The cleaner. The mistress. The desperate man. When a couple is found dead in the wealthy part of town, these three are potential suspects, but did any of them really have the motive to kill? “The Woman Inside” by M. T. Edvardsson dives deep into the heart of this mystery to uncover the truth.

For starters, I really enjoyed most of the characters in this book. They have these diverse stories that really add something to the plot and give them each a believability in their part of the story. I especially liked Karla. She wants to be good and have a life so different from her childhood, but she’s still learning and growing into who she wants to be.

In the end, this book was a solid 4 star read for me. It maintained pretty good pacing throughout the book and it had little interview clips from newspapers and the police that kept things interesting.

Thanks to Celadon Books and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for my honest review! This book is available now!

I could not put this one down! I read it in one sitting and was falling asleep at the end because of how late I stayed up but I HAD TO FINISH IT! I wasn’t expecting the ending at all and I liked how the story came together. The interviews and news articles between chapters were a great break and a great way to helped tell the story! Highly recommend!!

The Woman Inside is about all the secrets that we hide. Some secrets are difficult to hide because we are intertwined with them, and when they are revealed, it's difficult to hide anymore.

Bill, Karla, Jennica, and the Rytters are intertwined with each other. Who is a murderer and what are all these people hiding? The novel is a thriller and is interesting until the last page. It's a slow burn thriller and has a relatively slower pace. Each of these characters has a backstory that has impacted their lives and compelling them to behave a certain way. Trauma galore in this novel.

However, I was not a fan of either character. Karla was the only character that I sort of liked. It probably could be due to the translation, but I could not feel any emotions or feelings coming through in this novel. It was one dimensional and just matter of fact. Overall, though, I liked the novel.

Thank you, Celadon Books, for the book.

CW: Addiction, Infidelity

Many thanks to NetGalley, Celadon Books and Macmillan Audio for gifting me both a digital and audio ARC of the new thriller by M. T. Edvardsson and wonderfully narrated by Josh Dylan; Nathalie Buscombe; and Sofia Engstrand - 4 stars!

Bill, recently widowed and single parent to Sally, is desperate for money so takes in a boarder, Karla, to help with expenses. Karla is an aspiring law student and works as a housekeeper for a wealthy couple. the Rytters. The husband, who appears very controlling, has given Karla strict orders about not disturbing his ill wife, who seems intent on engaging Karla, leaving Karla to question if she is really ill. Jennica lives along with her cat, Dog, and works on a phone advice line. She meets a new man on Tinder but is he what he professes to be? When the Rytters are both found dead, all these characters are questioned about their activities.

I loved the way this story spooled out - interwoven with the events leading up to the crime from their different POV are police interrogation tapes with all the suspects, so you get lots of different sources of information. It's a bit of a slow burn as we learn how interwoven these characters are and learn all the secrets they are keeping. And that ending - you won't see it coming!

Having loved M. T. Edvardsson’s first novel, A Nearly Normal Family, I was excited to read The Woman Inside. Loved the cover,and the opening chapters, the discovery of the bodies of Steven and his wife, Regina, and the introduction to several characters. Interspersed between the chapters by Karla, Bill, and Jennica were chapters of police interviews. Chapters are short (a bonus for me) which adds to the suspense until it doesn’t. I found the middle of the book to be repetitive in several spots which made it difficult for me to stay focused. I did like how it all came together toward the end. I would have liked to have had an epilogue set several years later for the reader to discover what happened to each of the main characters. My thanks to BookishFirst, NetGalley, and Celadon Books for an ARC of this book. The opinions in this review are my own.

Thank you to @celadonbooks for sending me a copy of this one. You’ll find this one out on shelves now.

I really enjoyed this domestic thriller. The way the story unfolded with different characters in different chapters and police interviews was great. It kept me on my toes and was so clever! I definitely recommend this one.

Two people are dead in a house in the wealthy part of Lund. Three people are in their orbit, but did any of them have anything to do with it? Bill Olsson is a widower struggling to pay rent and care for the most important thing in his life--his daughter, Sally. In desperation, he takes in a lodger, Karla, who is surviving by cleaning houses while studying law and dreaming of being a judge and fighting for justice. She cleans the house of the Rytters--a controlling husband and a chronically ill, house-bound wife. But Bill's situation becomes more and more desperate, and the Rytters end up dead. Could Karla or Bill have had anything to do with it? Could it possibly have something to do with Bill's girlfriend (who doesn't know he's married)? Everyone is hiding something something, but is any secret big enough to kill for?

This Scandinavian thriller is dark and twisted and we know from the opening pages that it doesn't end well. I'm not a hard-core thriller babe, so it took me a while to sort through the atmospheric tension and the intentional confused trail of clues and foreshadowing. But when I got through it I was left feeling that this was a set of deeply flawed individuals in a world where human nature and inequality often combine disastrously.

