I love the Nordic noir genre and books set in Iceland, so I was really excited to get started with this one. It has a dark, chilling atmosphere that’s perfect for reading this time of year. While I appreciated the plot and atmospheric setting, I found it difficult to connect with the characters which ultimately influenced my enjoyment of the book.

I absolutely LOVED the setting of this book. The mystery was there, the characters were nicely done, loved the ending. Will read more from this author for sure.

📚 PUBLICATION WEEK BOOK REVIEW 📚

The Lost House By Melissa Larsen
Publication Date: January 14, 2025
Publisher: St. Martin's Press | Minotaur Books

📚MY RATING: ⭐⭐⭐⭐✨
(Rounded Up To 5⭐)

📚MY REVIEW:

If you're a fan of atmospheric slow burn thrillers, allow me to introduce you to your next read. Set in Iceland, The Lost House is the PERFECT read for these cold winter months. Once I started, I couldn't read this book fast enough!

The frigidly cold weather feels almost like it's a character in this read, and it entwines so beautifully with the chilling storylines and the cold detached vibes of the main character, Agnes. The writing in this book so brilliantly foreshadows its conclusion, but provides only a trail of meager bread crumbs as the story unfolds. While much of the book takes place in one period of time, there are a couple chapters that offer a dual timeline to provide a tiny glimpse into more of the backstory.

All her life, Agnes has known that her grandfather, Einar, and father, Magnus, abruptly left Iceland after the brutal murders of Agnes' grandmother and Agnes' namesake aunt (who was just an infant), to begin their lives anew in California. Agnes has also known that her grandfather was rumored to have committed these murders and then run from Iceland to avoid prosecution. However, Einar was more of a father to Agnes than her own father was, and she has always believed Einar was innocent. A year after Einar's death, Agnes agrees to travel to Iceland to participate in a podcast about the brutal murders because she wants to prove her grandfather's innocence once and for all.

This was one of the most atmospheric books I've ever read! The slow-burning mystery created an almost tangible intrigue, and there was a guardedness to Agnes that captivated me. I read this book as quickly as I could, because I simply had to figure out the truth behind the mystery that has shackled Agnes' family with notoriety for all these years.

This book is a captivating and slow-burning dark horse amidst the onslaught of new releases that happened on January 14th. But don't miss this one if you love slow-burn thrillers, locked room vibes, and unique remote settings. A huge thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press | Minotaur Books for this advanced e-copy of the book in exchange for my honest review!

#TheLostHouse #MelissaLarsen #MinotaurBooks #StMartinsPress #NetGalley #NetGalleyReviews #ARC #thrilleraddict #thrillerlover #slowburnthrillers #booklover #bookreviews #bookrecs #bookrecommendations

This was an easy read, that I finished in two days, but I didn't feel a strong connection to any of the characters. Nora, the podcaster, felt weird in a "you're to connected to a stranger" and seemed aggressive towards people she needed, Agnes was floating through life with no direction or real anchor; granted she had a lot change and happen within the last year. The plot was a little slow until the last quarter or so when pieces started falling into place and the resolution to the decades long mystery was finally solved. The ending jumped ahead without much of a bridge from there to here. An average read, enjoyable enough, something different, but not a book that has me racing to reach Larsen's backlist.
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Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

An Icelandic thriller that revolves around an unsolved murder. Agnes has hit a low point in her life when a podcaster reaches out for Agnes’s help with uncovering the truth behind the deaths of Agnes’s grandmother and aunt. Agnes’s flies to Iceland (without a return ticket) to uncover the truth and find herself. What she doesn’t expect is to be embroiled in another crime.

Rating- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 4/5
Agnes returns to her family's home in Bifrost, Iceland to clear her grandfather's name of any involvement with the murder of his wife and daughter. Although no arrests were ever made, everyone suspected Einar who eventually fled to California with his son Magnus. Agnes doesn't believe her father would let her grow up around a murderer, but it seems she's the only one convinced of Einar's innocence. Agnes meets with a popular true crime podcaster to give her side of the story, but Nora is occupied with another case in Bifrost- the recent disappearance of a young girl who is presumed dead. Agnes wonders if the two cases could possibly be connected.

It's an entertaining read, and helped get me out of a reading slump. There are a lot of twists to keep you guessing. I really enjoyed Agnes' character, she's pretty relatable, and I liked how throughout the story we see her start to doubt her own judgement. Thank you to St. Martin's Press for the advance reader copy.

The Lost House by Melissa Larsen follows Agnes, whose grandmother and aunt were murdered in Iceland forty years ago. Despite rumors accusing her grandfather, Agnes is determined to uncover the truth, traveling to Bifrost to investigate. Struggling with her own emotional and physical challenges, Agnes finds herself in a tense, chilling atmosphere where danger feels ever-present. The audiobook, narrated by Saskia Maarleveld, perfectly complements the somber tone of the story, enhancing the feeling of mistrust and suspicion. With a compelling mystery and a sense of impending danger, the novel immerses readers in a cold, haunting setting.

