I really enjoyed this tense thriller. It was such a page turner. Thrillers aren't really my go to books anymore, but this kept me guessing and kept me reading. It was so well done. An engaging storyline, likeable characters and amazing settings in the small eerie towns and forests of Sweden.

"Three years ago, Lelle's daughter went missing in a remote part of Northern Sweden. Lelle has spent the intervening summers driving the Silver Road under the midnight sun, frantically searching for his lost daughter, for himself and for redemption."

Scandi noir at its finest. This is a haunting story of love, loss, and a father’s obsession. Fantastic landscapes, along with the claustrophobic feel of isolation, all come together to create heartbreaking but compelling read.

I really enjoyed this dark and atmospheric novel. I loved that the first two thirds are gloomy, oppressive, claustrophobic - the grief of the father is palpable, the loneliness of the forests creeps over your skin and the whine of the mosquitoes is visceral. The sense of loss is overwhelming and suffocating and kind of stagnant. The tension builds really nicely till you're convinced something awful is coming...
But last third is about the more active process of finding, in more sense than one. The two separate story strands merge finally and inevitably. I loved the ending, done without overt sentiment but still packing an emotional punch and offering hope, faint and bleak but there. Solidly entertaining.

I can imagine the cold, dark and beautiful landscape that features in this book. I was lucky enough to visit Stockholm and vividly remember how the slow seemed to be coated in glitter and sparkled in the moon light. The story also reminded me of the case of Daniel Morecomb, an Australian boy left at a bus stop, abducted and murdered. With all this in my mind, I found real depth and plausibility in this story. Some elements seemed a little heavy handed though and I think this could be the translation. Overall, both parts worked well together.

Intriguing, enthralling and absolutely unique. Such a brilliant story and excellent writing. I loved it!

Thank you to the publisher for my eARC copy of this book. Unfortunately I didn’t love this book and therefore didn’t finish, I just didn’t connect with this one. Not for me, sorry.

A sad book about loss and grief. he story itself revolves around a father searching for a missing daughter, driving endlessly the Silver Road every night in hope and ending in despair.
This is a good book, well written with a good story to tell.

After a bit of a slow start having to get used to Swedish names of towns and people, I found this a gripping and sad read. The characters were well developed and totally understandable, I really felt for Meja and Lelle as the two main characters. A mystery with a sad ending for two families, but a saved and hopeful one for a mother and daughter. The scenarios were well described and you totally felt in the moment! Clearly Sweden suffers from a lot of mosquitos in the summer months!!

The only negative to this book was my inability to pronounce any of the names, both character and place names were completely elusive to me. Although this is generally an issue with Skandi Noir, I felt it impacted more with The Silver Road because of all the searching being done for Lina. Whilst the identity of the villain was not a huge surprise, Stina Jackson manages to create a great deal of tension. Who precisely is the killer and who, of the current cast of characters, will be his victim? Lelle's search for his daughter is heartbreaking and also very believable. The summer nights being void of darkness must certainly mess with a person's head. Ms Jackson very cleverly places Lelle on a narrow line between desperation and madness and there are occasions when the reader really isn't sure which way he's going to fall. Meja's character evoked huge sympathy, as did Lelle, and the moment a reader feels an emotional connection with an actor in a book guarantees they will remain captivated for the whole story. I was absorbed and engrossed from the very beginning and, names aside, thought this was an emotional and haunting tale. Beautifully written with an elegant flair and extreme eloquence, The Silver Road is a compelling novel I am privileged to highly recommend.

I never got round to reading this sorry so cannot give it a star rating. I have heard it is a good read and hope to get round to it at some point

This is a compelling and darkly atmospheric debut with a seamless translation by Susan Beard.

In a remote part of Northern Sweden middle-aged teacher Lelle spends the long summer nights searching The Silver Road - the main road linking the remote villages - for his teenage daughter. Three years ago he left her at a bus stop early one morning and she hasn't been seen since, he makes the most of the midnight sun to explore the fringes of the road for any trace of her.

While he is doing this, teenage Meja moves to the area with her mother, Silje. They have come to live with a man her mother met online and Meja hopes that this will finally be the relationship her mother has been looking for.  It quickly becomes apparent that Silje has a whole host of problems, which may explain their previously rootless life. The isolation of the location is something new for Meja, who is keen to escape from her mother's way of life, but nevertheless she manages to make friends with some young men who work on a nearby farm.

The two threads connect when autumn arrives and the school year begins, Lelle has to stop his search and return to teaching at the school where Meja is now a pupil.

It's a slow burn of a book, but that is something you should expect from Nordic Noir. Lelle's desperation is captured through the slow nights of his search and the seemingly futile efforts of the police. The setting is atmospheric and there is a dark intensity to the story that keeps you reading despite the lack of action. I liked the characters of Lelle and Meja, and as a flawed lead Lelle might have fitted into some recognisable stereotypes but there was nothing formulaic about him.

An unusual and compelling read. Many thanks to the publisher for the Netgalley.

Uneasy, compelling and complex, this tragic thriller truly toys with your emotions. It’s a steady paced novel, with the climax making up for what could be suggested as a slow burning start. Thank you for giving me the chance to read this

Stina Jackson's THE SILVER ROAD is a quiet, slow-burning thriller. It's not an edge-of-your-seat book (at least, not for the vast majority of the time spent reading it), but it has a compelling rhythm throughout that intrigues the reader further with every chapter.

