I love a little bit of Scandi Noir, stories that are dark, foreboding, and just a little bit bleak, all of which can be used to describe The Forbidden Place. It starts with Nathalie returning to her childhood home, or at least close to it, determined to face her demons and - finally - move on with her life. What those demons are isn't exactly clear, though her story slowly gets told as the book progresses. That it has to do with the marsh she is staying next to, however, isn't in any doubt.

To Nathalie, it seems to take on a life of her own, filling her full of dread, never more so than when she finds the body of Johannes, a young man she recently went on a date with, unconscious and close to death in the peat bog. Perhaps she wouldn't feel so scared if this was the first time a body had been found in the marsh. But it isn't. Instead, over the years, more than one person has gone missing...while others who live in the area have ended up dead.

It all makes for a great premise for a book, and just up my street, which it was - at first. Unfortunately, about halfway through, it ran out of steam because, while I liked Nathalie, she was the only real character in the book and - interesting as she was and intriguing as her secrets were - I needed a bit more variety to keep me going. Instead, I found myself dragging, losing interest during the final third especially. IT's a shame really, given how strong it started, but - in the end - this wasn't for me.

I'm sure this book will have a supportive readership who enjoy the hints of the paranormal alongside a reasonably straightforward police procedural; unfortunately, this readership will not include me among its most enthusiastic members. The broad outline of the plot was perfectly OK, but the way Ms Jansson conveniently allows various key characters to forget or conceal key evidence without a clearly established rationale until convenient for her to produce to allow the book to work towards its denouement took away some of my enjoyment. I'm not sure, too, if the translation is as secure as it could be. There are examples of clumsy idiom here and there which serve to trouble the fluency of the narrative; dialogue, too, is not as easy to read as the best authors manage. However, it would be wrong to interpret my reservations as serious criticism - it's just that there was a better book to be had from the basic plot ingredients. The advance reading copy kindly provided by the publisher and NetGalley had a few issues with layout, but I'm confident that these will be addressed in the final published edition.

With thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the book in exchange for an honest review.
This was an interesting story of a place where people disappear and other bodies are found, who have been mummified by the marsh and the remains are given their own names.
It is whether it is a ghost story or whether humans are responsible for the missing people. Nathalie and Maya are very closely connected to the mystery. One through the death of her parents and the other because she is the part time photographer for the police department.
An interesting story.

I enjoyed this book. It is well written the overall feel of the book is dark and quite gripping. Although atmospheric with good characters. I did think it lacked a little spark. Still a good read though.

Nathalie , a biologist,arrives in Mossmarken in order to conduct some research.This is an area of peat bogs - an area she knows well having spent her early life growing up there until she was the victim of a tragedy.
She befriends Johannes, a student,who begins helping her to obtain her samples until he is attacked whilst on a run and left for dead.He was found by Nathalie,alerted to something ominous happening due to a change in the weather conditions - stirring up memories of local folklore. - the area had a history of being use for sacrifice..The subsequent investigations lead to other bodies being found in the bog and the unravelling of the tragedy in Nathalie's life.
On the whole I like the Nordic genre so was a bit disappointed in this book.
It was very atmospheric and I could visual the scenes as if I was watching it on a screen but I felt it was a bit slow and just missing something - I did finish it ,and the twist was unexpected but,for me,it wasn't a page turner.

I loved this unusual and original story. A Scandinavian story which has its own style. Definitely one for Xmas lists!

This is a bleak and sometimes creepy thriller where ghosts and events from the past spill over to the present. It’s atmospheric and often claustrophobic with a strong sense of place and wilderness. It starts well, but I found some of the descriptive passages a little too much. The detail occasionally became overwhelming and detracted from the pace and the overall plot. I stuck with it and overall enjoyed the mystery.

My thanks to the publisher for a review copy via Netgalley.

The storyline for this book is a classic mystery "Whodunnit" mixed with an uncovering of what happened to Nathalie's parents while she was a child. I found this part of the story intriguing but as Natalie had returned to conduct scientific research in the peat bogs around her family home I found the amount of detail here quite tedious and found myself skipping through chunks of it to get back to what I thought was the integral part of the book. Fortunately my perseverance paid off and the mystery of what happened to.Johannes, who had befriended Natalie at the beginning of the book and was attacked in the depths of the peat bog, and the truth behind the deaths of Natalie 's parents were brought to a satisfactory conclusion. Had the author concentrated on these parts of the storyline and not gone into so much scientific detail I would have been ecstatic about the book, as it is I only read to the end as I was given the book to review.