Thank you Netgalley and Minotaur Books for the chance to read The lost house by Melissa Larsen. The author is new to me, and the summary and setting in Iceland is what drew me to requesting it. The suspenseful mystery was interesting and the author was successful in creating a bleak setting, but I did find the pacing of the plot slow, and I had a hard time connecting to the characters. Overall a good mystery with twists that should be appeal to readers.

The Lost House was an excellent wintery thriller. Set in Iceland during the brutal cold, snowy, and dark winter. The Lost House takes us into the life of our main character, Agnes, as she explores her families tragic past and attempts to reconcile that with the family she knows, a distant father and a loving grandfather. A loving grandfather believed to have killed his wife and baby daughter.

Agnes travels from California to her families ancestral home in Iceland after being contacted by a podcaster doing a story on her family. When she arrives, she learns that a young woman has gone missing after being at a party in the families abandoned home. Looking into her families past and the disappearance of this young woman puts Agnes in danger. And Agnes is already fighting her own demons.

This story was such an atmospheric, slow burn thriller. The authour managed to build up so much tension with the descriptions of the cold and harsh winter landscape and with the secondary characters who all seemed to have secrets.

I did not guess the ending, the authour kept me second guessing my thoughts right up until the end.

While it was a slow burn, it was a very captivating story, so I read through it pretty quickly.

If you are a fan of wintery atmospheric thrillers, you should add this to your reading list.

Thanks to St. Martin's Press for the advanced digital copy of this book. My opinions are my own.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the eARC.

This book is eerie and twisty, atmospheric and cold. Like I felt cold while reading it. The mystery is divine. Stellar.

The Lost House
By: Melissa Larsen

4 Stars

Would you still love a family member if they committed a heinous act? Agnes is searching for the answer to this as her family's past comes rushing to her present. Her grandfather was suspected of murdering his wife and child. He was never charged, leaving only one real question. Was he innocent, or did he kill them? Now Agnes, after a life changing accident, goes rushing to her homeland of Iceland and is shocked to find out all the secrets it holds. While battling her own personal demons, she also has to battle the demons of the past.

This was a very interesting story, bringing past and present together in a well written and descriptive way. I loved the Icelandic background and all the wonderful characters. Why did I picture Thor as a viking, haha? This story was shrouded in a mysterious fog from start to finish. It kept me guessing till the end. It was descriptive and intriguing. It was murder and secrecy. It was hope and the future. It threw in bits of romance while being dramatic and mysterious. Overall, it was a thrilling read.


*I want to thank Netgalley and the author for this book in return for my honest review*

Stormi Ellis
Boundless Book Review

The strength of this story in it's chilly atmosphere. Set against an Icelandic winter, we're dropped into the middle of a forty year old cold case of the Frozen Madonna and Child. Agnes, who is the granddaughter of the murdered woman, is working with a podcaster to exonerated her grandfather.
She has a fierce loyalty to her grandfather and, after his death, she has started to spiral. Despite her father's grievances, Agnes ingratiates herself into the case and continues to spiral even further.

This is a slow burn mystery that will chill you to the bone (and not just because of the cold weather). There's so much darkness. Larsen also explores issues of suicidal ideations and addiction, which added layers to the story.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Lost House by Melissa Larsen, for me this was a slow moving book and one I found it very hard to get caught up into. It did improve some more toward the end of the book. Having said that I would still recommend this to others because I realize not everyone enjoys the same type of books.

I received an ARC from NetGalley and St. Martin's Press, and I am leaving my review voluntarily.

The Lost House by Melissa Larsen is a suspenseful mystery thriller that takes place in Iceland. It follows FMC Agnes who returns to her family’s old home to investigate a brutal murder that happened in her family. I really liked the setting of the book. The book was very well-written but it felt a bit slow at times. Overall, I enjoyed this story.
Thank you, NetGalley for the advanced copy of this book.

The Lost House has a fabulous plot but ultimately didn’t have enough substance to keep me interested. It feels much more character based and I just didn’t feel the connection to the FMC enough to care.

What I liked:
•Atmospheric
•Two separate mysteries
•Locked room aspect
•Answer to the secondary mystery was a great twist.

What I didn’t like:
•The characters
•The pacing was extremely slow
•The answer to the main mystery was anticlimactic and lackluster

I have shared this review on Amazon, StoryGraph, Goodreads

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7088432137

And Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/p/DE5OvrvJ9wz/?igsh=MTBhd28wczM4bWd4Ng==

Perfect book for winter reading, the Icelandic setting makes you want to bundle under all the blankets and stay warm. Loved the setting and descriptions of the landscape, tolerated the characters. None of them (with the exception of Ingvar) were very likeable. I never felt a connection that would make me care about what happened to any of them in the end. The book moved a bit slowly in some places, but it built up to a satisfying climax.


