An atmospheric tale of a young teacher, Una moving to a remote village in Iceland. It's a pleasant read but does not live up to the hype - a slow burner with a predictable anti climax. Having said that, I'm sure a lot of people will enjoy it.
This is an honest review of a complementary ARC.

The Girl who died is another wonderful read from Ragnar Jonasson.A mixture of ghost story and mystery set in the 1980's before the technology of today .It is set in a tiny hostile village at the far end coast of Iceland with its bleak cold weather and winter darkness with only 10 inhabitants .This book is so well written that it was very easy to imagine the cold and bleakness and creepiness of the village .I thoroughly enjoyed reading this story .Many thanks to the Publisher the Author and NetGalley for my copy in return for an honest review .

The Girl who Died is a creepy, supernatural crime thriller. The bleak Icelandic setting is outstanding, a lonely and isolated village where you can feel eyes on you all the time. I started to feel like I was being watched as I read. The atmosphere is chilling and compelling. I was less keen on the plot, in which the build up was better than the reveal and was rather rushed. Overall a good read.

3.5*

I have enjoyed several Ragnar Jónasson books and so when I got a chance* to read his latest The Girl Who Died I was delighted. What I didn’t expect was that this is not just the usual wonderfully atmospheric story from Jónasson but one with a leaning towards the supernatural. This standalone book brings us just that with ghostly visits and scary dreams. I wasn’t sure this was going to be my kind of read but I was soon taken up with the story and wondering what was in store.

Una is financially strapped and unhappy with her life. There is an underlying thought that this has been the case for quite some time. It has something to do with her Father and his death but we know nothing more than that. When a friend shows Una, a teacher, an advert for a job in a very remote northern village called Skálar after some thought she applies and gets the job. It is initially for the winter term. She will miss her mother, who is now remarried, and her friend but it’s not permanent. Her mum will oversee the rental of her flat so her mortgage and such will be covered. Living so remotely may also help her build up some savings. Things seem to be turning quite positive.

After a long journey Una arrives at Skálar which seems even more remote than she thought. The job entails teaching two children, it’s a very small village of only ten people. She finds the house where she is to stay. There is a small, self-contained ‘flat’ in the attic of the house which will be her home for the next few months. The house is owned by Salka who is the mother of one of Una’s new pupils Edda.

From here on in some rather spooky things happen. Una dreams of a girl, hears her singing a lullaby and if that isn’t enough soon realises that the villagers are unfriendly with most not wanting her in the village at all. Una turns to drinking a little more than may be good for her. However, although the two girls are quite different in their character, the teaching itself seems to go all right. Una is told that she is to be in charge of the Christmas Eve concert to take place in the village church. One of the villagers offers support with the concert, which Una accepts, but the evening will end tragically.

The story is seen by enlarge through Una’s eyes and so we are drawn into her thoughts, observations and fears. I did not find her to be particularly likeable. In fact there are few, if any, really likeable characters in the story.

Another storyline in which a killing takes place (this is more like it!) and a woman who, it appears, has been coerced by the police into a false confession for murder is threaded through the main story.

Ragnor Jónasson has written a compelling, taut, atmospheric book which immerses you in Una’s search to find out who the girl in her dreams is and what happened to her. As this storyline unfolds Una, who becomes quite taken with Thór one of the villagers who is at least a friendly face, finds things are not exactly as they seem in the village.

Guffi is the ‘boss’ of the village, he owns the fishing company upon which almost all the villagers are reliant on for an income. He is openly hostile and quite threatening in his behaviour to Una when they meet.

As this almost suffocating story progresses it is impossible to put down. What is happening in the village the remoteness, the cold and the hostility bring a real ‘closed room’ and oppressive feeling to the book. The other storyline weaves through all this which brings intrigue and an even greater sense of danger.

Jónasson is a wonderful writer and this book is no exception. He weaves it’s sad, haunted and murderous themes into a very neat ending which sees justice served up in a rather different way.

I did indeed enjoy The Girl Who Died and would recommend to those who like their crime fiction with plenty of atmosphere and tension in anticipation of what is about to happen.

*Many thanks go to Jen B (Marketing Manager) at Michael Joseph for the invite to read The Girl Who Died by Ragnar Jónasson and Penguin Michael Joseph for an eCopy via NetGalley.

