This story is basically told from the point of view of two emotionally disturbed women, both drug/alcohol substance abusers. One lives a life of privilege and wealth, the other a life of misery and abuse. Both are a mess as their lives intertwine over the fate of a young boy. Many overly coincidental, unbelievable, twists. Then, too much repetitive angst and introspection by the characters, especially in Anni’s diaries, made for slow reading at times. Still, overall, an interesting story. It just needed to be “tightened up” a bit as I found myself putting it down for awhile and then skimming through parts the next time I picked it up. As this was a debut, I will be interested in giving the author’s next book a try.

I love Scandinavian mysteries...they are usually dark, gloomy and slower paced than most American mysteries and they don't always have tidy endings. This book definitely fits the bill but I really struggled with the characters. Its saying something when you have more compassion for the abused drug dealer than you do for the well off society girl.

Cecilia is a calculating, society climber who is scared to lose her social position. She loves her family but isn't very happy. She is stressed out, privileged and always popping pills. Annika has struggled with addiction most of her life including her addiction to her abusive boyfriend who she keeps going back to no matter how horrible he is to her or for her. Trapped in the middle of these women is Tobias a sweet 8 year old boy who has seen more in his young life than he ever should. I think my heart broke for this little boy over and over as I read this book and the ending left me as cold as if I had fallen through the ice on a river. There is no tidy ending to this one and you are left wondering where does everyone go from here. I think I may have enjoyed it more with just a little more of a wrap up at the end I was very invested in Tobias by the end and to leave things as Dahl did leaves me needing closure.

I was lost in a coulee reading The Boy At The Door with three of my Traveling Sisters. We all started off quite comfortable reading this story but soon found ourselves twisted in the messy secrets of two women's lives. We submerged ourselves deeper in the bushes not wanting to come out till all the revelations to this story were revealed.

Alex Dahl does a great job creating interesting and complex women here with realistic and believable realities of two women who live very different lives from each other. He cleverly adds layers to the secrets these women keep and slowly peels them back for us to see and we start to see deeper into the two women.

In the end, we were left feeling quite satisfied with this entertaining yet thought-provoking story that left us twisted in knots and feeling much more for the characters than we expected. I highly recommend.

Thank you to NetGalley, Berkley Publishing Group and Alex Dahl for a copy to read and review.

This is Traveling Sisters GR Reading Group Review and it can be found posted on our themed book blog Two Sisters Lost In A Coulee Reading.
https://twosisterslostinacoulee.com
Coulee: a term applied rather loosely to different landforms, all of which refer to a kind of valley. Coulee references are symbolic to our reading experience

3.5 It starts when Cecilia, who is picking her own young daughtersup from swim class, is asked to take a young boy home as no one has come to pick him up. This young boy will change things for Cecilia and her family, and in a way that will be the cause of many lies and exposed secrets. Who is this boy? Cecilia, keeps a tight reign on her life, everything must be just so, from her house to her appearance. She is beyond driven,she is also any reliable narrators,so how much can we believe when things keep rapidly changing. Another young woman, Anni, also plays a part, and her journals are an important part of this story. These two women differ in many ways, but they also share many commonalities. In essence they are two sides of the same coin.

How I enjoy Nordic mysteries, thrillers. No dramatics at play here, just solid writing and situations that are often as chilly as the weather. This one tied me up in knots, never knew what to believe, where it was going. I love when that happens. The two women were not very sympathetic at times, and surprisingly my favorite character would be a secondary but integral one. The paths that can be taken to deceive, how one like leads to another, with one young boy caught in the middle. Cecilia's husband is either naive, a saint or really loves his wife because he is presented with some difficult snd constantly changing scenarios.

A well done Nordic thriller with multifaceted characters. A sisters read and one which we all enjoyed, eliciting some good discussions.

ARC from Netgalley.

This book is a thinker. It didn't grip me but kept me reading as facts became more evident. In the end, the book left me with something to think about. There is a comparison, however loosely connected, one can't help but wonder if different choices could have been made. Could they have changed?

I liked the twist at the end. I think that, in and of itself, provides the most starkest of contrasts.

I know the main character was supposed to be unlikeable but she was really just so horrible that it made it hard to read the story. I felt bad for poor Tobias but other than that, everyone was awful.

Very enjoyable page turner! Cecelia has built a perfect life for her family: she married the towns most eligible man, her daughters are in all the right activities, her home is perfect and charming. One evening picking up her daughters at swimming lessons, she is startled by the familiarity of a small, 8 year old boy, unsure how she might know him. When asked to drive him home, she discovers the home at the address he gives her to be deserted and abandoned. And thus her life begins to unravel.

Told be alternating narrators (Cecelia, the boy Tobias, and pages from a journal kept by Annika, who was his last caregiver (of a sort)), the reader slowly learns of Cecelia's and Anni's respective pasts, what drew them together, and how their world collide. Each tells a different angle of the story, and it all comes together to a dramatic conclusion, with Cecelia desperately trying to keep her world and her family in tact.

