Eva Bjorg AEgisdottir [Translated by Victoria Cribb] – Night Shadows @evaaegisdottir @OrendaBooks #ForbiddenIceland #NightShadows #IcelandicNoir

I could not be more thrilled to say today I am part of the blog tour for Night Shadows by Eva Bjorg Aegisdottir

The small community of Akranes is devastated when a young man dies in a mysterious house fire, and when Detective Elma and her colleagues from West Iceland CID discover the fire was arson, they become embroiled in an increasingly perplexing case involving multiple suspects. What’s more, the dead man’s final online search raises fears that they could be investigating not one murder, but two.

A few months before the fire, a young Dutch woman takes a job as an au pair in Iceland, desperate to make a new life for herself after the death of her father. But the seemingly perfect family who employs her turns out to have problems of its own and she soon discovers she is running out of people to turn to.

As the police begin to home in on the truth, Elma, already struggling to come to terms with a life-changing event, finds herself in mortal danger as it becomes clear that someone has secrets they’ll do anything to hide…

The third book in the Forbidden Iceland series. I am a big fan of Noir, Scandi/Icelandic. I am an even bigger fan of Orenda published books, luckily, this is both. I have been eager to read this as I have read the previous two book in the series.

Night Shadows sees Elma faced with an intriguing and quite complex case that begins deceptively simply enough when a young man dies in a house fire. A link with a missing young Dutch woman is discovered after investigating the dead man’s Internet search history.

Eva Bjorg Ægisdottir is a master in creating a chilling atmosphere just with the setting. This is key to what makes this series as excellent as it is. This was another case that I was utterly riveted with. As Elma uncovered more information it made me wonder how deep this was going to go.

The the last book Elma was in a relationship with Sævar, a colleague. We see much more of this side of Elma in Night Shadows. It was nice to discover the softer side to her in this book. She is already an authentic character and this just made her all the more real.

Perfectly translated by Victoria Cribb, every inflection and emotion is brought to life within these pages. I always applaud the translators, especially of Orenda Books, they lose nothing in translation.

This is a slow burn plot in that the reader is consumed by a family that just seems like every other family on the surface, until the cracks start to appear. I found it an addictive and fascinating read and am looking forward to the next book in the series

Author Bio

Born in Akranes in 1988, Eva moved to Trondheim, Norway to study my MSc in Globalisation when she was 25. After moving back home having completed her MSc, she knew it was time to start working on her novel.
Eva has wanted to write books since she was 15 years old, having won a short story contest in Iceland.
Eva worked as a stewardess to make ends meet while she wrote her first novel, The Creak on the Stairs. The book went on to win the CWA Debut
Dagger, the Blackbird Award, was shortlisted (twice) for the Capital Crime Readers’ Awards, and became a number one bestseller in Iceland. The critically acclaimed Girls Who Lie (book two in the Forbidden Iceland series) soon followed, with Night Shadows (book three) following suit in July 2022. Eva lives with her husband and three children in Reykjavík.