A ghost story set in a very small village in Iceland.
Una takes herself off to Skalar and accepts a job there as teacher to two young girls. She's living in the home of one of her pupils and trying not feel like an outsider in this town of 10 people. This move is hard for Una; she is very isolated and finds things a bit strange. Especially the haunting lullaby that she keeps hearing at night and the appearance of a little girl in a white dress at the window. Is she drinking too much wine or is something really odd going on here?
There's also a parallel story line in italics that the reader assumes will eventually connect with the main tale, but I did not find it interesting and it just bogged down the narrative and made the pace seem glacially slow. The author tried very hard to set a foreboding and menacing atmosphere and a gothic tone with the dark nights, the cold weather, and the isolation of both Una and the town.
This was meant to be in the mid 1980s so a lot of items that could have made the town seem less insular were not being used then. No internet and no television meant that news was hard to acquire and research difficult. I just never really got that interested or invested in the whole plot and never took to Una. In other words, this just wasn't that appealing to me and, though I usually really like the Icelandic and Nordic noir, I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would. I will likely give the author another chance as long as the premise does not involve ghosts, haunting, women who think they are losing the minds, or other supernatural elements.
Thank you to NetGalley and Minotaur Books for this e-book ARC to read and review.
This is a standalone and not part of any series.
Genre - mystery, paranormal thriller, Icleand
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