Apparently this is the 2nd book after City UnderOne Roof which I was not aware of prior to starting my read.  This explains why I felt like I was droppedin the middle of a book when I started reading this. I was so confused and feltlike I was missing information about the characters and then I found out it was book 2. I think it would have been better if I had read book #1. I dideventually catch up, mostly, but I really was never fully invested in thecharacters and I am guessing it is because I was missing out on their developmentfrom book 1. So I would say, yes you could read this as a standalone but I would recommedn you not make my mistake and go ahead and read book 1 first. Overall though it was an entertaining book and I did enjoy readingit. I loved the concept of mystery and the setting was super cool being inAlaska. I would have preferred more scenes in the actual city under one roof,but I loved the remote village only accessible by plane. There were severalunlikely scenarios in here but again I like to point out it is fiction and infiction you can write what you want, that’s entertainment. I also appreciatedthe way it ended, it had a good cozy wrap up that left you happy.

While I have not yet read the book preceding this one, this book sounded intriguing enough that when it was offered to me, I really wanted to read it. It definitely lived up to my hopes.

Detective Cara Kennedy is a strong female protagonist who is facing a heartbreaking prospect. Her husband and son’s bodies are being exhumed, because the proposed cause of death may not actually be true.

Cara is connected somehow to all the residents of Point Mettier, most especially J.B., a police officer in a relationship with Cara. Together, they will end up on a dangerous mission linked to Unity, a village where women and children can go to escape abusive situations.

I really liked this book. It felt fast-paced, with lots of major twists and turns. I also loved getting to know more about the towns and villages in Alaska as a part of the story. I especially loved Cara and J.B., whose relationship I was definitely rooting for. I would recommend this book-I didn’t feel lost at all not having read the first one, but now I want to read the first one.

Thank you to Penguin Random House, Berkley, and PRH Audio for access to copies of Iris Yamashita's Cara Kennedy mystery series!  fun fact: Iris Yamashita is an Academy Award–nominated screenwriter for the movie Letters from Iwo Jima.

Dark moody crime stories, police procedurals really work for me!  This series is a win. If you like Erin Fields,
Hannah Morrisey, like Mare of Eastown or True Detective, this is for you!

I have loved the moody vibe of the small town Alaskan setting and the examination of crime, and complex grief, with a strong complicated female lead. Crime stories are a big win for me, especially in winter, and I loved Yamashita's writing, her flare for witty but intense dialogue and plots, and her willingness to make context critical to the story, a character in itself. The setting is for me critical to understanding the themes about grief, loss, and uncertainty that pervade this second book in particular (the main character comes to understand that a tragedy in her life might not be an accident at all, bringing back grief but also a lot of questions and uncertainty and a solid story and character development).

Village in the Dark is the second in the Cara Kennedy mystery series; this series was new to me so I also listened to book one, City Under One Roof, from PRH audio so thank you to that program for the free copy of book one.
Content notes: The main character is exploring the loss of her husband and young child in these books so if that's a topic/touch point relevant to you, take note.

Alaskan noir!

Cara Kennedy is a hardened detective in a remote Alaskan village. She’s grieving. Bones had been found, presumed to be her missing husband and son. She buried them. Only now that question is moot. Was it an accident or murder. Cara has their bodies resumed. That is the beginning.
Three POV’s to the tale merge, Cara’s, Mia Updash from the remote village of Unity, and Ellie Wright, owner of the Cozy Condo Inn at Point Mettier.
I found the plot strung out. I lost interest but kept plodding on. The latter half picked up, chillingly so. Damage done however, and Village in the Dark just didn’t recover from my first impressions. I was left with too many uh’s!
Despite the fabulous setting and gritty overtones I just wasn’t won over.

A Berkley Group ARC via NetGalley.
Many thanks to the author and publisher.
(Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.)

VILLAGE IN THE DARK is the stunning, highly visual sequel to Author Iris Yamashita's award-winning debut novel CITY UNDER ONE ROOF. If you missed book one, I highly advise you grab and read it before the release of this sequel although Yamashita does a fantastic job of filling in much needed background information on the characters and events from book one, all of which are critical to the continuing overall series story arc in VILLAGE IN THE DARK. Clear your calendar and throw another log on the fire before cracking the cover on this one because you're sure to get lost in a fantasy-like wonderland of atypical, charismatic characters doing their best to survive.

