one another. Who is the most successful? Will anyone find out that they are not doing as well as they'd like to broadcast to the others? As time goes on and the tension ratchets up in the shack, things get more dire and decisions are made that will change all of their lives forever.

The sense of a "life or death" situation is palpable, and Jonasson does a great job with the extreme tension. The actual truth behind the situation makes itself clear at the close of the book, and it's a doozy. The only trouble is, the characters reveal themselves to be so unlikeable, awful, even, that it's difficult to relate to anyone. There are certainly no heroes in this story. It left me feeling a little dissatisfied with the book.

If you like bleak plots, Ragnar Jonasson is your guy.

𝘎𝘳𝘪𝘱𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘶𝘯𝘱𝘶𝘵𝘥𝘰𝘸𝘯𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦!

First of all I have no idea why this is my first book from this author, I loved it.
It kept me at the edge of my seat from start to finish, it was twisty, dark, suspenseful and addictive, a fantastic read.

Thank you Minotaur Books and NetGalley for this gifted copy.

𝗢𝘂𝘁𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲 by Ragnar Jonasson releases June 28, 2022.

https://www.instagram.com/booksandcoffeemx/

Jonasson is a pro when it comes to developing atmosphere in his novels. The frozen, barren landscape of the Icelandic moors is a fitting setting for this chilling novel of secrets and revenge. Four friends set off on a hunting trip, planning to shoot some ptarmigans. When a storm blows in, they fear being stranded without cover, in danger of freezing to death, until they reach a small cabin. But a new potential danger faces them inside: a young man silently facing them with a gun. Their reactions vary from craven fear and panic to stalwart bravery and determination. But all is not as it seems, and though not everyone will survive the challenge, all who do will be forever changed.

I'd have liked a longer version of this story, with more backstory to bring the characters to life. And since I listened to this in audiobook format, I would add that I found the reader for Daniel difficult to understand and oddly accented.

This was my first time listening to a book by Ragnar Jonasson and it won't be the last. The characters were interesting, the story suspenseful, and the narrarating very well done. The story is full of angst and revenge and I enjoyed learning, little by little, the back story of the main characters.

Thank you to Net Galley, Ragnar Jonasson, and the publisher for an early audio copy of this book for my review.

Very short story containing some mystery. Contains so so friends full of secrets and out for themselves.

I picked up this ARC as I tend to love Nordic Noir. However, this one fell short for me. It's hard for me to put my finger on what exactly didn't fulfill what I was looking for. I think the timing of the events didn't quite work, the characters weren't fully fleshed out and some of it didn't make sense. I didn't know the characters well enough to like them or hate them. I think the idea had promise, it just wasn't executed well. I did like the narration though. The narrator did well conveying the feel of the story.