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The Cold Song
The Cold Song
The Cold Song
Audiobook8 hours

The Cold Song

Written by Linn Ullmann

Narrated by Heather Wilds

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

3/5

()

About this audiobook

Siri Brodal, a chef and restaurant owner, is married to Jon Dreyer, a famous novelist plagued by writer's block. Siri and Jon have two daughters, and together they spend their summers on the coast of Norway, in a mansion belonging to Jenny Brodal, Siri's stylish and unforgiving mother.

Siri and Jon's marriage is loving but difficult and troubled by painful secrets. They have a strained relationship with their elder daughter, Alma, who struggles to find her place in the family constellation. When Milla is hired as a nanny to allow Siri to work her long hours at the restaurant and Jon to supposedly meet the deadline on his book, life in the idyllic summer community takes a dire turn. One rainy July night, Milla disappears without a trace. After her remains are discovered and a suspect is identified, everyone who had any connection with her feels implicated in her tragedy and haunted by what they could have done to prevent it.

The Cold Song is a story about telling stories and about how life is continually invented and reinvented.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateJun 18, 2014
ISBN9781494573263
The Cold Song

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Reviews for The Cold Song

Rating: 2.8181818181818183 out of 5 stars
3/5

11 ratings6 reviews

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Lots of atmosphere, as might be expected from the daugher of Liv and Ingmar Bergman, but not a lot of resolution. I enjoyed the writing and the suspense, but it turned out to be a whole lot about just your run of the mill murder.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Loved this dark,brooding book until the very last page. The ending left me doing research to see if my e-book was missing pages. Turns out I was the only one missing something, still am. I do however think the author is a very talented writer. Very good characterization. I would read her again, although I will read a good many reviews before doing so.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This book is hard for me to put in a category. It reminded me of a Norwegian Stephen King suspense novel. Great amount of detail and clear descriptions of character emotion.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    zäh wie strudelteig, man nähert sich den figuren immer wieder, damit sie weiter weg sind denn je. jede figur hat genau ein problem, das immer wieder beleuchtet wird, ohne dass man je so etwas wie nähe empfindet. der "fall" selber bleibt völlig uninteressant. mühsame lektüre, letztlich hohl.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This novel is a story about a family at seaside summer home and the young woman Milla who comes to work as their nanny, but goes missing and is later found murdered. This is not a spoiler as Milla's remains are discovered in the first pages of the book, but the manner of Milla's demise is revealed over the extended flashback that makes up the bulk of the novel. The rest of the cast includes Siri, the A-type restaurateur who hires Milla; Siri's philandering husband Jon, a novelist struggling with writer's block; their non-conforming 12-year-old daughter Alma; and Jenny, Siri's 75-year-old mother who resents the massive birthday party that Siri forces upon her. There's a lot of tension in this novel as the characters navigate around one another, and while not a crime novel, the imminent crimes against Milla hang there over the whole story.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This story of family and relationships revolves around the disappearance of a family's nanny on the night of the matriarch's 75th birthday celebration. Told from several points of view, the novel moves back and forth in time in unpredictable ways, and therefore seems somewhat disjointed at times. The characters are complex, both sympathetic and flawed, which is the book's strength, along with the suspense of the murder mystery. Themes of secrets, grief, betrayal, and temptation continue from start to finish.