No-one does remote Icelandic locations quite like Ragnar Jónasson. This time, set in the 1980’s, it is Una, a 30 year old Reykjavík teacher who, struggling since the suicide of her father, is attracted by the idea of getting away from it. When her friend shows her an advertisement for a teaching job in the remote village of Skálar, on the north east Icelandic peninsula, she ponders a lifestyle change.

Una, who’s been barely living, spending her meagre cash on drink and hiding herself away, thinks a complete change of scene can only do her good. Skálar has a population of only 10 people, so she will be away from it all, but forced to socialise, she thinks, so that will do her good.

But the reality is different from the somewhat more romantic vision that Una had envisioned. As her car struggles to cope with the journey, packing up as she arrives at the edge of the village, she finds herself without any means of leaving. It’s not a huge problem, as everyone walks everywhere in Skálar, but she has barely arrived before Jónasson is piling on the sense of claustrophobic isolation that we love so much in his novels. This time it carries with it a very real sense of tension and foreboding which is only exacerbated when Una finds that she is hardly welcomed by the villagers.

Una has two pupils. Edda, 7, is Salka’s daughter and Una is to live in Salka’s attic. The other girl, Kolbrún, is 9, but where Edda is friendly and cheerful, Kolbrún is reserved and taciturn.

Skálar is a fishing village with a few homes, a small co-op store with irregular hours, a farm and a church. It’s even smaller than Una anticipated, but what really gets to her is that no-one is really friendly. Even Skalar, with whom she is living, is reserved. Inga, Kolbrún’s mother, does not seem to want Una to teach her daughter and Kolbrún’s father, a fisherman named Kolbeinn, has hardly met her before he starts automatically hitting on her. Others in the village are even less accommodating to this newcomer and the reader gets the distinct feeling that there must be a reason why Una is not welcome here; that these people have a secret they are shielding.

A second perspective, very much in the background, gives hints of what may be going on but offers no clues as to how to reconcile that perspective with what Una is facing.

There’s one small spark of light in Thor, a man she meets who lives in the old farm house. But though he is not hostile to Una, neither does he actively seek out her friendship, which is odd given their age and single status.

Una settles into her teaching routine but at night, when she withdraws to her room to drink the wine she buys from the local store, her sleep is more and more distressed by nightmares. She starts to be disturbed by a piano’s sound in a room below and a child in a white dress, singing a lullaby.

Una believes this is the ghost of Thrá who died in mysterious circumstances in the house 60 years ago. When she tries to talk about what she hears and sees, she is dismissed and told that perhaps she should ease up on her wine consumption. Yet the villagers all know about Thrá who used to live in this very house where Una now sleeps. Because this is set in the 1980’s, the absence of mobile phones and the internet slows down all Una’s research opportunities and this too, adds to the suspense.

Jónasson beautifully creates this added layer of supernatural suspense on top of an already tense and chilling environment until we don’t know whether Una is losing her mind or what she sees is real. The beautifully layered mingling of chilling suspense with more than a hint of the supernatural is a fantastic concoction and Jónasson blends these two elements perfectly. When a visitor, rare at this time of year, shows up looking for Hjördís, who sometimes rents rooms, then subsequently disappears, Una can’t believe that no-one in the village thinks that disappearance is odd.

Then disaster strikes at Christmas and Una is now faced with another mystery that has to be solved before she can truly understand what lies beneath the surface of this cold and hostile community.

Though the story itself lacks a bit of punch, its carried off by the atmosphere created by Jónasson.

Verdict: Ragnar Jónasson really is a master of chilling, atmospheric story telling. The Girl Who Died is haunting and intense and the plotting is sublime. With nods to the gothic, this is both crime and a ghostly story where the setting reigns supreme.

Thank you to Netgalley and Michael Joseph, for the review copy.
This is an unbiased review of the author's work and style. If you want spoilers, please see the publisher's blurb and other reviewers' reports.
Hmm, the story seemed to me to be a typical Scandi yarn with all the bleakness and dejection that comes with the genre. The book's English translation is not helped by the loss of whatever original poetic phrasing Ragnar Jonasson has infused in the work.
As to the plot I have difficulty in comprehending why a declared weak character would purposefully put themselves in a position of torment. The style I liked, the interweaving of protagonist and the killer thoughts and motives did give body to the work.
I have one other book by the author which I will read to see if it is just the plot and style of this volume that puts me off.
I recognise that I am at fault here in my lack of enthusiasm for this type of tale. I am sure fans of Scandi will lap it up. I would have given it four stars but for the poor translation. Three stars.