Nathalie grew up living in a mire in Sweden where people would disappear into the bog never to be seen again.
When tragedy strikes her family when she was just 12 years old she leaves the area an orphan but returning 14 years later she finds that the bog is still claiming lives in mysterious circumstances. Artist Maya gets pulled into the story not only in her police photography but also from an artists perspective.

The story is supposed to be a spooky thriller but it just doesn't hit the mark for me - its confusing most of the time with lengthy descriptions of things that just don't seem necessary.

The format jumps from one character in a sentence to the next character in the next sentence so no clear breaks so again is confusing over who it is talking about. Had to persevere to finish it as just didn't grab my attention

I have just finished reading the forbidden place and I thought it was brilliantly atmospheric and the story pulled me in from page one, In fact it was difficult to put down, I was lucky enough to read an advance copy and the only thing I found annoying was the narrative is sometimes difficult to follow as it jumps from one character to another with out a new chapter but it was still enjoyable.
The story is about a biologist Nathalie Strom who has gone to study the greenhouse gasses released from the Swedish bogs near Quagmire Manor, sounds dull right! but Nathalie knows these marshes, she used to live near by and when she was 12 until she left after a family tragedy and now shes back and mysteries are still surrounding the marsh. Firstly her friend is found injured and then a body is found. What is happening ? Nathalie needs to find out and in doing so close the chapter of her life she tries to keep hidden.
This is definitely worth a read. and I look forward to reading more from Susanne Jansson.

The Forbidden Place had me hooked from page one. I loved this book. I feel completely under its spell. The book has a great sense of place with the mire and the village, both of these are really brought to life. They were so vivid and real. The mire is a great place for sinister events to take place. The characters are great. Nathalie is a great character. I really felt for her as she struggles to uncover the truth about a dark event in her past. Is the truth always the best option? She some secrets stay buried. Maya is great as well. She has a passing interest in the dark history of the mire and soon finds herself embroiled in sinister events involving missing person cases from the area going back several years. The Forbidden Place gets really intense towards the end as Nathalie and Maya and the police start to close in on the horrifying truth. I had no idea what was really going on so hat off to the author for making my mouth fall open and my jaw smash into the top of my desk. The Forbidden Place is also an incredibly sad book, brilliant, just brilliant.

I really enjoyed this book, a I was first reading I was getting slightly confused with what exactly was going on with Nathalie our main character and even as the story was developing, I had no idea of how this book was going to end. I loved how it all came together at the end and all was revealed. Brilliantly written.

When a man is found unconscious in the mires of Mossmarken, a sacrificial bag of coins in his pocket a light is shone on the dark human and supernatural history of the area. It also begs the question - how many other victims are hidden in the marshes?

The Forbidden Place is a psychological thriller told from the perspective of biologist Nathalie, a returning visitor with a secret past and photographer Maya who is on a mission to uncover the truth. I felt that it was quite slow to start with a lot of detail and events we didn’t really need. The setting is very atmospheric though and I liked the history of the peat bodies and ancient sacrifice which really added to the ambience of the plot. The book also kept me gripped and wondering what was going to happen next – I didn’t guess the outcome ahead of time and I finished it in 2 sittings.

I try to hold off on judging formatting of ARCs but this book is now out to buy so I feel I should mention that the paragraph spacing is not done well. The book jumps narrative perspectives from one sentence to another which makes it very hard to follow at times. Both female characters are also written quite similarly which adds to the confusion.

This book is translated from Swedish and on the whole I think the translator did a really good job. The only time I was really brought out of the story and noticed it had been translated was where the phrase ‘just the two of us’ was described as ‘those three words’! I did also find the flirting and ‘romantic’ scenes between the characters to be a little cringe-worthy in their description and choice of wording.

Overall The Forbidden Place is a atmospheric thriller with an interesting setting – just needs better formatting to make it easier to delve into. Thank you to NetGalley & Hodder and Stoughton – Mulholland Books for a copy of the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Too slow, too self conscious, i just couldn't get into it. Not sure it deserves all the hype. Three stars as it didn't annoy me, but it didn't deliver anything great either

A dark thriller invoking spirits of the bog. Very atmospheric but way too much detail regarding biological bog. life etc.

