As twisty as the coils of snakeskin that hang from a lamp in the story! Fans of Norwegian literature, here is a new entry fit for your shelf. It combines with hard-boiled noir of Jo Nesbø with the mundane uncanniness of Vigdis Hjorth!!

I liked this a lot, and it's certainly unusual. It has some divisive features (multiple timelines, multiple narrative perspectives, including one of an animal) but also the classic beats and twists of a noir thriller.

The writing is very accessible, which helps because the shifts in time and perspective can be very confusing, but it comes together very satisfactorily. There is a certain amount of disbelief-suspension required, but this is the kind of book that can get away with it - slightly fantastical, slightly other-worldly.

I think this is not for everyone, but for the right readers, it will really hit.

My thanks to Atlantic Books and NetGalley for the ARC.

I really enjoyed this book, it was dark suspenseful and full of norwegian crime greatness. I couldnt put it down it was such a good read

I almost didn’t request to read this novel. The front cover put me off – with the title Reptile Memoirs and the image of a snake. It just didn’t look like my cup of tea somehow (although I love all animals). Then I read the description and thought it sounded like a good thriller. OK, so one of the characters has a pet snake. ‘It surely won’t figure much in the story …’, I thought. I thought wrong!
The multiple timelines and narratives had me really confused during the first part of the book and I found I was constantly flipping backwards and forwards on my Kindle to try and work out where we were and what was happening. I must admit that at one point I almost gave up. It’s so easy with a book like this to quickly glance over the new section details (date and POV) because you can’t wait to carry on reading. With hindsight, at the beginning of each section or chapter or whatever they are, I should have jotted down the date with a few brief notes to remind me what had happened! Maybe it’s just me (because I’m old) but I sometimes got confused with the character names as well, especially as some began with the same letter. Roe/Ronja, Shahid/Sverre … I eventually worked out that if Roe’s boss was Shahid we were in 2017, but if his boss was Sverre we were back in time. Oh my lord.
What surprised me was the POV of the python. It sounds ridiculous doesn’t it – a snake ‘speaking’ in a novel. What sounds even more ridiculous is that it was amazing and added so much to the story. There are several pages where he talks about breaking free from his egg, and I was totally fascinated.
The writing was superb, the pace was fast, and the plot was incredibly clever with innumerable twists. At times I found the story very disturbing to the point of turning my stomach. I kept thinking to myself, ‘Please don’t let happen what I think is going to happen …’, but it did.
A few words to describe this book – unique, dark and disturbing, gripping and very, very clever.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for allowing me to read this ARC in return for an honest review.

Family secrets, past traumas and a terrible accident collide together to make an unusual and intriguing thriller.

Liv shares an apartment in Alesund with two friends and together they buy a baby python, Nero. Liv is obsessed with Nero and although he was meant to be the household pet, she keeps him in her room and keeps her door locked.

Some years later, Mariam Lind, the wife of a well-known politician, goes shopping with her eleven-year-old daughter, Iben. They argue over a magazine Iben wants, and Iben leaves her mother in the shop. Mariam expects to find Iben waiting for her in the car park and, when she doesn’t, she assumes Iben has decided to walk home alone. Mariam is both angry and conflicted about her relationship with her daughter, and drives off for the rest of the afternoon. When she returns home she finds that Iben never arrived – she disappeared en route.

The police are called and it seems that one of them, Roe, has some secrets of his own which include a keen interest in Mariam’s past.

A compelling read.

A mind-bending book with one of the most interesting and original new voices I’ve read in years. Dark and ambitious, it challenges the reader but rewards with a satisfying mid-point twist that turns everything on its head. Silje Ulstein is one to watch and Reptile Memoirs will worm its way into your mind and stay there for a long time.

Sinuous, sexual, and irresistibly dark, Reptile Memoirs successfully threw its coils around me. It weaves together two stories that, you come to realise, are inextricably bound together: in the past, a young woman named Liv becomes unhealthily obsessed with a python; in the present Mariam, a conflicted mother, comes under suspicion when her teenage daughter goes missing. Mariam and Liv seem to be quite different people, though it turns out they have far more in common than you first expect, and neither are particularly likeable. It makes it all the more challenging when you find points of relatability or empathy with them.

