Icelandic Fiction

A chilling note predicting the deaths of six people is found in a school's time capsule, 10 years after it was buried. But surely, if a 13-year-old wrote it, it can't be a real threat.... Detective Huldar suspects he's been given the investigation simply to keep him away from real police work. He turns to psychologist Freyja to help understand the child who hid the message. Soon, however, they find themselves at the heart of another shocking case.

Iðunn is in yet another doctor's office. She knows her constant fatigue is a sign that something's not right, but practitioners dismiss her symptoms and blood tests haven't revealed any cause. When she talks to friends and family about it, the refrain is the same—have you tried eating better? exercising more? establishing a nighttime routine? She tries to follow their advice, buying everything from vitamins to sleeping pills to a step-counting watch. Nothing helps. Until one night Iðunn falls asleep with the watch on, and wakes up to find she’s walked over 40,000 steps in the night.

Icelandic sisters Áróra and Ísafold live in different countries and aren‘t on speaking terms, but when their mother loses contact with Ísafold, Áróra reluctantly returns to Iceland to find her sister. But she soon realises that her sister isn’t avoiding her...she has disappeared. As she confronts Ísafold’s abusive, drug-dealing boyfriend Björn, and begins to probe her sister’s reclusive neighbours, Áróra is led into an ever-darker web of intrigue and manipulation.

On a snowy winter morning, an abandoned shipping container is discovered near Reykjavík. Inside are the bodies of five young women - one of them barely alive. As Icelandic Police detective Daníel struggles to investigate the most brutal crime of his career, Áróra looks into the background of a suspicious man, who turns out to be engaged to Daníel's former wife, and the connections don't stop there.

Fall asleep fast a with Icelandic Fairy Tales: Soothing Bedtime Stories for Adults, an enchanting audiobook that will transport you to a serene world and effortlessly lull you into a restful slumber. This audiobook is designed to create the perfect ambiance for a restorative sleep experience.

There is the beautiful, elusive Elisabet who cuts a surprisingly svelte path at The Knitting Company. Neighbors Kristin and Kjartan who seem…normal, but for their explosive passion that bewilders even themselves (and ignites the spectacular revenge of Kjartan’s wife). And then the most successful businessman in town decides to ditch his Range Rover and glamorous wife in exchange for Latin books and stargazing.

On a jagged, bleak lava field just outside Reykjavik stands the Gallows Rock. Once a place of execution, it is now a tourist attraction. Until this morning, when a man was found hanging from it. The nail embedded in his chest proves it wasn't suicide. But when the police go to his flat, a further puzzle awaits: a four-year-old boy has been left there. He doesn't seem to have any link with the victim, his parents cannot be found and his drawings show he witnessed something terrible.

The body of a young Russian woman washes up on an Icelandic shore. After a cursory investigation, the death is declared a suicide and the case is quietly closed. Over a year later Detective Inspector Hulda Hermannsdóttir of the Reykjavík police is forced into early retirement at 64. She dreads the loneliness, and the memories of her dark past that threaten to come back to haunt her. But before she leaves she is given two weeks to solve a single cold case of her choice.

The Icelandic nation has a long and rich history of storytelling. Throughout centuries characterized by hardship, poverty, and dark winters, the Icelanders kept their spirits high and moral values intact by telling each other stories. In this collection of 15 Icelandic folk legends, we get a glimpse of the world view of the Icelanders in centuries past as they endeavored to understand and cope with the natural phenomena around them. There are stories of malicious ghosts, outlaws living in carved-out boulders, hidden people residing in grassy knolls...

When single mother Maríanna disappears from her home, leaving an apologetic note on the kitchen table, everyone assumes that she's taken her own life...until her body is found in the Grábrók lava fields seven months later, clearly the victim of murder. Her neglected 15-year-old daughter, Hekla, has been placed in foster care, but is her perfect new life hiding something sinister?