Anchorage Detective Cara Kennedy remains on leave a year after the mental trauma of losing her husband and son in CITY UNDER ONE ROOF. Additional information has surfaced indicating their deaths may not have been a tragic accident as previously indicated, but rather linked to the disappearance and/or deaths of other area residents. Thus, on a brutally cold February day, Cara stands by and watches with dread as the caskets of her husband and son are lifted from the frozen earth so an autopsy can be performed. The shocking results send her traveling back through the two-and-a-half-mile, highly claustrophobic tunnel to Point Mettier, a community of misfits, oddballs and eccentric recluses as well as those seeking shelter from abusive relationships. A place where all two hundred and five residents live in one high rise, including Officer J.B. Barkowski with whom Cara's exploring a relationship. Still reeling from the autopsy results, Cara's more determined than ever to get to the bottom of her family's disappearance. She's joined in her search by J.B. and Ellie, a peculiar woman who's certain her own son's suspicious death is connected because he's pictured alongside others who've disappeared in a photograph taken from a deceased gang member. As the trio embarks on a treacherous, suicidal mission, they’re joined by another local, Mia. The more they dig, the more it's clear someone will do anything to prevent the truth from surfacing. Attempts on Cara's life escalate, putting her and those around her in danger. They're getting close to uncovering the truth . . . but at what cost?

VILLAGE IN THE DARK is an intense, all-consuming suspense thriller that's narrated by three diverse, charismatic women - Cara, Ellie and Mia. As the story progresses, readers learn how each of these women are connected and what they stand to lose when the truth is finally revealed. A lightning fast-pace is driven by a dark tone of malice as characters and readers are propelled forward through blinding, breathtaking twists and turns. The author’s expert utilization of short, highly detailed, high-octane chapters with changing points of view keeps readers on their toes as they soar through pages permeated with suspense, action and one shocker after another. The author's cast of characters is one of the most diverse, colorful and engaging groups I've ever met. Kudos to Yamashita for highlighting the importance of community and the heavy, heartbreaking theme of domestic violence against women and children, especially Indigenous women, via characters seeking to escape "man's world" to live in a safe haven, a singular community known as Unity.

Author Iris Yamashita has brilliantly crafted a one-of-a-kind, irresistible, highly atmospheric suspense thriller in VILLAGE IN THE DARK. The author's masterly story telling talent is evident as is her artistry and gift for creating diverse, sometimes flamboyant, characters one can't help but love. The action is heart stopping, the characters straight out of a fairy tale and the plot line twisted. I'll be singing the praises of this amazing book and series for some time to come. Highly recommended to fans of CITY UNDER ONE ROOF, obviously, but also to fans of unique, artfully crafted suspense thrillers.

Detective Cara Kennedy thought her husband, Aaron, and her son, Dylan, died in a tragic hiking accident. However, when their picture is found on a gang member’s phone, she begins to suspect foul play and makes the harrowing decision to exhume them to autopsy their bodies.

Her subsequent investigation leads to shocking results and takes her back to Point Mettier, Alaska, a remote town that lives virtually under one roof in a former military facility. Working again with officer Joe Barkowski, still recovering from injuries from their last case, as well as unexpected allies from the Point Mettier community, Cara meticulously unwinds clues that uncover a link with Mia Upash, a woman who grew up in an isolated village called Unity—a village in the dark where women have taken refuge from abusive men.

It seems Aaron and Dylan weren’t the only targets—and the closer that Cara gets to identifying the shadowy forces behind the deaths and disappearances, the more she and those around her become targets themselves.

Something about remote areas of Alaska makes it an ideal setting for a thriller—the snow, the isolation, the stark and inhospitable landscape. These Cara Kennedy books, too, highlight the epidemic of domestic violence in the state where over half of the women have reported intimate partner violence, sexual assault, or both. (It is also a state with one of the highest rates of gun ownership.) I love that Point Mettier and Unity are refuges for women and places where women are leaders.

The mystery itself in this volume had a few layers and the context was interesting to me, though it seemed a bit far-fetched, though the ultimate baddie, the person pulling the strings, did shock me. I did not see it coming! I thoroughly enjoyed the book, and I like Cara Kennedy (though she does sometimes go rogue to her disadvantage). The real stars, though, are the characters from Point Mettier. I did love the chapters from Ellie’s point of view. She’s so irreverent and has no f*cks to give. If I have a quibble with the book, it’s that the ending works out a little too perfectly. This will not at all deter me from looking forward to and reading the third book as soon as it is available!

Village in the Dark by Iris Yamashita
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This is book two following Detective Cara Kennedy. I did not read the first book ( kind of want to now) and I can say that this book is easy to pick up and read alone.

Cara is trying to figure out the truth about what happened to her husband and son. She has some help from a few residents in a rather unique community, which is helpful because it seems more and more likely that there are those who want her to stop digging.

I picked up this book and I did not want to put it down, it consumed me. There were several mysteries that I NEEDED to have answered.

I loved the setting of the book as well. Especially the village.
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4⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I enjoyed this a lot more than I expected and now I want to go back and read City Under One Roof.

4 stars

You can read all of my reviews at Nerd Girl Loves Books.