For fans of Scandi Noir, Gillian Flynn, and having disconcerting staring contests with snakes, Reptile Memoirs is only partly about the thrilling crime at its heart, and is mostly about the ways women are monsters. What is the right way of being a mother? A lover? When is a fun time girl too much fun? How long can you hide your weirdness? And when does it become too weird? Although, of course, sometimes you might actually just be, you know, way too weird… And Ulstein is particularly good, via a tense yet lyrical translation, at articulating the strange slipping of thoughts, and the way they slip out of your control or loop back on themselves.

I have exactly two complaints, one being the inclusion of a literal explanation for some of the dark impulses rocking our heroine(s) that robs Reptile Memoirs of what would otherwise have been a lovely Turn Of The Screw-esque uncertainty. The other is that the aforementioned weirdness ends up having quite a conventional source, and I would have rather preferred to see these characters just be grim, weird screw-ups on their own terms, not because someone else made them so. Monsters in their own right, as it were.

Still, Reptile Memoirs asks some utterly compelling, uncomfortable questions about agency, sexuality, and self. As the two timelines wrap ever closer together, you feel the overwhelming pull towards what is a dreadful, inevitable conclusion. The whole book pulses with a muscular intent in the prose, with almost no energy wasted. I daresay it would be easier to resist a literal snake than this literary one.

Whilst the mix of detective story and psychological thriller is not such an unusual blend, the introduction of a pet python in ‘Reptile Memoirs’ brings an extremely unusual focus to this genre. Silje Ulstein gives us a well written, complex narrative, with a shifting timeline and multiple narrators to ensure that her disturbing story is only revealed little by little. What begins with the report of a missing daughter, takes us back over a decade to another unsolved crime and other bereft parents.
Many of Ulstein’s characters are damaged people - this is not a story for the faint-hearted. Child abuse, murder, rape, and addiction all play their part. And, of course, there is the snake. As the python Nero grows so, too, does his appetite, and his owner has to take on the role of hunter-gatherer. Whilst the chapters narrated by the snake do not, in my opinion, strengthen the overall effect of the narrative, and there are the inevitable Freudian associations, such a device is a brave choice.
‘Reptile Memoirs’ takes a good, hard look at depravity, at how damaged people seldom make the right choices and why trauma creates a distorted view. This is not an easy read but it is a memorable one.
My thanks to NetGalley and Atlantic Books, Grove Press UK for a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair review.

Thank You to Netgalley and the publishers for an advance copy.
A very interesting book that defies any easy classification. The basis of the plot is a missing girl and the police search to find her and this holds the story together. But this is not a run-of-the-mill crime book far from it. The past life of the mother Liv/Miriam is explored in detail and explores the different identities she has assumed. Through the center of the story, there is a python, the reptile of the title. In her earlier life, Liv has almost a sexual attraction to the snake and we are at various points treated to the things from the python's perspective. The changing identities of the mother are seen like the snake shedding its skin. This book is at times horrific , disturbing, and thought-provoking but never boring.

Well, what an unusual story this was. Tale told from the perspective of multiple characters (including the reptile in the title) which added to the intrigue and twists in the storyline. I did struggle a little with the unfamiliar names (due to the Nordic author and me being from the UK) and the many names which need to be kept in mind as the story unfolded, but managed! Very different to the usual crime tales and I did enjoy it. Can see this being made into a TV drama or a movie. Will look out for other books from this author.

This is a refreshingly different style of literary thriller and is as twisty as the snake that features so prominently in the story. At first, I wasn't sure I would like it. The writing style is unusual with multiple narrators and timelines, but a few chapters in, I was totally hooked. There are scenes which aren't really credible, but this is fiction after all, and I could not put it down. Highly recommended.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my ARC download of this novel. This is my unbiased review.

