Today I’m thrilled to be sharing my review of Snare as part of the blog tour!

 

About the Book

After a messy divorce, attractive young mother Sonja is struggling to provide for herself and keep custody of her son. With her back to the wall, she resorts to smuggling cocaine into Iceland, and finds herself caught up in a ruthless criminal world.

Things become even more complicated when Sonja embarks on a relationship with a woman, Agla. Once a high-level bank executive, Agla is currently being prosecuted in the aftermath the Icelandic financial crash.

 

My Thoughts 

I’m going to be completely honest here and say that I wanted to read Snare from the moment I first saw the cover! This cover is one of the most original and memorable book covers that I’ve seen in a long while and I love how it so perfectly encapsulates what the book is about. I then read the synopsis a little later on and I knew I had to get my hands on this book!

Snare gets off to such an intense start when we follow Sonja as she works out which passenger she can use to help cover her tracks as she attempts to smuggle cocaine through the airport. This grabbed me and from then on I honestly could not put this book down as I simply had to know what was going to happen.

Sonja is a single mother who in trying to do what is best for her son has found herself ensnared in a drug running organisation and she can’t find a way out of it. As the novel goes on you begin to get more of a sense of the trap that has ensnared Sonja and you realise that all is not black and white, this novel has definitely has shades of grey where you find yourself wanting Sonja to be okay whilst at the same time being horrified at what she’s doing. As with the cover, people can seem that they are innocent but look a little deeper and they could be committing serious criminal acts.

Snare is told from multiple perspectives – Sonja; her lover Alga; and Bragi, who works in security at the airport. The chapters are very short and this really heightens the intensity of the novel as it reaches a point where I could barely breathe for the tension, it really is palpable and radiates from the page, and I just had to know what was coming next!

I loved the way that we initially see Sonja as a composed, almost calculating, woman as she goes through the airport but then we see the chapters where she’s at home with her son or dealing with her neighbour and that’s when I began to understand her character more. The layers are built up as the book goes along and it makes for such a fascinating and unputdownable thriller. I was a step ahead of Sonja in seeing the way the net would begin to tighten but that just heightened the tension for me as I was hoping that I was wrong.

Everyone in this book has their reasons for doing what they do – some it’s because they’re trapped, some because they’re selfish and monstrous, and others because ultimately the ends justify the means. I had real sympathy for Sonja as the book went on, and I also could understand why Bragi does as he did. It made the book really interesting to see how the dots begin to join up and to learn who was trapped and who was pulling the strings.

I’m so excited to find out what this is the first book in a trilogy as while Snare has an ending of sorts which satisfied me, it also leaves plenty to have you desperately wanting to read the next book as soon as it’s available!

Snare is such a sophisticated, high stakes thriller with real heart; it’s dark, gripping and incredibly intense! It’s a refreshing and different crime thriller and certainly one you won’t want to miss, it had me on the edge of my seat and I couldn’t put it down – I highly recommend it!

I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Snare is out now!

 

About the Author

Icelandic crime-writer Lilja Sigurdardóttir was born in the town of Akranes in 1972 and raised in Mexico, Sweden, Spain and Iceland. An award-winning playwright, Lilja has written four crime novels, with Snare, the first in a new series, hitting bestseller lists worldwide. The film rights have been bought by Palomar Pictures in California. Lilja has a background in education and has worked in evaluation and quality control for preschools in recent years. She lives in Reykjavík with her partner.

 

 

 

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