This is the second book in this fast paced mystery/thriller that can be read as a stand alone. I haven't read the first book, and while I probably would have enjoyed the book even more had I read it first, I don't feel like I missed out on anything or had trouble following the story. There was plenty of backstory in the book to fill me in on what happened in book 1.

The book is told from three people's point of view - Cara, an Anchorage detective who's husband and son died in a terrible accident; Ellie - an older woman with a colorful past who just found out her estranged son died of an apparent overdose; and Mia, a young girl that was raised in a remote off-the-grid village of women and children in hiding from abusive men. Initially the reader doesn't understand how the women related to each other, but as Cara investigates what she now believes was the murder of her husband and son, evidence begins to click into place.

I liked Cara - she was smart, determined and not easily discouraged or swayed. Her new relationship with Point Mettier police officer J.B., which apparently began in book one, was a sweet relief in the otherwise tension-filled book. Ellie is the epitome of a bad-ass woman that is nobody's fool and takes no prisoners. She's lived a hard life, but has finally found a place of peace, acceptance , and self-worth. All of that is put into jeopardy when her abusive felon ex-husband tracks her down. Mia was probably the least fleshed-out character. She lived a sheltered life in her village, but her intelligence and hard work ethic saw her making her own way in "Man's World". That is, until her innocent act of trusting the wrong person put her life at risk.

The book dragged a bit in the middle, and the ending seemed a bit rushed, but overall, I liked the characters and story and will read more books in this series if it continues.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from NetGalley and Berkley Publishing Group. All opinions are my own.

May Contain Spoilers if you haven't read City Under One Roof.

I have been waiting for the second book in the Cara Kennedy detective series since City Under One Roof ended. Village in the Dark did not disappoint and we finally, finally have answers to the cliffhangers we were left with last time.

Village in the Dark follows three different characters. Cara, Ellie, and Mia.
Cara is the main character from the first book and the one the story follows the most as the entire series is focused around her.
Ellie is a character we met in the first book City Under One Roof that rents out rooms to people visiting Point Mettier.
Lastly, we have a new character Mia who is a young woman who is on her own in the world for the most part and because of this gets herself into a dangerous situation.

Surprisingly for once I enjoyed all of the different perspectives! They were all so interesting and well done without it being too much.

Village in the Dark starts with Cara investigating her husband and son's deaths, and reopening the case to find out what really happened to them as it is still unsolved. She is doing this all on her own and paying for it through a private company to get the DNA matched. She is doing this because at the end of the first book she finds a photo of her husband and son on a gang member's phone making her believe that they were murdered and it wasn't an accident. Cara's husband and son's photos were not the only ones photos on this phone as several other people who are also missing or dead are also on it. This leads Cara to start investigating with some help from her friends in Point Mettier as she tries to put the pieces together of what happened to them.

Overall I loved this book! It was such a quick read because I just had to know what happened next, and the author kept the pacing nice and steady to keep everything connecting and going until the end. The three different perspectives worked great and showed how what happened to them became this huge thing and how it affected so many different people's lives. Ellie was amazing in this book with how she put things together when it came to her own loss and how she recruited people to help find out information as well. Mia was a bit of a wild card and I wasn't sure how she would be connected to the story, but she had so much information that was vital to the entire thing.
I was not expecting things to go the way they did in the end and that ending was huge! So many things happened in a short amount of time, and it was great to see all the different pieces that had been found out piece together to show how much bigger this all ended up being and how it all snowballed together. I cannot wait to see what happens next in this series! (Has it been confirmed that this is a series yet? I keep seeing conflicting information)

I would also like to applaud the author's knowledge and research into Indigenous culture and beliefs as they did such a good job of making sure that was included and a big part of the story.



Review will be posted on my blog on release day.
Review will be posted on my Instagram on release day.
Review is already up on Goodreads, and Storygraph!

A mystery thriller in an unusual setting with unique characters. Cara Kennedy has been medically retired from the police force due t0 her mental health issues after the death of her husband and son, who went out for a walk and didn't come back. But she doesn't think they are dead and, as it turns out, the bones she buried are not theirs. So whose are they? Cara joins forces with Ellie, a reformed criminal, whose son Timmy has been found dead to get answers about the photographs she finds on the camera of a bad guy. It won't be clear how Mia, who is working and living under an alias, hooks into the story initially. Her back story is most interesting. While this is occasionally awkward, it's also got a great setting in Point Mettier and the characters are interesting. I missed the first novel but this was fine as a standalone (there's more than enough back story). Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. No spoilers from me.

All this book made me want to do is pick up the first book in the series. I have never read this author, but I'm so glad I have. She is definitely going in on my must read author's list.

It's been over a year since Cara's husband and son were killed and she's still looking for answers. The answers take her back to a small, isolated village in Alaska. The story is told from multiple points of view alternate between Cara, Mia, and Ellie which all play pivotal roles in the story that makes this book a thought-provoking, and emotional action-packed, suspenseful tale.

