The Woman Inside is a psychological thriller set in Sweden which follows the investigation of the murder of a wealthy couple found dead inside their luxurious home. The story is told through the points of view of the three main characters and police interview transcripts.
The main characters are Bill Olsson, a struggling widower with an eight-year-old daughter, who rents out a room in his apartment to Karla, a pre-law student who works part-time as a house cleaner for the Rytters, a wealthy couple. Jennica is a student, the black sheep of her family, who falls for a handsome older man she meets on Tinder. The primary characters are well-developed and as the drama unfolds, we discover their respective back stories, motives, secrets and moral compasses.
The devious plot and multiple POVs keep the story moving quickly with numerous twists and an unexpected ending. The Woman Inside is a well-written, gripping, tense, enjoyable Nordic thriller. Thank you to BookishFirst, Celadon Books and NetGalley for a copy to review. #CeladonReads #CeladonBooks #TheWomanInside #partner

The Woman Inside
By: M. T. Edvardsson

4⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Bill and his 8 year old daughter Sally are struggling to pay bills after his wife died. He decides to take in a lodger Kayla who is a college student studying to become a judge.

Kayla works as a housekeeper for a wealthy couple. The Rytters are an unusual couple. The wife is suffering and is taking pills subscribes by her doctor husband. Kayla feels like the husband is controlling and not very caring or concerned for his wife.

The couple end up dead and Bill of all people is the suspect. Part of the novel has interviews of the people who came in contact with Bill and the couple. This part was fascinating. This novel kept my interest the entire time as secrets come to the front. The ending was crazy. It’s amazing what people will do to keep secrets.

Thank you Celadon, Netgalley and the author for this advanced copy. This novel come out June 13.

#thewomaninside, #mtedvardsson, #celadon, #netgalley, #bookreview, #bookstagram, #booksconnectus, #stamperlady50

Having absolutely been gripped by A Nearly Normal Family, I was excited for the opportunity to read the authors next work and I was not disappointed. My only complaint, if you could even call it that, is that it probably could be edited down to make it a little shorter/tighter. Other than that, a solid read.
This is a multiple POV murder mystery that takes place in Sweden. It’s told from the POV of our 3 main characters - Karla, Bill and Jennica, as well as transcripts of police interrogations.
Bill is a single parent and unemployed and struggling to lay the bills so he decides to rent out a room in his house as a source of income. Karla’s a student who also works part time as a cleaning lady, rents the room in Bill’s house. Jennica was a friend of Bill’s late wife, and is now dating the owner of the house that Karla cleans twice a week because Steven’s wife is I’ll and cannot take care of the house herself.
The story starts out with Steven and his wife Regina found dead in this home and the progression of the story is who did it and why. Everyone had motive and opportunity and the investigators have their work cut out for them.
Thanks to Celadon Books and NetGalley for this audiobook arc in exchange for my review.

Bill is recently widowed and working hard to provide for Sally. In order to make ends meet, he moves his daughter into his room, and takes in a lodger. Karla is a law student and aspiring judge who pays her bills by being a housecleaner to a wealthy couple. It isn’t long after Karla starts working for them that she realizes the husband is controlling and obsessive, and he seems to have drugged his wife so she can’t leave the house.

As Bill and Karla’s relationship grows, she decides to take matters into her own hands in order to help him out. Unfortunately, when her employer and his wife end up dead, everyone’s a suspect.

This book was interesting in that you knew who was dead from the get go, and they were still a character we learned about. The main purpose of the book was to figure out who had committed the murder. This one was told from several points of view, of which several are the potential killers. As you get to know each one you can’t help but wonder what made them, if at all, commit the murder. It was fun and interesting. I never really did develop a connection with any of the characters enough to care about them or not. They all had really unlikeable traits and I just never got into any of them enough to root for them. I also felt that this one was rather slow, and at almost 400 pages, it felt very long. I really enjoyed the setting, Sweden seems absolutely lovely, and I’d love to visit someday.

Thank you so much to the publisher, Celadon Books, @celadonbooks, and Netgalley, @netgalley for this e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

Additional links will be added once posted.

I wouldn’t say this was a thriller but it was interesting. I oddly learned a lot about Sweden—no jury trials?! I liked the funny bits about Jennica hating to bike everywhere and Karla and her classmate, Waheeda were great. I wish they’d get their own spin-off and we could see their adventures in working at McDonalds and becoming a cop and a judge!

I felt really badly for poor Sally. Her dad was a mess and I can’t image things would improve:

I really enjoyed this one! I never knew where it was going next and I was a fan of the twisty nature of the book. I’d definitely recommend this to my friends and family.

The Woman Inside is a gripping thriller that captures the reader's attention from the start with its multiple perspectives and complex characters.

With a wealthy couple murdered in the nicest part of town, the story unfolds as we follow the lives of those involved in this terrible crime. While the plot may be predictable at times, the story is still compelling and will keep you on edge as you try to solve the puzzle.

Unfortunately, the characters do not seem to be very well developed, and many of them are not very likeable. Karla, however, stands out as a character that is easy to feel sorry for and root for throughout the book.