Jonasson is really a favourite author of mine .. but maybe not this one of his .. una is lonely and depressive .. at 30ish years old with no real friends (and here's problem number 1 .. I can see why
. She's not very appealing) she picks an isolated place to go to school there teaching (her best friend encourages her ..). but there are fewer than she thought and things get more weird .. I was just not drawn in .. I'll keep looking for his new ones but this didn't work for me.. slow moving, overly atmospheric ..
.

Very atmospheric read. I don't always enjoy books that have been translated, they often don't flow when they're out of their native language, but this was an easy read, the chilling, gloomy mood of the villagers was matched by the environment and weather. Una successfully applies for a job as teacher to the only two children "at the end of the world". Needing to get away from Reykjavik and her life there. The parts of the book told in italics confused me somewhat - it was a long time before we learned whose voice this was, and by the end I was feeling that more could have been made of this. It was good to find out what happened but in some ways I felt a lot was glossed over. a good read. #netgalley #thegirlwhodied

THE GIRL WHO DIED is an atmospheric historical mystery set in a stunning location. I’m a fan of the author’s writing and he excels once again in setting the scene so you feel as if you’re there with the characters. Una’s loneliness and desperation comes clearly across on the page. Her curiosity about the village and its people sets up some interesting moments. I liked the supernatural elements that gave out eerie vibes.

Unfortunately, I thought the pacing is too slow and the mystery is not compelling enough. When bad things happen it was hard to care because I didn’t feel like I know the characters. The ending is abrupt and I wasn’t convinced with the choices Una makes. I wish I loved this book more because the setting is really wonderful! Overall, this would be a good pick for fans of slow-burn mysteries with a touch of the supernatural.

This is a real mix of Scandi noir, crime and the supernatural. Thirty year old Una has taken a teaching post in an extremely remote part of Iceland. She finds the village people unwelcoming and suspicious of her. This might be due, in part, to the fact that she only has two pupils and people can't see the need for her. Una has lodgings with the mother of one of the children and she finds the house disturbing and creepy. She learns that a child died in the house almost sixty years ago. When she starts to hear a piano playing and a child singing a lullaby she begins to feel haunted.

This was an atmospheric, slow burner of a read. The claustrophobic, remote landscape is really well developed and adds to the tension which suffuses the story. In summary, an enjoyable, intriguing and clever read.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Michael Joseph for an ARC in return for an honest review.

I absolutely loved this book! Such a refreshing change to read a story set in Iceland. Ragnar Jónasson's style of writing is incredible. The scene and the characters were described in such detail that I felt like I was there with them. It was easy to read yet there was a great amount on suspense and mystery.
I loved how there was a mix of crime and also ghosts. I feel like it worked very well in this story. Also the secrecy and creepiness of the town's residents added to the tension and suspense. Not to mention the shocking realisation of what happened at the end of the story.
Overall, I would definitely recommend this book to my family and friends. I look forward to seeing what Ragnar Jónasson comes up with next!
Thank you to Ragnar Jónasson, NetGalley and Penguin Michael Joseph UK for the opportunity to read and review this book.

This book is somewhat different to the other books I've read that this author has written as it's not a straightforward thriller like his others are, but has supernatural elements threaded into the story. The story is centred on Una, a young teacher who, some years after her father's suicide is strill struggling to come to terms with his death. Her relationship with her mother is strained and she doesn't have many friends. When her closest friend spots a job in a remote place, teaching two young girls, Una applies and gets it - with chilling consequences. I enjoyed the book, but not as much as I did his others.

Una takes a job as teacher in a tiny village, only ten people live there but the two children need a teacher. Its an unfriendly place and Una isnt wanted there. She also feels like someone is haunting her but maybe thats just the wine. When one of her students dies, things get much worse and Una finds herself wanting to know the truth but can she find it?

Well what a dark and atmospheric read this was. You really get a sense of the lonely, isolated location. The plot is interesting though I was expecting a slightly more dramatic ending. That being said it worked well and the story kept me turning pages. The ending was interesting and thought provoking. it leaves you wondering what you would do in Una's place. I can't say I overly liked Una too much and the book focussed heavily on her wine drinking but she made an intriguing lead. A dark, atmospheric creepy read.

Having previously read Whiteout, I had an inkling of what to expect from this book and it didn’t disappoint. I’m not a huge reader of crime or thrillers, but there’s something about the way Jonasson creates such a self-contained world that has you gripped from the first few pages.

