Una is a teacher who wants a new start. Someplace else. Little does she know of the opportunity that drops in her lap. An opening for a teacher. Yes, it may be at the outer edges of the world, but it sounds amazing. Her class would consist of two little girls. That's it, two students. Of course the population of the little hamlet is the grand number if ten! Ten! Population, 10.
Secluded, peaceful, everything una is looking for.
I loved this story. It's a thriller, based off a story told through generations, then translated to English. One of the best story's ever!

The author is an Icelandic citizen residing in Iceland with an excellent world-wide reputation. The current novel is set in Iceland involving people that live there but showing that human emotions are similar all over the world. I can only describe it as a tight book starting slowly and building to a climax that is exactly right for the action found. Without dragging a verdict out this is a definite five star book and my recommendation to readers is just get ready to buy all forthcoming novels by the author.
Una is a young woman living in the Icelandic capital city of Reykjavík. She barely makes a living there, has few friends and not many interests for her spare time. An ad appears in the newspaper asking for a teacher for a position teaching a small class in the remote village of Skalar located on the seacoast. The isolated village has only 10 people living in it. Uma comes to the conclusion that she has nothing to lose, has a chance to make a guaranteed salary for easy work and accepts the job.
The village is as thought; remote, isolated and the very essence of the phrase provincial. Her class consists of only two girls of different ages and she gets what amounts to free room. Looks good but she meets a lot of resistance from the people in town and is terrifyingly confronted by a ghost in the house she gets the room in. Mr. Jonasson continues to pull the reader into the action and finishes his novel with one of the most perfect endings I've read. An excellent read and for me an introduction to a talented author that I am pleased to have learned about.

A solid and creepy thriller. The mystery element doesn't come into play until pretty far in the book but the chilling atmosphere will keep you reading.

The Girl Who Died is a lonely little book. The author captures the cold and emptiness of a tiny own of 10 people very well. So well that the first half or more of the book is just filled with nothingness. Nothing happens and you get the real idea of a small, boring place. During these pages I found myself drifting away. Una is, apparently, a trained teacher. Nothing in her daily job really indicates that she does much to prepare for that job and it isn't really mentioned much except as an argument in the town. Should you pay someone to teach the only two kids in town?

There is a small creepiness factor in the form of a ghost story that never really hit home and a crime that comes out of nowhere. Either one being explored more would have added to the story and created some sort of suspense that was missing.

I found the ending unsatisfying. I don't know if I can say more about it than that. I do't know what I was expecting, but this book never came together as a novel.

My thanks to Net Galley for another excellent read to review.

Una is a teacher from Reykjavik, Iceland. She accepts a job in an isolated village of Sklar, population 10 people and teaching only 2 children. While there she sees haunting visions of a little girl in a white dress that died decades ago, encounters a tragedy, and a potential murder tied to a past event in the village that the inhabitants are trying to cover up and clearly who want Una to leave and go back where she came from.

There is a second alternating arc told from the perspective of an individual in a prison relating to the past event of the secret the villagers are covering up.

I thought the book had a bit of a slow build up, but I was glad I stuck with it because all my questions were answered. Author paints a vivid picture of isolation and loneliness. Will definitely read other works by this author.

In this Icelandic thriller, a young woman, Una, takes a teaching job in a remote fishing village during the long, dark winter. When a tragic event occurs in in the village of ten people, Una uncovers a secret kept for generations. I enjoyed the ending very much but found the pace slow in the first half of the book with too much internal dialogue. Thanks to NetGalley for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

I have just finished reading The Girl Who Died by Author Ragnar Jónasson.

This is the first book that I have read by this Author, whom I have heard good things about.

I found the book entertaining, and the Author set great atmosphere, and visuals for the Icelandic setting in a small rural area.

I did find the storyline interesting, however it was a bit on the slow side for my taste, however an overall good read!

Thank You to NetGalley, Author Ragnar Jónasson and St. Martin's Press for my advanced copy to read and review.

#TheGirlWhoDied #NetGalley

Una is a devoted teacher living in Reykjavik trying to make financial ends meet. Her friend brings her attention to an advert that states, "Teacher Wanted At the Edge of the World."

Una secures a job at the remote village of Skálar - a town of only 10 people. She is tasked with teaching only 2 students. As she navigates the somewhat quirky and strange inhabitants of town she becomes more and more convinced that her flat is haunted. As the winter holidays draw near, Una is more and more anxious. A tragedy strikes that threatens to unlock more than one secret kept in this tiny town.

A great short Icelandic ghost story. As always, there are familal twists provided by Ragnar jonasson. The interactions between the adults are guarded and hard to read which adds to the mystery. Recommend.

I received a free copy from NetGalley. Teaching in a tiny village with nothing bigger close by it is also like a locked room mystery. But there might be a ghost and the village and its residents all seem to have a lot of secrets. A little slow, it did have some twists and turns.

"The Girl Who Died" is my first read by author Ragnar Jonasson but will not be my last. This thriller intrigued me from the beginning. The main character, Una, heads to Skalar to each two students in the isolated community of only 10 inhabitants. This remote community in northern Iceland becomes a characer of the novel as well with it's biting winds off the sea.
Relegated to live in attic rooms at the home of one of her only two pupils she experiences nightmares-- or does she see the ghost of a girl who died in the island decades earlier? The pace of this novel is slow but so is life in Skalar. Between the dark Icelandic winter and the numerous bottles of wine Una consumes, I was left wondering what great mystery this community had at its core.

