The Woman Inside by M.T. Edvardsson is an interesting thriller and I had no idea where it was going the whole time. We were presented with the mystery in the beginning and needed to figure out what happened. There was a cool element of the inserts of the interviews of different characters that really made the story more dynamic. I did not get overly engaged with the book but I did want to know what happened. The ending was a bit anti-climatic but I still enjoyed the book overall. I'd like to read more books by this author. The narrator did a great job!

The Woman Inside by M.T. Evardsson

A wealthy couple is found dead in their home and there’s multiple suspects. The woman hasn’t been seen outside of the home in months and the man has carried on an affair. This follows Bill, a recent widower with a daughter. Bill can’t shake his money troubles. There’s Karla, the wealthy couple’s housekeeper, who is also a full-time law student with an addict mother. And finally, there’s Jennica, an old friend of Bill’s wife who started seeing the wealthy man before he died.

This was entertaining enough and the multiple POVs kept the twist going a bit. All in all, I wasn’t super impressed. It felt a lot like other books I had read. I didn’t particularly like any of the characters. It was well-written enough, just didn’t have a lot of uniqueness to it. The multi-cast narration was great though, and helped me keep the characters straight. I wish I had more to say about it, but that’s about it, unfortunately! Not a bad read, but not a great one.

Thanks to @celadonbooks / @macmillan.audio for the review copies!

This was a fun mystery/thriller about a wealthy couple found murdered in there home. I loved the way the story was told in multiple perspectives as well as interspersed with interview clips in present tense while the story was told in past tense. That writing style really kept me engaged.

My only complaint is that a lot of the story seemed very similar to several thrillers I've read recently (mostly my own fault for reading too much ;)), but there was definitely some originality as well!

I've also read A Nearly Normal Family by this author and think this one was even better than that!

The audiobook has a full cast audio which was very well done!

Thanks so much to Macmillan Audio and Celadon Books for the gifted ARC and Audiobook!

This book will be available on June 20th!

3.5 Stars rounded up for GR

3.5 stars

The "MacGuffin" at the center of this story - which is set in Lund, Sweden - is the death of a wealthy couple called Regina and Steven Rytter. The Rytters are found dead in their luxurious house near the Botanical Gardens, Regina with her head caved in and Steven from an overdose. In the course of the narrative, we find out that Regina - who suffered from the aftermath of a viral infection - was more or less bedridden; and Steven was adamant about Regina resting and taking her medicine.

It's not clear what happened to the Rytters, and various people in the couple's orbit are repeatedly questioned by the police. The three main persons of interest are Bill, Karla, and Jennica, and the story is told from their rotating points of view, along with excerpts of interviews by the police.

✱✱ Bill is a thirtyish, recently bereaved movie theatre worker who's raising his cherished 8-year-old daughter Sally. Bill went to pieces when his fiancée Miranda died from cancer, and he consequently lost his job. Bill has been unable to find new employment, and is having trouble paying for rent and electricity. To help with finances, Bill takes in a boarder - an aspiring law student named Karla.

Bill is an amiable fellow, but seems like an overgrown child in that he can't see the consequences of his actions.

✱✱ Karla recently arrived in Lund, having purposely left the drug addict mother who'd constrained her life for years. In Lund, Karla is taking a preliminary class for law school, and to make money, cleans the Rytters' sumptuous house twice a week.

Karla rents a room in Bill's apartment, and soon grows close to Bill and his daughter Sally. Karla would like to help Bill get out of his financial hole to insure that Sally has stability in her life. Much of the conflict in Karla's life revolves around her mother, who can't seem to beat her drug addiction. Karla is torn between going back to help her mom and pursuing her own dreams.

✱✱ Jennica is contemporary of Bill's, and was close friends with Bill and his fiancée Miranda until they had a falling out. Jennica works from home as a phone 'psychic advisor', and - because Jennica resents her father, who was constantly unfaithful - Jennica strongly advises middle-aged women to leave their cheating husbands.

Jennica has been looking for love via Tinder, and has met an older, pediatric surgeon named Steven, to whom she's very attracted. At home, Jennica shares her apartment with a cat she named "Dog", and in order to make some kind of statement, Jennica lets her apartment fill up with empty pizza boxes and stinky trash.

As the story unfolds we learn about the interactions among the characters, and what drives them to behave as they do. I don't want to say more because of spoilers.

I enjoyed this interesting character story as well as the setting in Lund, Sweden, which sounds like a picturesque city where many residents get around on bicycles.

I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Josh Dylan, Nathalie Buscombe, and Sofia Engstrand, who do an excellent job. I especially appreciated hearing the correct pronunciation of the Swedish names for the characters and locations.

Thanks to Netgalley, M. T. Edvardsson, and Macmillan Audio for a copy of the book.

