Yule Island – Johana Gustawsson

Art expert Emma Lindahl is anxious when she’s asked to appraise the antiques and artefacts in the infamous manor house of one of Sweden’s wealthiest families, on the island of Storholmen, where a young woman was murdered nine years earlier, her killer never found.

Emma must work alone, and the Gussman family apparently avoiding her, she sees virtually no one in the house. Do they have something to hide?

As she goes about her painstaking work and one shocking discovery yields clues that lead to another, Emma becomes determined to uncover the secrets of the house and its occupants.

When the lifeless body of another young woman is found in the icy waters surrounding the island, Detective Karl Rosén arrives to investigate, and memories his failure to solve the first case come rushing back. Could this young woman’s tragic death somehow hold the key?

Battling her own demons, Emma joins forces with Karl to embark upon a chilling investigation, plunging them into horrifying secrets from the past – Viking rites and tainted love – and Scandinavia’s deepest, darkest winter…

The perfect book to curl up on the sofa with when it’s cold outside, Johana Gustawsson’s Yule Island is a gothic treat. An art expert called to appraise a collection on the island of Storholmen in Stockholm soon discovers more than she was expecting. The reclusive family in the creepy old manor house (seriously, who doesn’t love a creepy old manor house?) have set a strict schedule for her, only allowing access for a few hours a day. But why? What are they hiding? And what other secrets does the house hold?

Dark, creepy, and utterly mesmerising. I loved this book and I know it’s a cliche, but couldn’t put it down! Trying to figure out the clues along the way, and how the story of a dead girl found hanging in a tree with a pair of scissors around her neck and her toes tied together linked the different storylines was just too enticing.

Hat tip as ever to the translator – David Warriner has done a splendid job here and the story fair zings along. French writer Gustawwson (Queen of French Noir) has relocated to Sweden, and it’s very much Scandinavia’s gain! Great story, intriguing mystery, superb characters, it’s got the lot.

Highly recommended.

Yule Island by Johana Gustawsson (translated by David Warriner) is published by Orenda Books and is out now. Thanks as always go to Karen at Orenda Books for the advance ebook copy for review.