Thank you to NetGalley and Celadon for my advance electronic copy.

this book had me wanting more & more! i was on the edge of my seat the entire time. it was multiple pov's while we also learned more about the case. it was nice to learn the background of everyone involved separately. i was wrong about what happened to regina & steven, but i did enjoy the twist about what actually happened. i also really loved sally. i'm not usually one for enjoying kids in books, but sally was so sweet! i would definitely recommend to those who like thrillers!

Second try for this author and I've realized maybe they're not for me. I tried but couldn't continue at 31%.

The Woman Inside by M.T. Edvardsson is a well written domestic thriller that I enjoyed.

I liked how the book started out quickly with two people who are dead but their identities are not revealed. That was quite clever.

The characters were well written but at 400 pages I think the story did carry on a bit more than necessary.

Overall, an enjoyable read !

Bill is a widower trying desperately to keep his head, and the head of his daughter Sally, above water. After the death of his wife things have not gone well for him; all his money went to the care of his sick wife, he lost his job, and now he is struggling to pay his bills. He decides to rent out a room to Karla, a law student with aspirations to be a judge. Karla also works as a house cleaner, and when a husband and wife she cleans for are found dead she and Bill are swept up into a murder investigation, putting their respective secrets in danger of being exposed. 

While I enjoyed The Woman Inside, it was such a slow build, making it hard to get into the story. Using multiple narrators and short chapters to tell the events,  suspense was created that, once things started really going, made it difficult to put the book down, but getting to that point took some time. Many of the characters seemed honest and relatable. I couldn’t help but love Bill, mistakes and all, because the intense love he has for his daughter was the catalyst for his actions.The ending was a little flat for me however. I had most of what happened figured out rather early on and it seemed a little abrupt. I honestly wanted more from the follow-up to A Nearly Normal Family.

Karla is a law student struggling to make ends meet. Bill is a devoted father to Sally. After Bill’s wife dies, the bills keep mounting. Jennica is just putzing through life until she falls for Steven, a wealthy older man. How do their lives connect?

Bill places an ad for a lodger to earn some money to pay the rent and Karla responds and finds herself enjoying Sally’s company. Karla is also working as a house cleaner for Steven whose wife is very ill. But something feels wrong in Steven’s home. When Karla makes the decision to steal from Steven’s wife to help Bill with his financial troubles, it sets off a series of events that spiral out of control, entangling Jennica unknowingly into the mess.

This suspense novel was ok. It was told by multiple POVs interspersed with police questioning of the characters. Although the characters annoyed me a bit with their terrible decisions, it was a quick read and decent for a suspense

Thank you to @netgalley and @celadonbooks for this advance readers copy.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Celadon Books curates and publishes an amazing collection of stories that will stay with you long after you have turned the last page. The Woman Inside is one of those stories.

Author M.T. Edvardsson has a way of jumping from character to character and situation to situation that keeps you just enough off balance so that you don’t know who is truthful and who is lying, who is being open and who is hiding something, who is guilty and who is innocent. Turns out they are all lying and they are all hiding something and they can’t all be innocent, but that doesn’t get you any closer to knowing who the murderer is. You’ll just have to keep reading for that.

And also as always, Edvardsson presents people who have dual natures: a combination of good and bad, strong and weak, welcoming and bitter. And they are all connected in some weird way we struggle to understand. Just like real people. In The Woman Inside there’s Bill, who has recently lost his wife Miranda and is raising his daughter Sally alone. Devastated, struggling financially, but is he really only a victim of circumstance, nothing is his fault? Lodger Karla is a student and a housekeeper – and also a thief and a liar. Jennica was a friend of Miranda’s until the betrayal and she’s not over it. There’s a lot under the surface with this one. Including her relationship with Steve. Of the Steve & Regina couple, the wealthy doctor and his mysteriously ill wealthy wife. I guess we can figure out why he told Jennica that Regina was dead, but what did Jennica do when she discovered the truth? Karla just happens to be their housekeeper, and Bill’s lodger. What else? Everything and everyone is confoundingly connected, a spider web of crossovers and discoveries. Which still leaves us guessing page after page after page who murdered Steve and Regina? They all had motive. They all seem good, then bad, then back to good, then . . . .

Thanks to Celadon Books for providing an advance copy of The Woman Inside to me as a Celadon Reader via NetGalley for my reading pleasure and honest opinion. This book was an amazing read by an amazing author and I can’t wait to see what Celadon might send my way next. I voluntarily leave this review; all opinions are my own.

The Woman Inside comes out today June 13, 2023 4⭐️

I was really intrigued by this book, it was a slow character driven story that really started coming together halfway through. I really enjoyed flipping back and forth between multiple POV’s, police investigation reports, and news articles.

