You Can't See Me by Eva Björg Ægisdóttir (translated by Victoria Cribb)

Wishing a very happy publication day to Eva Björg Ægisdóttir for You Can't See Me, out today from Orenda Books. I am sharing my review for my stop on the blog tour. My thanks to Anne Cater for the invitation and to the publisher for my review copy.

The Blurb

The wealthy, powerful Snæberg clan has gathered for a family reunion at a futuristic hotel set amongst the dark lava flows of Iceland’s remote Snæfellsnes peninsula.

Petra Snæberg, a successful interior designer, is anxious about the event, and her troubled teenage daughter, Lea, whose social-media presence has attracted the wrong kind of followers. Ageing carpenter Tryggvi is an outsider, only tolerated because he’s the boyfriend of Petra’s aunt, but he’s struggling to avoid alcohol because he knows what happens when he drinks … Humble hotel employee, Irma, is excited to meet this rich and famous family and observe them at close quarters … perhaps too close…

As the weather deteriorates and the alcohol flows, one of the guests disappears, and it becomes clear that there is a prowler lurking in the dark.

But is the real danger inside … within the family itself?

My Review

Members of the glamorous, well known Snæburg family, including partners and children are gathering at a remote, state of the art hotel on the lava covered Snæfellnes Peninsula. It's an annual gathering to celebrate the birthday of an ancestor, but the first in this hotel and the weather is threatening to close in. The hotel is modern, clean cut and full of well trained staff including Irma, who seems to have an unhealthy interest in the family. Over the course of the weekend tensions surface and secrets are uncovered...

The Snæburg family are a large group (I had some difficulty keeping up with who was who) and are not really close. Many of them drink too much, maybe take drugs, some are unhappy, some more dysfunctional than others. They can be critical of one another and are not always welcoming to the newcomers in their group. They are not particularly nice people and it's telling that my two favourite characters, Tryggvi and Maja, are both outsiders. I really struggled to warm to any of the family members but enjoyed the dynamic between Petra and cousins Steffý and Viktor. I probably found Lea the easiest to sympathise with but was uncomfortable with some of the storyline around her, whilst acknowledging it highlights the very real dangers of social media. 

The hotel, landscape and weather are all characters in this novel. The hotel seems very cold, impersonal and the author does a great job in emphasising its isolation, giving the story a claustrophobic feel. I loved the descriptions of the lava fields and the black pebble beach. The weather too, always cold but otherwise changeable from sunshine to snow.

I liked how we touched on the troubles of several of the family members and partners, some of which were peeled back further and further throughout the course of the book. This succeeded in ramping up the tension.  I wasn't entirely surprised by the denouement but enjoyed seeing the various story threads coming together to reach that point. 

You Can't See Me is a story of family, betrayal, love and grief. It shows that wealth and privilege can't shelter you from those things, indeed, perhaps they make them worse. Well described with a real sense of claustrophobia, isolation and tension, this is a good slice of Nordic Noir. 

The Author

Born in Akranes in 1988, Eva Björg Ægisdóttir studied for an MSc in globalisation in Norway before returning to Iceland to write her first novel. Combining writing with work as a stewardess and caring for her children, Eva finished her debut thriller The Creak on the Stairs, which was published in 2018. It became a bestseller in Iceland, going on to win the Blackbird Award. Published in English by Orenda Books in 2020, it became a digital number-one betseller in three countries, was shortlisted for the Capital Crime/Amazon Publishing Awards in two categories and won the CWA John Creasey Dagger in 2021. Girls Who Lie, the second book in the Forbidden Iceland series was shortlisted for the Petrona Award and the CWA Crime in Translation Dagger, and Night Shadows followed suit. With over 200,000 copies sold in English alone, Eva has become one of Iceland’s – and crime-fiction’s – most highly regarded authors. She lives in Reyjavik with her husband and three children.