Cast out from the Kyivan Rus, Harald Sigurdsson’s quest for fame and fortune takes him to the far reaches of Europe; the lands of the Eastern Roman empire. The empire is dying the slow death of decay and corruption. In desperation to fend off a myriad of foes, the emperor turns to the legendary Varangian guard for salvation. These deadly warriors from the far north, famed for their fearsome steel and battle skill, have become the empire's greatest protectors. From the golden gate of Constantinople to the holy waters of the river Jordan, Harald will march with the emperor's finest.

Growing up on his family’s cattle farm in western Iceland, young Orri has gained an appreciation for the beauty found in everyday things: the cavorting of a newborn calf, the return of birdsong after a long winter, the steadfast love of a good (or tolerably good) farm dog. But the outer world still beckons, so Orri leaves his no-nonsense Lithuanian Jewish mother and his taciturn father, Pabbi, to attend university in Reykjavík.

It was meant to be a quiet family fishing trip, a chance for mother and daughter to talk. But it changes the course of their lives forever. They catch nothing except a broken doll that gets tangled in the net. After years in the ocean, the doll a terrifying sight and the mother's first instinct is to throw it back, but she relents when her daughter pleads to keep it. This simple act of kindness proves fatal. That evening, the mother posts a picture of the doll on social media. By the morning, she is dead and the doll has disappeared.

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. 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?

The first the police know of the crime is when clips are sent from the victim's Snapchat account, showing her begging for forgiveness. The CCTV at the cinema where she was working show her being dragged into the night by a masked killer. When the body is found, it is marked with a number 2...Detective Huldar joins the murder investigation, bringing child psychologist Freyja on board to help question the murdered teenager's friends. Soon, they uncover that Stella was far from the angel people claim: a relentless bully, she made life miserable for those around her.

Detective H. Grímsson is intelligent, hard as nails, and very resourceful. But he's also his own worst enemy. After an unfortunate shooting incident in Iceland's largest shopping mall on Christmas Eve, he's demoted to a police deputy in a small rural village in eastern Iceland. Grímsson's plan is to kick back, drink some beer, and enjoy this time away from home. When two young female hitchhikers disappear, Grímsson fears that the girls are lost in the highlands or have drowned in the glacial river. But then one of the girls wanders naked into the village and dies in Grimsson's arms.

"كان مجيئي إلى الدنيا صدمة حقيقية لعائلتي، كانت والدتي في الخامسة والأربعين عندما رُزِقتْ بي، أما أبي فكان في الخمسين من عمره.

كانا يدركان أنهما أكبر سنًا من أن يُنجبا طفلًا، أمر كهذا لم يكن مألوفًا في تلك الأيام".

On a long, cold Icelandic night in March 1920, Gunnar, a hermit blacksmith, finds himself with an unwanted lodger - Sigurd, an injured stranger who offers a story from the past. But some stories, even those of an old man who can barely walk, are too dangerous to hear. They alter the listeners' lives forever...by ending them. Others are keen on changing Gunnar's life as well. Depending on who gets to tell his story, it might lead toward an unwanted marriage, an intervention, rejoining the Church, letting the elf drive him insane, or succumbing to the demons in his mind.

The last Viking attack is still a raw wound in the memories of the people of Linn Duachaill when the longship Seedrache appears at the mouth of the river. But Captain Mariel is a trader, not a raider. Driven by the knowledge that if the voyage fails her family will lose their entire estate, she offers silver for tall trees she can turn into longships. Abbot Coman’s greed overcomes his mistrust and he accepts. But politics threaten their tentative cooperation. The abbot is playing a dangerous game in his search for power and prestige.

Lítill, ljótur andarungi reynist vera fallegur svanur. Snædrottningin er með ís í hjartanu og litla hafmeyjan þráir að losna við fjötra hreisturs og sporðs og ganga tveimur fótum meðal manna. Ævintýraheimur Hans Christians Andersens er flestum að góðu kunnur. Þó eftir hann liggi bæði skáldsögur, leikrit og ljóð eru það listævintýri hans sem lifa með lesendum, jafnt í bóklegri- og munnlegri geymd.