Possible spoiler…
What happened to Nora? Did she just disappear 2/3 of the way through? I remember her leaving to interview Thor Senior again, but she never reappeared for the climax and ending?

Thanks to Melissa Larsen, Minotaur and St Martin’s Press for the advance readers copy.

At 40% DNF for me… I’m not sure if it was a me issue or a book issue. I didn’t realize going into this that the book had the podcast element. I am not a fan of mystery/thrillers that revolve around a podcast. I probably sure have research more into this before accepting the ARC. It was easy to read but I got to a point where it just didn’t interest me any longer. Thanks Netgally and St Martin’s Press for the ARC in exchange for a honest review ❤️

Agnes has come to Iceland from California. She is staying with Nora Carter who is doing a true crime investigation into Agnes’ grandfather who was accused of killing his wife and young daughter 40 years ago. He said he was innocent and then fled the country with his son Marcus. Marcus married and had a daughter named Agnes. Agnes loved her grandfather very much and does not believe this kind man could have killed as he had been accused. Thus, she has journeyed to Iceland to join Nora’s investigation.

While there, another young woman goes missing and the town is thrown into chaos as they search for her. Nora gets into the investigation as well. Agnes herself is still suffering the pain of a terrible accident that nearly destroyed her leg. Getting hooked on opioids for the pain has made her girlfriend leave her. She has been living with her father for some time as he helps her. They have never had a good relationship.

Oh dear. This book did nothing for me. It seems to be rehashed over and over with sketchy characters. The descriptions of the cold made me shiver. I feel like a book that is repetitive and slow to build is just something I don’t want to read.

Copy provided by NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

My first five-star thriller of 2025: The Lost House by Melissa Larsen!

Immediately after finishing, I wondered what exactly I loved about this book but as is the case sometimes, it's not the one thing that worked so well - it's everything! With dark undertones and a mysterious plot, I was simply held captive by this story!

I had a love-hate relationship with main character Agnes; I was amazed by her tenacity, put off by her (almost) naivety, felt for her during times of need and related to her in a way I still can't pinpoint. Her character worked so perfectly within the confines of this story, and her personality somehow helped shape the harsh atmosphere of this Icelandic-based thriller.

I'm a sucker for alternative media within a book, and it's even better when their addition adds to the overall atmosphere of the audiobook! True crime podcast snippets from "The End" are full production value and instantly create the tone for this book! Set to chilling music and with appropriate sound effects, this chapter is sure to send shivers down your spine!

Saskia Maarleveld's voice was the perfect pairing for this addictive and atmospheric book! Her voice added this breathiness to the story, deepening the chilling effect Laren's words already captured. I'm not even sure my description will even make sense, but Maarleveld effortlessly created such an airy gust, complimenting the vast tundra within the story. Perfect narrator choice!

I want to call this a Nordic noir, but it seems just slightly adjacent to that sub-genre, not quite touching the police/investigator aspect in typical fashion... but the bones that make up this type of thriller are all there! This book is cold, dark, chilling and atmospheric; it's realistic and real-world based; it's gripping, immersive and disturbing.

In short: add this to your winter TBR right away!

Thank you NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, Minotaur Books and Macmillan Audio for the complimentary copies to read and review.

CONTENT WARNING: grief, death of a loved one (off-page), murder, death of a child, suicide attempt

I’ve read a little bit of Scandinavian noir, and it’s a wonderful new world of books to read. I’m not really familiar with anything about Iceland other than it is beautiful, you can see the Northern Lights, and a bunch of my friends have gone there. Hearing that this book is a thriller set in a remote part of Iceland caught my attention, and I had to request it. Luckily, the gods of NetGalley were working in my favor.

To start with, the writing is fantastic. The remote and isolated town outside of Reykjavik was so wonderfully described that it felt like I needed to bundle up to read this. The landscape is harsh and stark, and it’s set during winter, so the characters are also facing a very snowy environment, and it quickly becomes clear that this isn’t like the snow we get here—it’s the kind where it’s nearly impossible to walk in, and simply being outside in the super cold temperatures can be fatal.

“The emptiness of the land seduces you into believing that you are alone, you are anonymous, when in fact it only makes you that much more exposed.”

