Title: Yule Island

Author: Johan Gustawsson

Translator: David Warriner

Genre: Thriller

Publisher: Orenda Books

Publication Date: 23rd November 2023

Rating: 5/5

Cover:

Summary:

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…

Review:

I love a gothic thriller and this one sounded particularly dark and promising. Yule Island not only met my high expectations but surpassed them. It is a truly chilling and intoxicating book full of macabre mythology and deeply compelling, often disturbing, characters. I couldn’t stop reading, desperate to understand what was really at the heart of this harrowing mystery, beneath the layers of intrigue and some genuinely shocking twists.

Gustawsson is a masterful writer that imbues every page with a quietly ominous feeling, which is emphasised even further by the spectacularly unsettling setting of the Manor House in Storholmen. Setting plays such a huge part in making noir thrillers so compelling and when that setting is as atmospheric as within Yule Island it cannot fail to make a serious impression upon its readers. I really can’t recommend this book more highly, Johana Gustawsson has now become an auto-buy author for me – I’ve already ordered a copy of her previous book, The Bleeding! Dark, unrelenting, creepy and superbly well written – if Yule Island isn’t already on your TBR, all I can say is add it now! One of my favourites of 2023.

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Thank you so much to Anne Cater of Random Things Blog Tours for inviting me on this tour and organising it. I kindly received a copy of the book from the publisher. My review is entirely my own honest opinion.

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