When the extremely wealthy Steven Rytter and his wife are found dead in their home, the investigation leads officers Larsen and Hemstrom on a merry chase. There are many suspects to choose from. Karla works as their cleaner and as she gets closer to the ailing Regina, she soon suspects Steven of poisoning his wife. Bill cares for his young daughter after losing his partner to cancer. He’s lost his job and is about to lose his home. Taking on a boarder is a quick fix for now, but ultimately he needs a quick bit of cash. Karla answers his add and moves in shortly thereafter. As she shares news about her employer, Bill is quite intrigued. Jennica has met the man of her dreams. Steven is everything she’s ever wanted and then some, but is he too good to be true? She is a fortune-teller/ psychic by phone each night, even though she has no physic abilities. After being cheated on by a former boyfriend (who also has connections to Bill), and living in a home where her father consistently cheated on her mother, she is out to save all the women who call in nightly for her help. Someone has killed the Rytter’s the only question is who? This book/audio was fast paced and compelling from start to finish. The audio version was read by multiple voices making it easy to distinguish who was talking (my favorite type of audio🙂). Told in three voices with excerpts from the investigation intermixed this was a very good read/listen. Thank you to Celadon Books, Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for an ARC and ALC of this book.

Entertaining read, the audiobook was well done. Not quite as good as the first book I read by this author, but a decent book.

We alternate between three points of view: Bill, a recently widowed man with a young daughter Sally. He has lost his job and needs to take in a lodger to make ends meet. That lodger is Karla, a university student who wants to become a judge. To earn money she is working as a cleaner for a wealthy couple, and the wife is ill and housebound. Jennica is young and just starting to date an older man.

At the beginning of the book, we know that two people are discovered dead in a home. Which of the players in the story are dead? Police interviews fill in the blanks as the story unfolds.

Overall I thought this was a well told story. I was curious about what was going to happen and I liked the way the mystery played out. What I didn't love was Bill's character. There was nothing I liked about him at all. I felt sorry for him at first, but as more is revealed about his character and actions, the more I disliked him. Then in the end he just turns into this simpering whiny wimp. I did like Karla and I was neutral about Jennica. There was some sort of backstory with her and Bill's dead wife Miranda, but if it was ever really explored I must have missed it because despite a bunch of accusations flying, that storyline seemed to go nowhere.

Like I said, this is a fine read, but in the end it was pretty predictable and really didn't need almost 400 pages to tell the story. The audiobook did help me to enjoy it more, because it's narrated by multiple narrators and it made me more invested in the tale. I will definitely read more books by this author in the future because I do think his writing is decent.

Money is the root of evil... or is it? A wealthy couple (an heiress and her doctor husband) are murdered and figuring out who did it is more complex than it may seem. A poor college student who cleans the couples house, a widowed father with a gambling addiction, or a single woman who's having an affair with the doctor - all three tied to together in one way or another.

This book was twisty and kept me questioning who was guilty the entire time. The ending was kind of anticlimactic, in my opinion, but overall this was a page-turner (or fast listen in my case). Not as good as Edvardsson's A Nearly Normal Family, but a close second.

This was okay but did not deliver on the reveal. The story felt very long and left me feeling underwhelmed. I feel like it could’ve been a tad bit shorter and would’ve been higher than a 3.

The audiobook was not my favorite and I had to keep restarting to pay attention and keep track of characters.

The Woman Inside is quite a bit different that Edvardsson's last novel, A Nearly Normal Family, but in a pleasantly surprising way. While A Nearly Normal Family was excellent, it was definitely much more literary than The Woman Inside. In Edvarsson's latest novel we have three main characters, Bill, Karla and Jennica who's lives all wind together and end up intersecting regarding the wealthy Rytter family. Bill is a widowed father of a young daughter Sally, who is having trouble making ends meet and paying his bills. Jennica is the only one of her friends who is still single, and continues looking for love on the dating apps. When she meets an older pediatrician she thinks she may finally have found a good one. Karla is a law student and aspiring judge. She takes a job house cleaning to help pay for her classes and the home she is assigned is the Rytter home. Regina Rytter is very ill and is mostly kept to her bed, but as Karla continues to go over Regina shares things with her that make her change her views.

I loved how the three main characters stories weaved together and intersected. The characters chapters were interspersed with police interrogation notes. Sally and Karla were lovely, and while Bill and Jennica were not very relatable characters, it was still interesting to see things from their point of view. A smart, Nordic, domestic thriller!

This book was tough to rate! I really enjoyed it but felt that it was going a bit to back and forth after halfway through. I also found the end a little underwhelming

I did enjoy the intertwining of the three main characters story lines and the narration. Definitely recommend this for a quick reading suspense with multiple POV and quick chapters

Many thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the free audio book in exchange for an honest review. This is narrated by Josh Dylan, Nathalie Buscombe, and Sofia Engstrand, all of whom do a great job of reading this story! If you enjoy audio books, this is well done!

