About The Book
Copenhagen author Hannah is the darling of the literary community and her novels have achieved massive critical acclaim. But nobody actually reads them, and frustrated by writer’s block, Hannah has the feeling that she’s doing something wrong.
When she expresses her contempt for genre fiction, Hanna is publicly challenged to write a crime novel in thirty days. Scared that she will lose face, she accepts, and her editor sends her to Húsafjöður – a quiet, tight-knit village in Iceland, filled with colorful local characters – for inspiration.
But two days after her arrival, the body of a fisherman’s young son is pulled from the water … and what begins as a search for plot material quickly turns into a messy and dangerous investigation that threatens to uncover secrets that put everything at risk … including Hannah…
Atmospheric, dramatic and full of nerve-jangling twists and turns, Thirty Days of Darkness is a darkly funny, unsettling debut Nordic Noir thriller that marks the start of a breath-taking new series.
My Review
With thanks to the publisher for the copy received. At the start of this wonderful quirky novel Hannah is at a book event where a well known crime author is due to appear before an audience of fans. Bitter, because she isn’t as successful, and extremely critical of his type of novel she ends up in a public dispute which results in her going to Iceland to write a crime novel within 30 days. But spending 30 days in darkness isn’t the only thing that she experiences. She finds death, fear, mistrust but also some unexpected friendships and she also started to like herself a lot more.
This original novel was one I enjoyed immensely. The death happens very early in the novel and even though Hannah knew little about the victim she found herself very close to his grieving friends and family. Too close, in some ways, she doesn’t see that her questions are unwelcome.
She decides that she needs to be the one who solves the mystery of the young man’s death.Struggling with the language barrier and not being anywhere near as good at solving crimes as she thought she was this made for very entertaining reading. Especially when she tried to combine her sleuthing with her writing. It soon became evident that she didn’t know how to police and writing a crime novel wasn’t as easy as she expected it to be. Her Inspector Clouseau style of investigation, her slight bafflement over the way she was actually seen by the locals rather than how she thought she was and her increasingly brilliant group of friends all made this book very entertaining to read.
Not a character I liked immediately but I soon grew to love her, I hope we get to meet Hannah and many of these characters again. Just wonderful.
Steph's Book Blog 
Thanks for the blog tour support x
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