Murder at the Residence by Stella Blómkvist – blog tour

Translated by Quentin Bates The identity of Stella Blómkvist is a secret – she/he/they are the Icelandic equivalent of Elena Ferrante – and has been publishing crime novels in Iceland since 1997 featuring the maverick lawyer Stella Blómkvist in a long-running series of Icelandic bestsellers. Two seasons of TV adaptations have appeared in Iceland too. Read More

Thirty Days of Darkness by Jenny Lund Madsen

Translated by Megan E. Turney This debut novel is already a prize winner in Madsen’s home country of Denmark, and it’s easy to see why. At first we love to hate the protagonist, Hannah, an established writer of much praised and exquisitely crafted prose novellas, who has fallen into that mid-career slump; her backlist is Read More

Deceit by Jónína Leósdóttir

Translated by Sylvia and Quentin Bates I’m delighted to be today’s stop on the blogtour for yet another new to me Icelandic author. Deceit is the first of Jónína Leósdóttir’s books to be translated into English, brought to us by Corylus Books and translated by veteran Icelandic translator Quentin Bates with Sylvia Bates. Deceit is Read More

#NordicFINDS – Iceland Week – a final quirky novel

Butterflies in November by Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir Translated by Brian Fitzgibbon My final read of #NordicFINDS is a quirky novel that slightly took me back to nearly the beginning of my project this year, for Butterflies in November has some similarities in its narrator with Bess in The Murder of Halland, except that this time Read More

#NordicFINDS – Iceland Week – living the dream?

Names for the Sea by Sarah Moss Novelist Sarah Moss fell in love with Iceland during a trip with a friend as a student. Years later, she was beginning to get itchy feet at the University of Kent and began looking for a job abroad. It just so happened that her husband lost his job Read More

Winterkill (Dark Iceland 6) by Ragnar Jónasson

Today, it’s my turn on the blog tour for Winterkill. Sometimes it’s good to come in at the end of a series of books. If you enjoy that final volume, it makes you want to go back and explore all the others. This was definitely the case with Icelandic police procedural Winterkill for me, although Read More