This was decent entertainment, but I thought it was pretty slow storytelling. Maybe I feel this way, because I expected something else out of a Nordic Noir novel. I assume that this first book in the series was supposed to set the scene for the next ones and maybe that’s why the story just felt unfocused a lot.

Child abuse, murder, suicide, domestic violence, sexual assault, rape and tons of family drama are bubbling under the picturesque white snow of Fjällbacka. In The Ice Princess, Camilla Läckberg explores the lengths a family and even a community hides a molester and its massive impact on the lives of the victims and the people who gatekeep the information. This whodunnit tackles very difficult themes and appreciate how a majority was discussed. However, the investigative work done was all over the place. It's like certain events should've been pushed earlier on the timeline for them to make logical sense. It's like Camilla wanted to maintain some sort of symmetry towards the events in the novel and thus stubbornly stuck with her outline, sacrificing the flow of the story. There are also too many side quests (characters explored far too much without servicing the greater story) in here that made reading this a bit convoluted. Also, near the end, there was quite a bit of victim blaming. I did not appreciate that. I love snowy settings because they usually leave me with a warm feeling. The Ice Princess is room temperature. I am leaning towards not continuing this series at the moment. Rating this lower than 3 but higher than 2.5. Read the trade paperback while listening to the audiobook. The talent of the narrator in the audiobook shined above the material given. Kudos!