Recommended to fans of psychological fiction and family dramas; readers who enjoy Gillian Flynn, Mary Kubica and similar thrillers will enjoy this title.

Alex Dahl offers "how far would you go to hang on to what you have" in Cecilia Wilborg's life. It starts out with her getting her daughters from the local swimming pool and ending up with a small boy that has no home. He doesn't have a mother and father that we know abound it basically continues from there with lies and tales that Cecilia comes up with in telling her loving husband and family about the boy. Is he just about a little boy without a home? We find out how far Cecilia will go so her world will not change. She tells tales so her husband will stay with her and everyone will think it is copacetic. The tales finally catch up with her and we have what we thought to start out with happens. The ending of the story is very telling and you must read the story to find out what happens.

The Boy at the Door by Alex Dahl has been getting a lot of hype here on goodreads! So, of course I had to take this under my wing to experience. But, unfortunately this wing felt a little broken too me.

I had trouble connecting to the storyline to begin with and felt it was slow right away for me. I also was annoyed with the beginning event of the story.

Cecilia takes her 2 daughters to swim lessons every evening. This particular night... Cecilia agrees to give a little boy a ride home whom has been left at the pool without his parents picking him up. Little does Ceclia know she arrives at the address of where the little boy lives and it's an abandoned home that is in horrible conditions. So she decides to take the little boy home with her for the night. Ok.... right there unrealistic.... you call the police to help find this little boy's family... or what his situation is.

Cecilia takes the little boy to his daughter's school in the morning and of course he doesn't attend the school. CPS and the police are called to the school. CPS and law enforcement ask Cecilia and her husband to take in this little boy. OK... NO... this would NEVER happen. This little guy would automatically be taken into the foster care system (and let's be real there is no shortage of foster homes... if there is CPS has alternative placements for the child. This really bugged me and I had trouble getting past this. I know too much about child welfare and this was not believable at all.

I also wasn't particularly fond of the diary entries of the woman that was addicted to meth/heroine. I just can't... I deal with situations like this on a daily basis and it gets too much for me.

The story has a lot of layers to uncover but my biggest issue was that there was a huge twist about 60 percent in the book and then it got boring for me again. I had to skip some of the story because I was that bored.

Overall, I wasn't too impressed with this story. I can see how many others may truly enjoy this one but for me it was a dud unfortunately.

Rating: 2.5 stars

A huge thank you to Elisha, Berkley, and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for my honest review.

Published to GR: 6/21/18
Publication date: 7/24/18

What to say! I love that there are 3 main characters and each is given a lot of space for their POVs. I love that the two women are flawed, yet totally honest to the reader about their flaws. Depending on the reader, the force of the three characters will overshadow the secondary characters; however for me they stood out, and even though their pain and suffering was (I suppose) secondary to the story, I could often feel them in the background. There are no big twists or shocks in this story; Cecilia is an unapologetic bitch and her mantra of "what I want I get" follows you through the story until its ending. Without spoiling anything, I love that the ending is open, because then I can imagine it the way I want and I always love a good ending.

Cecelia had a perfect life with a perfect husband, two daughters, a beautiful home, and an enjoyable part-time job.

One night could change it all.

Cecelia picked her daughters up from swim practice, and as she waited for them to change, she was asked to take a young boy home because his parents didn’t show up.

Cecelia didn’t want to do it, but she couldn’t leave him at the school alone. Taking him home was the worst thing that could have happened to her because he may be the reason her secret becomes revealed. For some reason the boy, Tobias, knows Cecelia knew Annie, the woman who took care of him and abandoned him.

We get background information on Annie that is not very pleasant and then move back and forth to the present with the little boy that connects it all.

I wasn't a fan of the main character Cecilia. Her past lifestyle was off-putting for me, and her current life was made of lies. She currently had everything and still wasn't happy.

Tobias was a sweet boy who kept everything inside, and he definitely had secrets and answers to the questions the police were asking, but he wouldn't tell them anything.

Some of the other characters were very unpleasant.

The ongoing questions in the story line are who is Tobias' mother, how did Cecelia really know Annie, and just what is Cecelia’s secret that will destroy her current life.

The author’s writing keeps you engaged and especially when she leaves an incriminating, clue-revealing tidbit as the last sentence of the chapter and moves on. We gets hints about what is bothering Cecelia, but never enough information to figure it out. Tobias knows, though, and Cecelia is worried.

THE BOY AT THE DOOR is brilliantly written with a creative, odd story line that is a bit unbelievable, but oh so good and attention grabbing.

The tension kept me on the edge of my seat as the police questioned Cecelia about Annie and Tobias.

THE BOY AT THE DOOR is an excellent suspense debut. 4/5

I received an advanced reader copy of this book from the publisher and NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

I can imagine that someone who does not read a lot of "psychological thrillers" would really enjoy this book. There were some nice twists and the identity of the boy did keep me guessing especially with two women having parallel experiences, but at the same time being completely different. This is also another book with the unreliable narrator. I just get frustrated that the narrator does not tell us what she knows and instead we are made to wade through words that don't matter to get to what does. A good enough book. Thank you for the opportunity to read it.