Bill is a widower struggling to raise his eight year daughter Sally. They have come into hard times and decide to take in a lodger. At first I felt sorry for Bill but his relationship with his daughter seems to be his only redeemable quality.

Karla is a law student and aspiring judge, she rents a room from Bill and works as a housecleaner for a wealthy couple the Rytters. She in my opinion is the only likable character, she wants to help but doesn’t go about it like an aspiring judge. Hmm

Steven And Regina Rytter are a wealthy couple who hire Karla and are keeping some pretty dark secrets.

Jennica is also a student, has a cat for a roommate and is dating Steven, yep you heard me right.

When the Rytters wind up dead everyone is suspect, but are any of them capable of such a grissly crime?

A whodunnit that keeps you guessing to the very end, and leaves you wondering what we are all capable of doing given the right circumstances.

If you haven't gotten this yet you should. While it took me a second to get the hang of the set up...different chapters of point of views and then random newspaper articles and police interviews....it really sucked you in. People that have had terrible lives just trying to get through, work, grow, date, pay bills...until things go wrong and stuff starts spiraling out of control.

Secrets...lies...cover ups...a twisty fantastic thriller

The Woman Inside starts with the discovery of two dead bodies in a posh neighborhood. Who killed the couple and why? The murder mystery opens with a cast of characters with motives to kill Dr. Steven Rytter and his wife, Regina.

Bill needs money for his gambling habit and to care for his daughter Sally after his wife Miranda dies. Karla, the couple’s housekeeper, rents a room from Bill and wants to help him. Jennica, a former friend of Miranda, is Steven’s secret lover until she finds out his secret. Their connections and unscrupulous actions determine the couple’s fate.

What’s interesting is the setting in Sweden and the characters’ ties and interactions with the couple. Simply written, suspenseful with many plot twists motivate the reader to solve this who-done-it. But the novel wraps with a shocking and unpredictable ending. I thank NetGalley and Celadon Books for allowing me to read and review The Woman Inside. #NetGalley #WomanInside #MurderMystery #Thriller

3.5⭐️ The story is told through multiple POVs and police interviews which I love. I did find the pacing to be a bit slow, but it was still an enjoyable read. The ending was definitely unexpected and is the perfect thriller to pick up of you’re just getting into thrillers.

The Woman Inside was a captivating and suspenseful read. You start the book knowing who has died and then it takes you back through the past to slowly reveal the killer. I loved the multi POV that kept the mystery throughout. The chapters of police interrogations break up the narration nicely. The major twist at the end managed to surprise me and then kept the drama unfolding to the end.

I will be posting this review on Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/p/Ctb5XLhrfkJ/?igshid=MmJiY2I4NDBkZg==

Goodreads

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5367418644

And Amazon.

This is a Nordic thriller with head-spinning twists as the story meanders to a well-crafted conclusion. I thought the book was a slow burn but it was also totally intriguing, with various characters all having secrets and the point of view changing as different characters were highlighted. The mystery revolves around the death of wealthy and arrogant pediatrician Stephen Rytter and his bedridden wife Regina. There are a lot of suspects to this murder and reading the details of why they are suspicious and a possible motivation for them was engrossing. I enjoyed getting to know the characters although none was particularly likable. They were all well-developed and remarkably believable. My favorite character was the innocent child Sally, a young girl who has lost her mother and who just wants life to be happy for all. My least favorite was a vamp-type woman named Jennica who works as a telemarketer of sorts. Her personality is grating and it really bothered me that she named her cat “dog.” That showed how perverse she was and was a clue to her all-around nature.Both the characters and the plot are complex but are woven together well so that the story flows in a compelling and clever way. The characters are dynamic, flawed and original with complicated personalities. This is one of the best Nordic thrillers that I have read, keeping me engaged and guessing all the way until the brilliant ending.
Disclaimer
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley. I was not required to write a positive review. All opinions expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255, “Guidelines Concerning the Use of Testimonials and Endorsements in Advertising.”

This is a twisty story where the chapters move from Karla, who moves in with Bill and his daughter, the Rytters, whose home Karla cleans, and Jennica, a single woman who lives with her cat and is looking for love. When Jennica meets the man of her dreams, Steven, she can't believe her luck. As these stories overlap and we learn more about their lives, the anticipation of what's to come increases. I really enjoyed reading this one until reading was just not fast enough and I switched to the audio version. The different voices and accerating climax was so well done, I could not put this one down. I'm glad I started off reading it because the different people could be hard to keep straight. Fans of his other book, 'A Nearly Normal Family,' will also enjoy this one. A lot of the words translated into english arent exactly apples to apples but, easy to figure out anyway.