An ordinary outing takes Greta, Alex, and four-year-old Smilla across Sweden’s mythical Lake Malice to a tiny, isolated island. While father and daughter tramp into the trees, Greta stays behind in the boat, lulled into a reverie by the misty, moody lake…only later to discover that the two haven’t returned. Her frantic search proves futile. They’ve disappeared without a trace.
Greta struggles to understand their eerie vanishing. She desperately needs to call Alex, to be reassured that Smilla is safe, or contact the police. But now her cell phone is missing too. Back at her cottage, she finds it hidden away under the bedsheets. Had she done that? Or had someone else been in the cottage? But who, and why? As Greta struggles to put the pieces together, she fears that her past has come back to torment her, or she’s finally lost her grip on reality…
In this dark psychological thrill ride—with more twists than a labyrinth and more breathless moments than a roller coaster—Greta must confront what she’s always kept hidden if she has any hope of untangling the truth.
Won’t Want To Put It Down! I started this book yesterday and literally could not put it down until I reached the end. I admit I skimmed over the first 30 or so pages because it started a little too slow. Once it got going I was unsure where we were going and couldn’t help but think how unrealistic the main character was behaving, but then it took a turn and I was hooked. Without giving too much away I think it’s important to know before you dive into the book that the main character, Greta, is an unreliable narrator…
3.5 STARS…Unreliable (and unlikable) narrator, but I didn’t want to stop reading This was the only Kindle first book that interested me. There were only a few reviews, and the detailed ones were pretty negative, but I got it anyway. And while the snow fell all afternoon I read this book. It held my interest enough to finish it in a couple of hours. One of the reviews noted a phrase or two that got repeated a lot, but I wonder if that wasn’t a translation issue? Not sure, but I didn’t find it distracting.
A boat with no oars I fought my way through 75% of the book to find the story. The entire time I’m wavering on giving up and really hoping that to continue on means I am rewarded with some kind of dramatic psychological suspense thriller suspense.