I would like to thank Netgalley and Atlantic Books for an advance copy of Reptile Memoirs, a stand-alone thriller set in Norway.

Ålesund 2003. The very troubled Liv becomes obsessed with her python, Nero which she bought after watching a documentary. Kristiansund 2017. Mariam has a fight with her 11 year old daughter, Iben, who runs off and disappears. Detective Roe Olsvik has Mariam as his prime suspect.

Reptile Memoirs is a most unusual novel, so kudos to the author for inventiveness and daring. I’ve been in a lather of indecision about my rating, because it is chock full of things I don’t like and yet I found it hypnotically compulsive. I finally chose the compulsion side, because even when it got annoying and I put it down, it wasn’t long before I picked it up again.

The novel is quite disjointed, switching between timelines and points of view, although it is never particularly difficult to understand because each change is clearly marked with a name and date, except for the voice of the snake which is handily entitled reptile memoirs. I assume that this voice is a metaphor for something, but I couldn’t be bothered trying to work it out as I’m all about the story, not literary devices. I really liked the plot, which is basically the hunt for a child with extra bells and whistles. The problem is that it is character driven and dwells on thoughts and reactions, which would be ok, if it weren’t for the fact that the main characters are universally unpleasant. Nevertheless, they are strongly drawn and credible in their frailties. On the other hand I did like the way their secrets and misdeeds are teased out over the course of the novel and that is the root of my compulsion. I wanted to know where the novel was going.

It should be noted that this is a dark novel and not for the faint hearted as there are several yucky (can’t think of a better word) scenes, mostly involving Nero, and it explores the worse side of human behaviour. It has fantastical elements, like Nero, but, underpinning it all is a good crime novel with a neat ending. I say neat in that it resolves most of the issues in a clever way with nothing being quite as it seems.

Reptile Memoirs is an interesting read that I found both compulsive and repulsive in parts. I would read more from the author as I like her imagination and style, but I don’t think it will be for all readers.

Reptile Memoirs is a gripping and thrilling book, set across different moments in time. I guessed where some of the book was going but there were also several twists that kept me guessing and I didn't expect. Enjoyed and would recommend!

As a big fan of Scandinavian authors this is one i was looking forward to and it did not disappoint. Like the snake at the center of the story the plot line shifts and turns and sheds its skin leaving the reader twisted up in its coils trying to figure out the connections.
In 2003 we see Liv, a student bring a small python into the house she shares with two friends. As the snake grows so it comes to represent something that Liv just can't overcome from her past. In 2017 a young girl disappears while shopping with her mother, well known local businesswoman Mariam Lind. What are the connections? Who are these woman and where is the snake? Why is the local policeman obsessed with this case?
The characters all in some way resemble the skin shedding reptile of the title and throughout the book even in translation there are references to snakes in all forms.

Family secrets and dark trauma burst from the pages of Reptile Memoirs, a truly unusual and terrifying debut novel by Silje Ulstein. Liv has lots of secrets. She becomes obsessed with pythons and her and her flat mates decide to get one. Liv develops a highly disturbing bond with Nero the python leading to devastating consequences for her and all those around her. Skip forward thirteen years, and in a nearby town, the daughter of a local politician goes missing after a shopping trip with her mother. Detective Roe Olsvik is assigned the case and events from the past and present merge and collide. Who is responsible for the girl’s disappearance and what secrets are going to be uncovered?

Wow… oh wow…. what an absolutely stunning debut novel. Reptile Memoirs is a true page-turner with parts equally dark, heart-wrenching and creepy/weird. When I started reading the book I was thinking ‘what in the world is happening here???’. Multiple timelines, multiple stories but somehow Ulstein weaves the various components together to make this book a cohesive and disturbing read.

The characters are an eclectic mix of upstanding members of society (a 60 year old detective, the CEO of a successful company, a local politician), wayward teens/young people, and some very unsavory characters (including an illegal animal trader and drug dealers). Your perceptions of what these people are will be absolutely be turned on its head when you read this book. One of the strangest characters is Nero the python whose inner dialogue is truly creepy, adding to the fantastical and bizarre aspect of this book. It’s a very unusual book with the snake being a central character and I absolutely adored it. Reptile Memoirs is a fascinating discussion of the cold-hearted side of humanity.