I was bored by this book, but not to the point of DNF. A young woman answers an ad for a teacher in the middle of nowhere Iceland, a community of only 10 residents. From the beginning she does not feel welcomed, and does not always feel she is being told the truth. The story seemed to be long and drawn out, but the author does an outstanding job of describing the landscape and the cold. It had lots of potential to be a good crime novel, but the crime was not revealed until nearly the end of the book. I received an arc of this book from NetGalley and the publisher. All opinions expressed are my own.

Unfortunately this book didn't quite do it for me. While the descriptions of the country, the villages, etc. make you feel that you are there, I never truly invested in the characters. When this happens, I never know if it is actually the book, or just the time in my life that I chose to read the book. This was my first book by this author but not of this style of writing. I enjoy the noir atmospheric type book that this one obviously is. Thank you #NetGalley for allowing me to give my voluntary and honest review of #TheGirlWhoDied.

This was a slow read, but it eventually picked the pace up. I had a very hard time getting into this

This book was very eerie and ghostly. It was a very atmospheric read with a lot of secrecy. I didn’t see the ending coming. I was half expecting human sacrificing or something! I enjoyed it but i also kind of wanted a little more. more of a climax or spookiness, more ghostly or creepiness. It’s definitely a slow burn but it didn’t really have that take off i wanted. Overall, i did enjoy it and it was a good story. The secrets were well executed when they were delivered. I’d probably say it was 3.5 stars.

Except for the odd sounding names that I had a hard time keeping straight, I really enjoyed the Icelandic backdrop to this story. It made me want to visit and simultaneously stay away forever. Such a creepy setting for a creepy book. I really enjoyed this thriller and would recommend. 3.5 stars. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

4.5 Stars to The Girl Who Died, written by my favorite Icelandic writer, Ragnar Jonasson. I have read books from his other two series and I was eager to read this stand alone mystery!

A newspaper advert for "A Teacher wanted at the edge of the world" entices Una, who is currently unemployed in Reykjavik and fairly friendless. She reckons that a year at this job could help her pay off debts, and be a bit of an adventure at the same time! Besides, who is there to miss her? Not her one friend who now has a husband and child, or her mother who has remarried. The tiny village Skalar, in the far north of Iceland, consists of only ten people and they are looking for a teacher for the two children that live in the village. Una decides to go for it and departs with some trepidation, but mostly optimism. That feeling is soon quelled when she finds herself in a town that looks like time forgot. She is rooming in the home of one of her pupils, and her friendly landlady shows her to an attic apartment that has all the comforts of home. So why does Una feel so uncomfortable here and why is sleep hard to come by and disturbed by dreams of a young girl standing by her bed?

Her landlady is the only friendly face in the village. The rest of the handful of residents are not very welcoming. The town is claustrophobic in it's size, and with only one small store, everyone knows your business, including the fact that Una likes red wine with dinner every night, and maybe some after that too. The author expertly plants us in this foreboding, featureless village and we feel Una's discomfiture. Several times I just wanted to say to Una, "Get out of there!" This feeling of isolation is further intensified because the story is set in the 1980s, before cell phones and internet, so a shared land line phone is Una's only connection with her past in Reykjavik.

This is definitely a slow burner. Not a lot of twists and turns; the brooding gothic atmosphere is a big part of the story. And then there's the ghost, a young girl who used to live in the attic and appears to Una sometimes at night. This is part ghost story, part real life murder, although that part of the story is a small segment of the book. I devoured this book in one sitting and really enjoyed it. If you are a fan of the Nordic noir genre, love creepy or gothic settings, and enjoy a little supernatural in your stories then I think you will enjoy this book. I wasn't sure about the ending at first, but then I realized that one only had to look at Una's life and backstory to figure out how the ending comes to be.

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press and the author for allowing me to read this ARC.

I enjoyed this imaginative story of psychological suspense set against a remote Icelandic backdrop. Una is a young woman who unwisely accepts a teaching post in a tiny village miles from anywhere. Yet, once she realizes her mistake, she musters up some gumption and decides to stay, even though not all the villagers welcome her. As the story progresses, their actions become mysterious and Una sets out to discover why.

Overall, I found it an absorbing read and kept my interest throughout, up to the unexpected ending. Una does feel sorry for herself a lot, which becomes repetitive, and there are a few loose ends. If not for those reasons, it would be a four-star read for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for an advanced reader copy.

Ragnar Jonasson is a talented and popular author, so I'm certain that his newest novel will be a great success. I have not read any of his earlier novels, and perhaps for that reason, I didn't enjoy The Girl Who Died. On the plus side, the writing was tremendously atmospheric. The setting is "the edge of the world" in Iceland, and I felt the extreme cold, the shuddering wind, and the barrenness of the entire environment. The lead character is a teacher, Una, who takes a job in a village of ten to teach two young girls. She is very well developed, and the reader will feel for all she is experiencing.

That said, the story just didn't gel for me. I felt as though there were two plotlines, written separately and then tossed together at the very, very end of the book. Many reviewers describe it as "slow burning," but I find that to be a massive understatement. For me, it dragged along with very little happening of any interest. Even at the end, when "the big reveal" happens, I was yawning.

My thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Without telling the background or parts of the story, I want to say this is the type of mystery I love. It is set in an unusual setting with a bit of history of the town included in the story, which I always enjoy history and background in the plot of any book. Mr. Johnasson really knows how to create intricate, unusual, mysteries. I really recommend this book!

I'm returning this book the following reasons, if a book doesn't capture my interest from the first few paragraphs or pages it generally turns out to be a book that I don't wish to continue reading. It was a combination of the characters, location, and story. I'm giving an honest review up until I stopped reading. It was six chapter's and my decision was made. Thank you for the opportunity.