Agnes is a tough character to like, and her morally gray tendencies explain why. She was the kind of person who I constantly wanted to shake some sense into, but at the same time, I could empathize with her. After a devastating accident last year, she became disabled, and that disability takes over her life. This is especially problematic for her because participating in physically active hobbies for fun and as a coping skill for the stresses of her life. Even more so because she is one of the small population of people who develop a substance use disorder as a result of the painkillers she was prescribed after multiple surgeries. Even the way she ruminates both on her physical pain and the next painkiller she can take felt realistic, and it’s clear that she is using that to avoid the emotional pain that she’s in, after losing her beloved grandfather, experiencing a breakup of a serious relationship, and the guilt that she carries over her accident and the consequences she faces for the rest of her life. The only thing that was missing was an obsessive counting of how many pills she has left, although the constant fight between taking a pill and getting clean is present throughout the book.

“Sitting in one set position for the past fourteen hours has sent her back to the early days of her recovery, when her worldview had contracted down to her left leg, and only her left leg.”

The disability and addiction representation in this book is done really well. I could really identify with Agnes on this level, as someone who also had a chronic illness that impairs my mobility. Just reading about the treks that Agnes made had me feeling like those descriptions could apply to me as well. Mental note: If I ever go to Iceland, make sure to stay close to the cities.

“Agnes struggles to keep up with his long stride. Each step is a debt owed to her body, unable to be repaid.”

“It’s not enough, not nearly enough, to ease her cravings. Just enough, she tells herself, to be a person.”

The story is told almost exclusively from the POV of Agnes, with the exception of a prologue chapter that is told in third person. I really enjoyed getting to learn about what happened during the two mysteries—one that happened 40 years ago and led her grandfather and father to flee to California, and then one in the present day, involving the disappearance of a college student in the town. There are some concerning similarities between the two cases, and Agnes happens to get caught up in both as she arrives in Bifröst to meet up with a true crime podcaster, Nora, who is doing a special show about the Frozen Madonna cold case on its fortieth anniversary.

As Agnes makes her way around the town that her father was born in, she learns more about how they lived, the people who lived nearby, and the legacy left behind. Agnes had an extremely close relationship with her grandfather, while her father seems more aloof. However, her grandfather and father wouldn’t ever discuss anything that happened before they arrived in California. She grew up with no real knowledge of her paternal side’s family history, and her mother wasn’t in the picture. Having only known the sweet, loving, caring, and thoughtful grandfather, she arrives in Iceland convinced that she could help exonerate her grandfather of the murders by proving his innocence. In the process, she unwittingly finds herself involved in the disappearance of the college student on the annual party at what has become known as ‘the Murder House.’

It causes friction between her and her father, Magnús, because he doesn’t want her, or anyone else, to dig into their family history. But Agnes starts out the story at a personal low, and works her way through moire than just her family background in Iceland. She shows an impressive amount of personal growth, even while making bad choices. At least she learns from her mistakes, and makes different ones the next time. While this has the potential to seem repetitive, as someone who was able-bodied for decades. Fun fact: I was on the fencing team in both high school and college. I’ve experienced the grief associated with losing mobility all at once, and her fixation on her pain and pills could seem overdone to someone who hasn’t experienced this, but all of this is incredibly realistic. The way that her emotions are only starting to come out now that she’s trying to stop using but is still taking just enough to stave off the worst of the pain and the cravings.

“Because this isn’t just grief tearing her apart. There’s anger, too. Anger at her father. She’s come all this way to help her grandfather, to reconnect with him after his death, and her father hates her for it.”

I loved the idea of a hauntingly barren landscape featuring lava fields, with forest encroaching on the town. The remoteness of the location and how it is so cut off because of the winter weather made this entire small town with the illusion of privacy into a locked-room mystery that hopefully isn’t a murder, while racing against time and the Arctic cold to find the missing girl. Obviously Nora gets wrapped up in the investigation, as does Agnes. There’s so much character development in Agnes, while we see Nora’s tough exterior as well as her vulnerable side.

Set against a backdrop of stunning natural beauty, the dual timeline mysteries are fascinating to see unravel, and although I guessed the culprit of one of the crimes, the other surprised me. There were some really good plot twists that I didn’t see coming at all, and some that I spotted relatively early, but it was such an immersive story that I was hooked from start to finish. Pacing is wonderfully done, offering little bits of information that constant change the direction of the story as the characters discover it, and keeping readers invested in both storylines by creating some tenuous links between the crimes. This fast-paced mystery kept me on the edge of my seat as the characters crept closer to the resolution of both a cold case that has taken on almost a cult-like following in true crime circles, and a present-day mystery that is gradually taking on a new importance to Agnes. Overall, this was done wonderfully, and I can’t wait to check out her other book, and see what she does in the future. I recommend this if you like mysteries, Scandinavian noir or settings, super atmospheric books that are so exciting it almost feels like claustrophobia kicks in as the full story becomes apparent, a mystery lead who has a disability that she doesn’t allow to hold her back anymore, and both historical and present day mysteries rolled into one messy scene.