It is a unique, exhilarating read that makes your teeth hurt from clenching your jaws so hard when you are racing to see what is going to happen next. One of these best debut novels I have read in a very long time. Not for the faint-hearted but a captivating Scandi-Noir crime story nonetheless.

TW: domestic abuse, sexual abuse, rape, infant death, trauma, graphic details.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC in exchange for my honest review. Reptile Memoirs is out on the 17th of March 2022 (fitting day to release it seeing as that’s St. Patrick’s Day here in Ireland- the man who got rid of all our snakes 😉 ) Get a copy- you will not be disappointed.

Reptile Memoirs is a thrilling and complex crime novel told over multiple timelines, beginning with the disappearance of Mariam’s daughter Iben. As we begin to follow the police investigation, the story then shifts back in time over a decade to introduce Liv who, together with her two flatmates, adopts a baby python. As all of the intricate pieces of the story fall into place, it becomes clear that these two seemingly unrelated characters are linked by a terrible trauma - the shocking consequences leading to revenge, obsession and murder.

This book had plenty of the classic Nordic Noir police procedural elements but was wrapped up in the middle of a much more unusual and gut wrenching horror story. There was one particular twist, and one truly disturbing event that actually left me speechless - this is certainly not a novel for the faint-hearted.

Reminiscent of Catriona Ward’s ‘The Last House on Needless Street’ (with some chapters written from the snake’s point of view), but mixed with the emotional resonance of Stephen King’s Pet Sematary. The narrative was dark, challenging and unforgettable – a completely unique voice in this genre.

Thanks to NetGalley and Atlantic Books, Grove Press UK for the opportunity to read this novel in exchange for a fair review.

This was an absolutely terrific debut novel and a gripping psychological thriller filled with memorable characters and a good premise

Silje Ulstein has produced a very good first novel. Unlike a lot of crime novels these days this one does not centre around a dysfunctional copper, although there is one in the story. The main character is a young woman whose life we follow in an intricate tale split over two locations and timeframes. This can lead to some confusion as the story flips between the two but didn’t distract from my enjoyment of the book.

Silje has created some unusual characters in this book but I found them all believable

When a young girl goes missing the case seems straight forward until secrets lies that have been kept for years slowly start to unravel and then what appears to be a kidnapping turns into something far more tragic.

I had never read any Silje Ulstein books before but the synopsis sounded intriguing and I wasn't disappointed; the way that the book was written was perfect in that slowly more layers of secrets and truth were revealed and I found myself completely gripped. The juxtaposition of the present and past added to the novels interest and I was desperate to finish to see not only what happened to Iben but the whole cast of characters who even though some were flawed were so well written that I had to know their fates. A must read for anyone who is a fan of nordic noir - 5 stars!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of the novel in exchange for an honest review

I loved this dark and beautifully written thriller set in Norway, and the snake angle lent it something truly unique. I'm not normally a fan of when thrillers mix in other genres, ie, supernatural, but I feel like being able to hear the snake's thoughts in some chapters actually added to this strange and twisty story rather than taking me out of it. A missing girl, a murder, and a story to unpick from the past all combine to make for a truly captivating story. I'm not sure I've ever read anything quite like Reptile Memoirs before, and will be thinking about this one for a long time.

Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher, who granted me a free ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

"At least snakes were honest. They didn't try to conceal their actions with talk of morals. One minute we humans were speaking about good and evil; the next we were sinning against all we'd just said. The human being was a species that built walls of wood and stone around itself and its own so-called evils. Called its prey beef and pretended it had never been alive. Why play such games? When a woman killed her husband she was condemned, her actions deemed unnatural. Why not instead look to the female spider, who devours her partner as soon as they have mated? Realise that this, too, is part of us? That this is also nature."