This is a "who done it" murder mystery that focuses on the murder of Steven & Regina Rytters. Bill, a struggling single dad; Karla, a law school student funding school by cleaning homes; and Jennica, a single woman whose hobby is trolling Tinder. All three have a motive to kill the Rytters, a wealthy couple with a couple of dark secrets. So who did it!?

The mystery is slowly revealed as we hear the various narrators' point of views and the interrogation transcripts thrown in. THere are enough characters to make this a really meaty, suspenseful thriller but I just could not get drawn into this one. While I did not like any of the characters particularly, the story just did not hold my attention like "A Nearly Normal Family", which I LOVED! Overall, this is not a great thriller like the first book and I don't know if there is something lost in translation as the author is Nordic. I would definitely read a book by this author again...maybe this one just did not work for me.

I found this book intriguing enough. I enjoyed the different voice actors in the audiobook. The plot was engaging and kept me wanting to listen and find out what happened. The first 75% of the book was pretty good! My biggest reason for only rating it 3 stars was that the ending was quite anticlimactic and fairly boring. I expected so much more and it really fell flat. I feel like there are still things unanswered and the story we were told wasn't exciting.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the advance copy of this audiobook in exchange for my honest review.

I could not get into this one. About halfway through I decided not to finish it. I wasnt connecting to the characters or storyline

I liked a lot of parts of this author’s last book. This one started off promising. I was instantly intrigued. But then, it just started dragging and I started drifting. The ending had a big reveal kind of feel. I realized that I felt like I was reading a formula. The book was OK but it followed too much in the style and rhythm of the last.

M.T. Edvardsson delivers another compelling, compulsively readable (and listenable!) Scandi thriller with The Woman Inside. Steven and Regina Rytter, a wealthy pediatrician and his chronically ill wife, are found dead in their upscale home, one done in by a head wound and the other by an overdose. It’s being called a family tragedy by some in the press, but perhaps something more sinister has happened.

The story centers around three POVs: Bill, a recently widowed dad; Karla, a student and the Rytters’ housecleaner; and Jennica, a telephone psychic and Steven Rytter’s girlfriend. Bill is under police suspicion for the deaths, but he’s not the only one who might have had a motive. Excerpts from the police interrogation are interspersed with the three perspectives and help round out the narrative. The story is twisty and entertaining, with a cast of unlikeable but interesting characters and no shortage of potential culprits. It kept me guessing about whodunit and how the three character arcs would come together.

The audiobook version is extremely well done, featuring a full cast with three separate narrators voicing the three POVs. This makes for an immersive listening experience that is easy to follow along with. The narrators’ accented English and flawless pronunciation of Scandinavian places and names adds extra authenticity.

Many thanks to NetGalley, Celadon Books, and Macmillan Audio for providing me an advance copy of this book.

This started off as a quick and engaging read but as you get to about the 2/3 or 3/4 mark, it started to slow down for me. I felt I became less engaged and just wanted to “get on with it”. The ending was a little bleh for me

Thank goodness I listened to this book on audio, because I never would have been able to pronounce any of the towns correctly. Lol. I believe it takes place in Sweden, and luckily the narrators know how to properly say all of the places. This is such a huge help when reading foreign authors.
I loved the full cast of narrators. This always brings books to life and give characters more personality. It also helps move the story along. I’m not sure I would have finished the book if I hadn’t done it on audio. That extra emotion in the voices, is what held my interest.
I did have a hard time with the story. I understand where the characters were coming from, and their involvement with the murders. That was all done very well, and the connections worked. I just couldn’t connect with a single character, and found the Rytters lacking. It was very much like The Woman Upstairs, which is overdone. Maybe if the wife wasn’t homebound, maybe with that plot change, it would have worked for me.

The story is told in 4 alternative main character prospectives that leave you perplexed until the very end where lives collide when a murder takes place.I listened to the audio version, and the narration was excellent. All the characters were portrayed well , and brought the story to life nicely.

Thank you to McMillan audio snd Netgslly fir the advanced copy. All opinions are my own

Thanks to Macmillan Audio for the ALC! I loved the synopsis and cover, but procedurals and slow burn are not qualities I love in thrillers or mysteries.

This book, written from the perspective of three people, was a great read.  The characters were well developed and I finished this quickly, not wanting to put it down.I am not going to go into much detail about the story itself, as you can read the blurb, but each character has specific life experiences that made them react the way they did and I felt like I knew each of them personally with the way the author covered their backgrounds.  I definitely will be looking for other books by this author!
Thank you Netgalley for the book!