Overall, The Woman Inside is a compulsively readable, page-turning thriller that will keep you guessing until the very end. While the plot and character development could have been stronger, the multiple points of view and suspenseful storytelling make this book a worthwhile read for fans of the genre.

[arc review]
Thank you to Celadon Books for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review.
The Woman Inside releases June 13, 2023

This is a multiple pov murder mystery set in Sweden, with some mixed media in the form of interrogation transcripts.

Karla, Bill, and Jennica are our 3 main narrators. They all seem to be connected to each other in one intricate tangled web.

Karla, a student, is also hired as a cleaning lady, and rents a room out of Bill’s house.
Bill is a single parent, fresh out of employment and struggling to pay rent and other bills, hence the idea to offer one of his rooms to rent out as a source of income.
Jennica was apparently a friend to Bill’s late wife in the past, and is also dating Steven, the owner of the house that Karla cleans twice per week.

It’s made clear at the start of the story that Steven and his ill wife, Regina, are the ones who turn up dead, but who had a hand in their deaths and what was their motive?

I felt like the pov’s here kept alternating too fast before we even got a chance to establish or develop the characters.
The murder mystery just wasn’t enticing enough for me and I didn’t particularly care for any of the characters.
There could have been more time spent to clean up the ending because all of the characters trying to find a plausible way to explain the fingerprints was so messy when one of the main characters has been regularly cleaning that house for up to 8 hours every week. Like, yeah, obviously if you find an extra set of fingerprints it means they’ve been there quite recently?? Such a glaring plot hole and didn’t line up with the interrogation process.

cw: cheating, theft, extortion, drugging, manipulation

I loved A Nearly Normal Family so I jumped at the opportunity to review The Woman Inside. I like how the author started the story with a discussion about how Sweden has a terminology, “Family Tragedy”, for a crime committed within a family unit that has no outside interference/connection. And thus begins this tale. There are a lot of characters and moving pieces so it’s not always the easiest story to follow. But the author definitely pulled things off at the end. Kudos and applause! 👏

*Thanks to MacMillan & NetGalley for this advance audiobook copy for review.

I read this author’s previous book and have to say it is one of my favorite mystery/thriller books ever. This newest book is every bit as good. Often when I read a mystery/thriller, I’m usually able to figure things out before the “big reveal”. Not with M.T. Edvardsson. This author has such a talent for making the reader waver over their feelings for a character. Just when I think I’ve got the character figured out, he gives me another side of that character that leaves me questioning myself. Not until the very end do I know what really happened. That’s quite a talent, those mental twists and turns. Perfect pacing and captivating characters that shape an un-put-downable story.

I found the premise of this book to be super interesting. I enjoyed the multiple POVs and flashbacks. The book is told from the POV of three different people. It took until the very end of the book to find out what they had to do with each other. I liked the ending, but it was fairly anticlimactic. This book is a very slow burn. Almost painfully slow. It definitely could have been a hundred pages shorter. The story did keep me engaged, as I was invested in the story right from the start.

The story is very character driven. The character development was done very well and I felt like we got to know the three main characters well. Each of them was dealing with a lot of past traumas. There is also a child in the story that I really felt for.

If you like slow burn domestic mysteries then I recommended you grab this book.

Thank you Netgalley & Celadon Books for an eARC of The Woman Inside by M.T. Edvardsson. I recently read A Nearly Normal Family, and I couldn’t wait to get my hands - and ears - on this author’s latest novel prior to pub day. I went back and forth between eBook and audibook for this one, and really enjoyed both.

A wealthy couple ends up murdered in the nicest part of town - What on earth could’ve happened?

Bill Olsson is a recently widowed single dad. He has a lower, Karla, stay in his home to make ends meet. As a housekeeper, she works for the Rytters - A wealthy couple who seems to be a mystery in so many ways. The plot gets a LOT more complicated than this, but I hate to give something away.

Multiple POVs and a true psychological thriller that will keep you guessing, I really enjoyed how everything came together in the end and felt satisfied. I can’t wait to see what this author comes up with next!

This was a quick read that pulled me in enough to wonder what happened, but not enough to care. I wished the characters were more developed, and found that I felt no connection to any of them and their plights. The whole book felt predictable and I probably wouldn’t have finished it if it wasn’t my book club’s pick.

4.5 stars

I really enjoyed this page-turner, and it's been one of my favorites of 2023. I loved that the story was told through multiple POVs, giving a well-rounded look into the action. The characters are flawed, which makes them more relatable, and the twists kept me engaged and turning the pages. Everyone's a suspect until the end, which was a surprise (and that's always a good thing!).

As my grandmother would have said in the 80s, Bill is a ne’er do well. Addicted to gambling, and without a job, he can’t hold on to money. He hopes taking on a border will solve some of his financial worries. But he still needs a job because odd jobs aren’t cutting it, especially when he gambles it all away. Karla is in college and wants to become a judge. She cleans houses to help pay for her books, but the wealthy husband and wife are very odd. The wife is bedridden, and the husband has forbidden Karla from interacting with her. She’s unsure how much longer she wants to clean for them, as the pressure is getting too much.