Trigger warning: rape, death of a child, being eaten by a snake.

After reading the book, I was like 'hmm it was fine, maybe a three'. But I waited and reflected a while and feel like a lot of the genius only comes out after the novel with hindsight.

At surface level, the book is about a woman who has a pet snake, a dead child, a missing child and a detective style-thriller. The book runs on multiple timelines from different perspectives, including that of the snake. It's extremely clever and leaves out no minute detail, allowing the snake to fill in the gaps.

The book is so much more though, as it touches on human vulnerability. The reliance we place on others, the demands others set for us, often placing us on a pedestal and dooming us to failure. There is love, there is loss, there is grief from multiple parties and there is a desperate desire to become free and leave the past behind - something ultimately, we can't do. There's also a random python and a little bit of mild beastiality which took me by surprise but emphasises the surprises at every turn.

Bravo Silje, bravo.

Thank you to NetGalley for the Arc.

It's been a while since I picked up a Nordic-Noir so was intrigued when offered this by Netgalley. At first sight, I thought that it would be a typical thriller, but it turned out to be so much more.

We have multiple timelines and perspectives and it was a little confusing in the beginning to remember which month/year I was reading about. A physical book would have been so much easier to flick back through pages to refresh my memory - the inconvenience of doing this on a Kindle is one of its drawbacks. Nevertheless, I found that this confusion disappeared the further that I got into the novel.

The book begins with Liv, a girl escaping from something that will be revealed, who sees a python on a nature programme and persuades her housemates that they need such a pet. Nero arrives and rather than being the house pet, Liv locks him in her room and had exclusivity. He makes her feel safe and also seems to almost satisfy her sexually as she sleeps beside him.

We then jump twelve years to another town and another woman, Mariam, who is a successful businesswoman married to a local politican. She is shopping with her daughter and they argue and Iben runs off. Mariam isn't worried as they are 10 minutes from home, but when she gets home, her daughter isn't there. Investigating the child's disappearance is 60 year old Roe who has just started at the local station, a man hiding his own tragedies.

As I said we have various perspectives, including that of the python and this adds to the many coils in the story. As the snake sheds its skin so so the characters and there are many reptile references throughout the narrative and the way that the connections between all the characters are revealed is like the snake slowly uncoiling. The story is one of family secrets and depravity. The cold-bloodedness of humanity.

Although some of the reveals, I had sort of guessed, others took me by surprise. This is a novel that is not for those whose triggers are animal and child abuse and i would also add triggers for addiction and rape. That being said, I thoroughly enjoyed it even though there was not a single character that I had any empathy for. A super debut novel, thank you Netgalley and Atlantic Books for allowing me to read it.

One of my most anticipated reads of 2022, and surprisingly gonna keep this short on here…
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BUY THIS BOOK. This book was so different to many books I’ve read, such a unique and interesting story. Liv’s narrative in particular was SO mind bending to read at times that I felt uncomfortable whilst reading some parts… but for me that was the mark of a good story, to make you feel and emote with the text
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Thank you so much to Atlantic & Netgalley for the ARC

Very weird, very dark and very good. At its centre, a detective story involving a missing girl and people trying to shake off their past and also featuring a python which, of course, narrates its own story - what's not to like?!
Thank you to netgalley and Atlantic books for an advance copy of this book

Wow! I absolutely loved this twisty thriller mystery. I won't rehash the blurb but it is essentially about the messed up life of a woman who has a very unhealthy obsession with her 'pet' python. An extremely engrossing story that kept me gripped from the beginning to the very last page. One of my favourite reads of this year so far and HIGHLY recommended.

The cover promises a cold-blooded thriller, and that's exactly what you get. Deliciously dark and impressively distinctive, Reptile Memoirs is a spine-tingling thriller with an unusual and intriguing concept and bleak atmosphere.

Set over two timelines and told through five characters, the story takes a little while to come together. I was worried that it was all going to go over my head at first as I couldn't see how the timelines were going to be connected. But it still had me gripped, as I cautiously turned every page, not knowing what to expect next.