Great character development and a creative use of multiple first person narratives. I found the pacing a little slow and the twists a little predictable but really enjoyed the book because of the well developed characters.

An interesting and well done thriller. I would recommend this to others who enjoy reading thrillers or mysteries.

I found it difficult to feel empathy for the main character. Her personality and demeanor were quite unpleasant

I’m attending the CrimeFest conference this weekend, and while there are plenty of authors here with whom I’m already familiar—Lee Child, Simon Brett, Yrsa Sigurðardóttir, Peter James, etc.—I wanted to check out some of the new writers. Alex Dahl’s debut thriller is set in Norway, and I’m always interested in the latest in Scandinavian crime fiction. Unlike a lot of the Scandi-noir titles that make it to the U.S., this one isn’t a bestseller in its homeland that’s just been translated; Dahl was raised in Oslo but she’s half-American, so she wrote this book in English.

I’m on the record as being a fan of books with complicated, even frankly unlikable narrators, so I was immediately captivated by Cecilia Wilborg, who is… well, at best, a narcissist, and at worst, a sociopath. Cecilia lives in the town of Sandefjord, which she describes as “a wealthy town full of spoiled, bored wives.” She works as an interior decorator, and the money she earns helps keep her in cashmere Missoni throws and designer dresses. Her husband is a successful businessman, and they have two beautiful daughters.

“All I ever wanted was a normal family, the kind of family others may look to for inspiration. Does that make me bad?” muses Cecilia. “I’ve worked hard at being the perfect wife and the perfect mother.”

When something comes along to threaten that perfection, Cecilia is forced to make some difficult decisions. A small, olive-skinned boy named Tobias is found alone at the local swimming center, and Cecilia, who is there with her own children, is persuaded to take him in for a few days while the authorities search for his parents. She is furious at the inconvenience, but relents. Soon, she discovers that Tobias has a connection to a drug user named Anni—a woman who knows some shocking secrets that Cecilia has tried very hard to hide.

Dahl is wise enough to realize that a whole book of self-absorbed Cecilia would be rather hard to take, so the author intersperses chapters told from Cecilia’s point of view with Tobias’s backstory and excerpts from Anni’s diaries and letters. As Cecilia’s carefully constructed web of lies begins to fall apart, the question becomes whether she’ll be able to outrun her past, or if her misdeeds will finally be exposed.

The Boy at the Door is a genuine page-turner, a fascinating psychological study and a must-read for people who can’t resist twisty thrillers with unreliable narrators. It’s already available as an ebook from the U.K. publisher Head of Zeus; it’ll be out in the U.S. in July.

Read all my reviews at: https://brainfartsandbooks.wordpress.com

Wow! What an intricate story that just keeps getting better and better. Kind of like a good bottle of red wine, eh? Cecilia Wilborg is married with two little girls. She is an active mother and runs her own interior design business. One day at her local pool, a little boy is left and not picked up by his parents. The person in charge asks Cecilia to take him home and gives her his address. When Cecilia arrives to the address she realizes it is a somewhat abandoned home. What does she do? She takes him home to her house, of course. As times goes on, Cecilia's personal secrets fly the coup and we find out who the little boy is and how he came to be in Cecilia's care. This book certainly did not disappoint with it's colorful characters both rich and poor to the extreme, not to mention Cecilia's wonderfully patient husband.

Thank you to Netgalley, Alex Dahl, and Berkley for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A small boy is left behind at the local pool. Pampered mommy Cecilia grudgingly agrees to take him home. Soon, all hell breaks loose as it is discovered that the boy's carer has been murdered. Told from multiple perspectives, this taut psychological thriller reveals its secrets ever so slowly, to great effect.

I was given the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley. The Boy at the Door is Alex Dahls first novel and it was very good. I have always been drawn to thrillers that take place in Scandinavian countries, not really sure why but they always seem better. This is the story about a wealthy woman who appears to have it all when things start coming apart at the seems when a young boy abandoned at the swim club ends up coming home with her while they look for his parents. Pieces of her carefully tailored life are at risk when she realizes that this act could bring back the one mistake she made and shatter everything she has perfected.
The story is told from the point of view of three points of view with Cecilia being the main character. All three characters are wonderfully developed and give the reader a very good description about the lives of these people and how they got to where they are now, and how their lives are intertwined. A great psychological drama that really did keep you guessing about what was going to happen next. I would highly recommend this book!

The Boy at the Door started out really fast! Cecilia and her two daughters were at the indoor pool for lessons but she just couldn’t wait to get home and kick back. But the pool supervisor calls her over to say that an eight year old boy needs a ride home because his mother never came to get him.
So far… sounds realistic right? But the story continues unraveling and secrets are revealed sending Cecilia’s life spiraling downhill! But how far will she go to keep things hidden so that her life can remain as “perfect” as it has been! Alex Dahl is a very talented author and we look forward to reading more of her work!