This story comes from Bill, Karla, and Jennica’s pov. Karla has a rich backstory, with a mother addicted to drugs. She’s always longed for a sense of family, and Bill’s daughter Sally provides that. Bill’s character is also written well, as I couldn’t stand him. He was so sketchy, and though Karla always reiterated what a great dad he was, he wasn’t really, not when he couldn’t provide stability. Staying in an overpriced house instead of moving somewhere cheaper isn’t stability, especially when you can’t afford food and electricity because the rent is so high. Jennica felt like an add-on character. She’s lazy, doesn’t clean, and works as a psychic. The story would have worked without her as a character.

I hate comparing an author’s works to their previous work, but I read that this is a book 2 in the Lundasviten series, so I feel it’s fair. I didn’t love this one as much as the first because Bill’s gambling felt like filler. His day to day was repetitive. But on the whole, I enjoyed this one. It’s smart, and I like how it all came together.

Thank you, Celadon Books, for the advanced copy.

A couple is found dead in an affluent neighborhood, and the incident is labeled a "family tragedy" a euphemism for a crime of violence in a home, for which there is no external suspect. So begins the story of the Rytters, and the people they pull into their orbit, including Bill, a single father and Karla their housecleaner. Bill, Karla and the Rytters are on a collision course, though they don't know it. We know how it all ends, but how on earth did it begin? And how did the Rytters wind up dead?

This is MT Edvardsson's second domestic thriller and one I was eager to read, having really enjoyed his debut, 'A Nearly Normal Family'. This one is somewhat different, and a little more sensational than his first, which had much more complexity and many more layers. Still, this was a really fast-paced read, and I got through it a lot quicker than I normally do for an audiobook without benefit of also having the ebook. The audiobook had a full cast of narrators for each character, which made it a more layered listening experience. Recommended for those who like domestic suspense.

I really truly wanted to love this book, but sadly, it fell flat. My first complaint is that it definitely could have been significantly shorter. Parts of it got very repetitive and didn’t add very much to the storyline. However, I really enjoyed the multiple story lines that intersected very neatly at the end of the book. It made the book enjoyable and a story that I wanted to come back to, even when it was drawn out. I did figure out the ending pretty early and the book left me feeling a little let down after all that build- up. Overall, I was disappointed in this book after loving A Nearly Normal Family.

Bill, a widower and Sally, his 8 year old daughter, Karla, a college student who wants to become a judge and Steven and his wife, Regina do not know each other until their lives become entangled. Bill needs money and decides to rent a room in his home. Karla rents this room. Karla needs money to attend school and pay the rent for the room. She takes a job cleaning Steven and Regina’s estate. Secrets are abound and a death takes place.
This novel is suspenseful and twisty.

I truly enjoyed the author’s previous novel, "Nearly Normal Family." When I saw the author's name and an interesting plotline promising a dark psychological thriller, I jumped at the chance to read the author's new book! I didn't regret my decision; this book is an absolutely engaging thriller that keeps you guessing until the end, making your blood run cold. It allows you to connect with different flawed characters and their misdemeanors, struggles, and shortcomings. The book also entertains with smart dialogues. The witty exchanges between the least likable character and her cat, whom she named the dog, made me guffaw several times.

The story opens with the murder investigation of a couple: Regina Rytter, a bedridden wife and daughter of a highly accomplished best-selling author, suffering from a mysterious disease that has forced her to be trapped in her own house, and Steven Rytter, a charismatic, good-looking doctor who seems a little intense, obsessed, and controlling about the cleaning of his house and the medical condition of his wife. Regina is found bludgeoned to death, while Steven has overdosed.

The prime suspect is Bill Olsson, a man barely making ends meet after his wife's sudden death, suffering from a gambling addiction and trying to take care of his little daughter Sally, who is definitely a sweet pie. Bill reluctantly rents a room in his house to Karla, a 22-year-old law student who is running from her past and overbearing responsibilities to take care of her drug-addict mother. Karla works with a cleaning agency to pay her school tuition and is hired to clean the Rytter's house twice a week. She finds herself drawn into their marriage drama and begins to suspect that Regina's illness may be related to something sinister.

The last point of view belongs to Jennica, a black sheep coming from a wealthy family who hates the guts of her cheating father. She becomes an estranged friend of Bill's late wife, but she has no idea that the man she falls hard for is also married.

Throughout the book, you constantly ask yourself what happened to the Rytters. You read the interrogations of Karla, Bill, Jennica, and other people related to the Rytters, wondering if one of the three POVs may be the killer. Both of them hide big secrets, and their desperate measures may push them to make desperate moves.

Overall, even though the book was a slow burn, it kept my attention alert with its amazing character-driven execution. I enjoyed how everything wrapped up, and I cannot wait to read another book by the author soon. My love for Swedish thrillers/Nordic noir escalates with each brilliant book I devour.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Celadon Books for sharing this brilliant digital review copy with me in exchange for my honest thoughts.

I really liked this book. At first, I had problems with the switching between characters with each chapter, but once I got into the flow of the book, it became much easier for me to understand why. The book held my attention well throughout and built to a great ending in my opinion.