The question of "Can you ever really shed your skin?" is such a brilliant one to pose. Just asking it puts the darkest thoughts in your mind, and this book certainly goes there. There are a fair few trigger warnings to be careful of as certain scenes made me gasp out loud. But if you enjoy a thriller that steps over the boundaries, this is definitely a book worth checking out.

The best way for me to describe it is to say that it's like The Last House On Needless Street (with its own animal narrator) combined with a Scandi Noir mystery. So if you enjoy either of those, you're sure to enjoy being trapped in the coils of this one.

I also have to say that the translator, Alison McCullough, has done a fantastic job. I sometimes struggle with translated books as I find that they can sometimes lack the details, but I constantly got goosebumps from the unnerving atmosphere that Ulstein conjures up, so McCullough has done brilliantly to translate the chilling tone so well.

(I'm on the tour for this on 15th March so my reviews will be live then)

Reptile Memoirs is a book that slithers and hisses its way into your consciousness. The story is of two missing children, 13 years apart and what happened to them. Told in multiple narrative voices this is a book that requires concentration but repays it in spades. It wraps its sinuous, scaly body around your mind, hypnotising you with rhythmic movements even as you surrender to its gaze.

Reptile Memoirs has a dual timeline and the narrative switches rapidly back and forth between 2005 and 2017. Set in Norway, in two towns, Ålesund and Kristiansund, it is the story of Liv who has grown up a damaged young woman, emotionally scarred by her mother and abused by her sleazebag brother, Patrick.

As soon as she is able, Liv gets out of the family home and finds a room in a shared basement apartment whose other occupants, Egil and Ingvar, are party boys. There she indulges her dream of owning a snake and buys Nero, a baby Burmese python, whom she keeps in her room. It is on Nero that Liv showers all the love and affection that she has been denied in her short life. He becomes her surrogate child and she resists the efforts of her flatmates to parade the snake at parties and even imagines she can understand its insistent hissing. It’s not altogether a healthy relationship, but Liv has never had anyone to love and Nero is the object of all her affection to the extent that she anthropomorphises him.

Liv finds herself unable to form healthy relationships with anyone her own age, though it is only when she meets an artist, Anita that she finds some happiness.

Detective Roe Olsvik is turning 60. He carries his own damage; he lost his daughter in 2005 and he and his wife never recovered from that tragedy. Now he is with the Kristiansund Police Department, keeping himself to himself and always looking for answers to what happened to his ‘Kiddo’.

When he hears that Iben, the daughter of notable business woman Mariam Lind and local poliyician, Tor, has gone missing, he immediately suspects the parents – not least because Mariam is behaving very oddly indeed. Olsvik’s colleagues Ronja, Birte, and August, can’t quite understand why he is so fixated on that angle and they have their own suspicions about Roe’s behaviour.

Reptile Memoirs is a book that shifts perspectives and timelines constantly which means you do have to focus quite intently, which is sometimes irritating in the midst of a serpentine plot dynamic where the pacing ebbs and flows. It is ambitious and unsettling – really quite unsettling in the case of Liv’s relationship with Nero, which is not for the faint-hearted.

But the plot is ingenious and very well done and as a result the surprises are genuinely thrilling and not a little jaw dropping. The psychological elements of this thriller are fascinating and brilliantly done, down to the book’s most unusual voice.

Verdict: Dark and sinuous, Reptile Memoirs is a study in damaged personalities and relationships. It is full of dark secrets and the inheritance that comes with family traumas. Certainly distinctive, this is one book that will linger in the memory and not for anyone with Ophidiophobia. But for those who like their crime beautifully intense with a strong, intense psychological bent, this is a sure fire winner.

Liv loves Nero but can a snake love a human? A child goes missing and Roe begins his investigation. We are taken back and forth with the main characters including the snake. Will Ibsen be found safe?
Book full of intrigue that you must keep reading to understand relationships and responsibilities. Dark, thought provoking and very addictive read, enjoy.