I received this advance review copy from NetGalley & the publisher for my honest review.

Cara Kennedy is an Anchorage detective and she still mourns the deaths of her husband and young son. However, she has recently learned that their deaths may not have been accidental and is determined to discover the truth. Having previously solved a difficult murder case, Cara soon finds herself torn between her need for answers as well as a new case involving a victim named Mia Upash.

However, Cara is on disability, as she has not coped well the loss of her family. Yet she remains strongly determined to investigate matters as much as she can. For starters, she has the bodies of her husband and son exhumed and is shocked at what she discovers.

Meanwhile, there is more than one narration in this second book in the Cara Kennedy series by Iris Yamashita. The first book in this engaging series was City Under One Roof. Both books are quite good, and in this case Cara finds herself pitted against Ellie the woman who manages a unique building in Port Mettier, someone she has never quite got along with. Meanwhile, Mia, the newest victim, also has a point of view as the story develops.

Cara finds herself investigating in the small village of Unity, which is a safe haven for women needing protection from their abusers. What Cara soon finds provides a sharp twist in this story. Meanwhile, Cara had entered into a relationship with a cop she met in Port Mettier and it was interesting in this second book in the series the direction their relationship has taken, especially with more on the investigation regarding her family.

This second book in the series was an excellent read and kept my attention from beginning to end. The relationships between the characters as well as the mix of old and new cases kept me riveted to the story. As this story is strongly connected to the first book, City Under One Roof, these books should be read in order. I cannot wait to read the next book in this series.

Many thanks to Berkley and to NetGalley for this ARC for review. This is my honest opinion.

Village in the Dark is an enthralling murder mystery that will send shivers down your spine. This captivating tale is filled with unforgettable characters and culminates in a breathtaking conclusion.

This is the second book in a series about Anchorage Police Detective Cara Kennedy. The first book, which I just finished, was City Under One Roof.

Cara's husband and son disappeared over a year ago while hiking. Human remains were found and identified as them but Cara questions whether it really was her family.

While she is looking into whether her husband and son are really dead, two other women are involved in their own investigations that criss cross with Cara's.

The story is told from multiple points-of-view, which I appreciated, but the storyline was rather convoluted and hard to believe at times (maybe a bit more sci fi than mystery). But, even so, I still enjoyed it and still rated it four stars.

I received this Digital Review Copy from Berkley Publishing through Net Galley in the hopes that I would read it and leave an unbiased review. This is that review.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for my e-arc of Village in the Dark! I so wanted to enjoy this one but it was unfortunately a miss for me and I DNFed.

I really enjoyed this sequel to Iris Yamashita’s City Under One Roof. It really kept the pages turning and I was interested from the start to the finish.

Thank you to NetGalley for the advance reader copy of this book. I was thrilled to be able to advance read this thriller starring Cara Kennedy. I loved the first one in this series and this one did not disappoint. I especially enjoy how Yamashita ties the two story lines together. 4 solid stars

Alaska, by itself, is an intriguing mystery setting, but remote, secret villages and of course the city under one roof readers learned about in the previous book combine to make a perfect example of setting as a character. This one had some heart pounding reveals and characters that made good additions to the cast from the previous book. This is one to read in order as it builds on storylines from the previous book.

Detective Cara Kennedy is still grieving the tragic loss of her husband and child and has been deemed unfit to return to duty. When she finds that the death of her family may not have been an accident, she has their bodies exhumed and autopsied. What she finds shakes her world and sends her on a search for the truth. Pictures found on a phone recovered from a dead body lead Cara on a wild search to solve the mystery of who the people in the pictures might be and how they’re connected to her late husband and son. She receives help in the most unlikely places.

Twists, turns, secrets, surprises, danger, and more.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This book will introduce you to the vast wilderness that is Alaska. The author takes you from the miles long tunnel under a mountain, to the snow machines (vernacular for snowmobiles), to the aerial view from the small planes that might be the only way to get in and out of a remote location. From the city of Anchorage, to "Point Mettier, Alaska (inspired but not wholly based on the real-life Whittier, Alaska), where all 205 residents live in the same high-rise building".

I was also touched by the author's knowledge of indigenous people and language, and the mythology that informed so much of the traditions in the small villages. It's a place where the Aurora Borealis holds mystical power. And even though this book is fiction, it is appalling to know that so many people, especially women, choose to live off the grid because of a fear of their past.

And finally, this is a great thriller based on missing persons, a pharmaceutical company, some bad actors, and the people that will go to great lengths to stop them.

This book is part of a series, although I did see it listed as such. The first book was City Under One Roof. It's not necessary to read the first book, though it would have helped me with some slight confusion I had at the beginning of the book.

Thanks to NetGalley and Berkley for an advance reader's copy and for allowing me to take part in the blog tour for Village in the Dark.