The story follows Lelle, father of Lina, a young girl who disappeared from a country road some time ago and has never been seen since. Along with his estranged partner Annette, Lelle participates in the annual vigil to remember Lina in the hopes that someone might come forward with new information - and this is in addition to his almost-daily travels throughout the area to search new roads, fields and terrain where a trace of Lina might be found.

At the same time, another young girl called Meja arrives in the area. Having followed her mother across the country many times over the years in search of a place they can call home, Meja finds what looks like a new start for herself when she meets a boy down by the lake. Finally she has the opportunity to strike out on her own - but is her new life the one she really wants?

As I mentioned earlier, I found the plot of THE SILVER ROAD to be intriguing, but not exactly fast-paced. However, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes thrillers (and mysteries) can be too high=octane, with too many plot diversions and discoveries and red herrings. The slower pace of this book means that we feel Lelle's loss much more keenly as the days and weeks go by and the seasons change, and yet still there is no sign of Lina.

I felt as though the ending might have been just a touch rushed, but I still found it satisfying even though an extra few pages of narrative might have been beneficial. I would definitely read more by Stina Jackson.

What a haunting book this was, I found myself thinking about it way after I’d finished it.

Sad and dark in parts and utterly tragic but also hopeful too, a story of love and loss and all the in between.

Slow in places but I raced to the climax and wasn’t disappointed, hard going in parts just because it was so sad but a very good read of which I enjoyed.

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The Silver Road is a complex crime thriller set in the remote Scandinavian landscape. For three years a father has searched for his daughter on the remote Silver Road. Then another girl goes missing. A compelling and uneasy novel.

I am in charge of our Senior School library and am looking for a diverse array of new books to furnish their shelves with and inspire our young people to read a wider and more diverse range of books as they move through the senior school. It is hard sometimes to find books that will grab the attention of young people as their time is short and we are competing against technology and online entertainments.
This was a thought-provoking and well-written read that will appeal to young readers across the board. It had a really strong voice and a compelling narrative that I think would capture their attention and draw them in. It kept me engrossed and I think that it's so important that the books that we purchase for both our young people and our staff are appealing to as broad a range of readers as possible - as well as providing them with something a little 'different' that they might not have come across in school libraries before.
This was a really enjoyable read and I will definitely be purchasing a copy for school so that our young people can enjoy it for themselves. A satisfying and well-crafted read that I keep thinking about long after closing its final page - and that definitely makes it a must-buy for me!

Nicely paced, and creepy story from rural Sweden. It's all deliverance country, with odd people behaving in peculiar ways.
The seasons of 24 hour daylight, and cold dark winters seem to breed a heavy atmosphere in the winter months, that never really sloughs its skin in the summer. A group of people living the edge of a civilised Sweden. One man obsessed, driven to find his missing daughter to the exclusion of all else.
Asks some pretty interesting questions about us all. Very atmospheric. Well with a look.

When I started this book, I wondered if I could cope with the unfamiliar names and places the author was talking about... but it didn’t take long before I began to understand and care for the characters and then I couldn’t put the book down!
The story is about a missing girl and her father’s desperate search for her, and about a girl who arrives into the area with her troubled mother who she just wants to get away from. The two form a relationship that , in the end, saves their lives. The way the story is told from the points of views of the different characters is very clever and it is a mystery as to who might be the perpetrator right till the end.
A page turner of a book. Highly recommended.

years ago, Lelle's daughter went missing from a bus stop in a remote part of Northern Sweden. Haunted by guilt and grief, he trawls the area every night looking for her, convinced she is alive out there somewhere.
It’s an insular town, where most people know your business. So the arrival of Meja and her daughter coming to live with ‘Pornbjorn’ doesn’t go unnoticed either. But soon Meja and Lelle’s lives become disturbingly intertwined.
Dark, atmospheric with a sense of impending doom, there is a pensive feel from the start. Both the dialogue and the translation is really good. The scenic descriptions are captivating and set a powerful yet beautiful image in your mind. The memorable characters are far from ordinary and their development is steady and immersive, such that it is hard to recognise this as a debut novel.
Not too long a read, delivered via a steady to fast pace that hooks you in from the 1st page. The latter chapters lead to a solid ending that also leaves an after burn. Likely to be a very popular read, good for reading in 1 or 2 sittings! Anyone that enjoys Scandi crime fiction will enjoy this.

The Silver Road is a deceptively subtle example of Scandi Noir. It takes place in Sweden, driving nightly up and down the Silver Road in one man's quest to find his missing daughter. There is not an omnipotent mad serial killer, or even gore, but rather a gently building story that is addictive and heartbreaking with a powerful conclusion.

Lelle is our questing father searching for Lina, his daughter who disappeared from a bus shelter 3 years ago. He believes she is alive somewhere and someone must, surely, know where she is. He patrols the Silver Road each night hoping to discover some clue that will bring his girl home. In parallel we following Meja, a girl newly arrived in town. She and her troubled mother have come to live with the most recent man on the scene in her mother's life. Meja's existence is not an easy one but she hopes for safety and security in the arms of her new boyfriend and his family.

I was touched by this novel and the delicate depiction of Lelle's suffering and single-mindedness. His sole reason for living is his search for Lina. Carefully handled is also Meja's story. Though very different in personality she is also looking for something more than her life currently possesses. What comes to pass, and brings these two together, is incredible and absorbing. I could not set this book aside until I knew what would happen to both Lelle and Meja. Terrifically crafted, with a deft hand for emotion and tension-building, this is a brilliant novel well worth reading.