In the remote Swedish wetlands lies Mossmarken: the village on the edge of the mire where, once upon a time, people came to leave offerings to the gods.

Biologist Nathalie came in order to study the peat bogs. But she has a secret: Mossmarken was once her home, a place where terrible things happened. She has returned at last, determined to confront her childhood trauma and find out the truth.

Soon after her arrival, she finds an unconscious man out on the marsh, his pockets filled with gold - just like the ancient human sacrifices. A grave is dug in the mire, which vanishes a day after. And as the police investigate, the bodies start to surface...

Is the mire calling out for sacrifices, as the superstitious locals claim? Or is it an all-too-human evil?

An international sensation, THE FORBIDDEN PLACE is a darkly gripping tale of the stories we tell ourselves to survive, and the terrible consequences they can have.

This is a really good book, but I had to mark it down from the 4* it deserved, due to the book having no chapters and not making it clear who is narrating. I was very confused by this for most of the book, but eventually decided to ignore who was narrating and just take in the story. Disappointing. 3*

A touch of the supernatural mixed with missing persons, folklore and murder. A dark mystery.
Nathalie returns to the wetlands of her childhood home seeking the truth from her tragic past. Her parents both died there and her best friends’ sister disappeared in the mire. It is a deeply disturbing place, a known site for early human sacrifice and where quite recently ancient human remains were found in the peat.
Nathalie befriends a man who she meets cycling past her cabin and one day interrupts a vicious attack on him, mysteriously gold coins are found in his pocket.
Maya is a photographer who works for the police and is fascinated by the history of the area and the mysterious events that begin to unfold.
The threads of the story from past and present are gradually drawn together as the story unfolds.

Oh dear. I got completely bogged down with The Forbidden Place (no pun intended). So much hype about the book and yet, for me, it's a slow burner that never really gets going until near the end.

Nathalie returns to her childhood home in Mossmarken, a village on the edge of a mire in the remote Swedish wetlands. Rents a cottage on the estate of the local manor in order to carry out studies on emissions from the mire. The same mire where 'The Lingonberry Girl' had been found, a body dating back to 300 bc. The same location where her parents had died when she was just twelve years old. And then there is Maya, an artist interested in the bog as a site of mystery and especially in bog bodies as a historical phenomenon. This location where a number of persons have disappeared over the years. When a corpse is found - pockets filled with gold - just like ancient human sacrifices - detective Leif Berggren investigates...

Nothing here set my pulse racing and the conclusion, for me, was rather underwhelming.

My thanks to Hodder & Stoughton - Mulholland Books and NetGalley for the opportunity to read The Forbidden Place.

I really enjoyed this. I generally like Scandi-Noir anyway but this really is Scandi-Noir with a difference – not a straightforward murder mystery at all, and all the better for that. The characterisation is really good and interesting – you’re not just following a detective and his sidekick as is normally the case with novels in this genre; instead you’re drawn in to the story by a woman who’d suffered a family tragedy in the past, and a photographer who happens to sometimes take photographs for the police but as a sideline. You become caught up in their lives, as well as in the deeper, darker mystery of what is happening in Mossmarken, and who might be behind it – or whether it might be a tale of the supernatural after all. Fascinating and gripping – would definitely recommend.

The Forbidden Place brought something new to the exciting realm of Scandi noir - it gave us an intelligent sense of place through its history and ancient legends. The reader learns quite a lot about Swedish cultural superstitions and beliefs. Nathalie's work as a biologist studying the peat bog delivered even more interesting information about our environment, evolution and wetlands. But, this is not the first time Nathalie has been to Mossmarken. It wasn't solely the peat bog that brought her here. She has a history of her own with this haunted place and hopes to find some answers whilst undergoing her work.

I didn't feel I clicked with Nathalie much. She seemed rather one dimensional but that may have been the intent given the trauma she suffered when young. This story really flows from ancient beliefs and how they mold the people who live in relatively remote locations. I loved the ominous feel of this novel and the tidbits of knowledge scattered throughout. The Forbidden Place seemed more than a thriller and, thankfully, lacked a bloody body count. Instead it gave us thoughtful information, a great education and a juicy mystery needing solving.