The story follows Una - a young teacher living an unfulfilled life in Reykjavik. When her friend suggests applying for a job as a tutor in a remote village on the north east coast of Iceland she decides that a change is as good as a rest and applies to move to the edge of the world. What she finds is a tiny community filled with sinister-seeming residents, and a whole host of secrets.

This narrative runs parallel with the true story of a shocking murder case which gripped Iceland, and was recently made into the documentary film ‘Out of Thin Air’.

Ghostly apparitions, suspicious behaviour, foggy darkness, murder and mystery all combine to keep you guessing until the very end. Some spooky twists and turns will have you leaving on the lights when you head to bed...

It felt strange reading this book in the sunshine - much of the atmosphere is created by the near perpetual darkness that Iceland finds itself in in the winter months. It’s still a great story, and for a scaredy-cat like me it was probably for the best that it was still light outside!

Thanks to Netgalley and Michael Joseph for an ARC in exchange for an honest review

An excellent book that manages to weave a ghost story and a murder mystery seamlessly.
The plot revolves around a young teacher who accepts a post in an isolated Icelandic village with only 10 adult inhabitants and two children to teach. I found the characters believe able and the storytelling gripping it’s a sure ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I am a great fan of this author and remain so after this new novel. Having enjoyed the previous series there is always a little worry that something different won't grab you in quite the same way.

In contrast to previous books by Jonasson this book draws on a slightly more supernatural theme, this is entirely in keeping with other Iceland fiction as well as the more recent Noir that has emerged, Iceland is a land of darkness and fable plays a great part in this. The crime/mystery elements complement this well and for me the blend is good.

As with all the author's books the landscape is a character in its own right, the human cast are well written and the translation is very good.

A wholly worthwhile reading experience and if you've not read this author before you will find him increasing your TBR piles!!

Ragnar Jonasson is one of my favourite authors, his Dark Iceland series is superb and the Hulda trilogy even better so I was looking forward to reading his latest book.

"The Girl Who Died" begins with teacher Una unhappy with her life in Reykjavik where she is struggling to deal with both the death of her Father and her mortgage while drowning her sorrows with alcohol. Tempted by an advert she sees for a job in the tiny village of Skalar,population 10, on the remote north coast with free accommodation and only 2 students to teach she successfully applies for it .
From the start Una wonders what she's got herself into as strange things happen and the locals exhibet some very odd behaviour.

I really struggled with this book,it seems as if the usually reliable Jonasson seems to be trying something a bit different to his usual style and it doesn't really come off. There's an element of the supernatural,something I'm really not keen on, along with a tale of the "outsider amongst secretive locals realising that all's not well " plot-line that any number of made for TV movies use as a theme. There's also a backstory of a vulnerable woman, and others,being jailed for something she doesn't think she did.. I found it very hard to get involved in the book and wasn't terribly convinced by any of it,not least the ending. I'll definitely be reading more Ragnar Jonasson's books but I hope he sticks to what he's so good at .

“Welcome to Skálar. Population: Ten and falling…”

Slow burning suspense novel that keeps you turning the pages until the very end. Full of secrets, lies, crime, ghosts, and a murder or two, this small village on the edge of the world has a lot to answer for.

“The Girl Who Died” is a deliciously dark atmospheric mystery novel at its finest.

A great introduction to Ragnar Jonasson’s writing if you have never read anything by him before.

Thank you to #NetGalley, #MichaelJoseph, #PenguinMichaelJosephUK, and #RagnarJonasson for an ARC of #TheGirlWhoDied in exchange for an honest review.

@RagnarJo | @MichaelJBooks | @JenLovesReading

UK Publication Date: 3rd June 2021

Another deliciously dark story from Ragnar Jonasson. I am surprised he hasn't been thrown out of Iceland by the tourism board! His writing is so emotive - you can feel the isolation and darkness of the destination he is writing about. A job with a town of only 10 people who certainly don't provide a warm welcome. A lot of secretive meetings and a death lead to a really good thriller with lots of twists and turns. A standalone story which I loved!

Úna is an unhappy teacher living near Reykjavík and just barely making ends meet when her closest friend Sara shows her an interesting job listing in a remote town in Iceland with a reported population of just 10 people. Before long, Úna is unsure about what she has let herself in for but also feels unable to do a u-turn.

Jónasson has created a tense, moody thriller darkened further by the claustrophobic long nights of the northern winter of Iceland; it is so good I just had to finish it, once I started reading!!