Alex Dahl

For some people, appearance is everything. It’s quick and easy to dismiss them as self obsessed or shallow, without considering the unrelenting standards and mental torture that often goes along with the pressure to create that appearance. With this in mind I encounter Cecilia who lives in a fortunate middle class world thanks to a husband that works hard to provide a good quality of life. She shops luxuriously; she works sporadically even though she doesn’t need the money, and judges show more those who don’t live like her harshly. Her daughters are well turned out with active lives full of opportunity. They go swimming on a Tuesday after school, as the story begins. When they have just finished getting dry and dressed and are heading out of the leisure centre, the pool receptionist asks Cecilia to drop a child home that has been left without an adult at the pool. She reluctantly agrees, more concerned with getting home to her wine than the child’s welfare. We meet 8 year old Tobias, almost mute, small and scared, and apparently, without a home after Cecilia is unable to drop him anywhere – the address she was given is an abandoned squat.
The best thing for me about this book was the pace and storytelling. You really want to know what’s going to happen and as a result I read this really steadily, at no stage feeling like I was being dragged along. There are plenty of twists and time to question and doubt every character, making this a really enjoyable book to get stuck into. It would be great for someone who was finding reading a bit of a challenge to concentrate on and needed something to really love and get them back to the swing of things, the book delivers in droves.
Cecilia is a great character, it’s not often you get to grapple with someone with such an unlikable personality and then learn to understand her as the story goes on. Her perfectly seeming life is not happy and is filled with secrets. As the plot unfolds you get to know other sides to her which forces you to evaluate how you feel towards her regularly. This is a first novel by Alex Dahl which shows great promise; I’m already waiting for her next publication. show less

“Hearts are wild creatures, that’s why our ribs are cages.”

The Heart Keeper by Alex Dahl is an intensely emotional story of grief, loss and hope.

Devastated by the accidental drowning death of her beloved six year old daughter, Alison reels brokenly between crippling emotional agony and a drug and alcohol induced stupor, unable to accept her loss. When her stepson raises the theory of cellular memory, which suggests that a transplanted organ retains some of the memories or personality show more traits of the donor that manifest in the recipient, Alison becomes obsessed with the idea that somewhere Amalie lives on...and she wants her back.

“I envision her heart beating in this moment, sutured in place in a little stranger’s chest. I see fresh, clean blood pumped out and around a young body, carrying miniscule particles of my own child. I stand up and press my face to the window. Out there, somewhere, her heart is beating.”

The narrative of The Heart Keeper moves between the first person perspectives of Alison, and Iselin, whose paths cross when Alison seeks out the recipient of her daughters heart, seven year old Kaia. At first Alison believes just a glimpse of her child’s ‘heart keeper’ will ease the ache, but it’s not enough, and she arranges a meeting with Iselin, ostensibly to commission some artwork, which simply feeds her obsession.

“I couldn’t have grasped, then, that it would grow bigger and sharper every day, that it would rot my heart, that it would devour everything that was once good,...”

Alison’s pain is so viscerally described by Dahl, the intensity is difficult to cope with at times. Her slow unraveling is utterly compelling, and though it’s known from the outset the direction the plot will take, Alison’s journey, her longing for her daughter, is what drives the story.

“You and her, you’re one and the same. I can’t believe I didn’t realize this before, that all of this time, you were right there.”

With richly drawn characters and raw emotive writing The Heart Keeper is an engrossing, poignant and heartrending story about death, and life. show less

Imagine.

A small, unfamiliar boy is standing, parentless, companionless, by the swimming pool reception. The pool is closing. The receptionist wants to go home. You want to go home. The receptionist asks you to take the boy home and you agree, reluctantly. But when you get there, the house is clearly not a home. What do you do now? It’s dark. It’s raining. It’s late. Do you call someone? Or do you take the child home with you?

Cecilia Wilborg takes the boy home. Why she does this and the show more subsequent threat to her carefully curated existence forms the narrative arc of this compelling thriller. Who is this boy? Who is Cecilia? And how far will she go to protect what she considers hers?

What’s it about?

Ooh so many things. Primarily the unravelling of Cecilia’s life: the reader is desperate to understand Cecilia’s secret, then desperate to see if she can keep it! But it’s about more than that. It’s about the weight of expectations on women growing up in Norway. It’s about the damage we do to others and ourselves. It’s about the damage we do to our children.

Cecilia is the main female character, but she’s not the only female voice, and I was fascinated by the relationship that develops between her and another damaged woman. The parallels between them are striking but the contrasts are even more so. Cecilia despises the other woman but cannot see the whole truth of her, even when given unparalleled access to her thoughts. But then, as Sue Trowbridge accurately notes, Cecilia is ‘at best, a narcissist, and at worst, a sociopath’ (quoted from review on The Saturday Reader). She is a spectacularly unreliable narrator, who abuses drink, drugs and people she perceives to be her social inferior, constantly distancing the reader with her little cruelties and complete self-absorption. It’s a testament to Dahl’s skill that, somehow, we find ourselves not quite hating her: somewhere, under all that façade, there is a sad little girl who never grew up.

What’s it like?

Compelling. Disquieting. Completely unputdownable. (Genuinely: I tried to go to bed when I had fifty pages remaining; I couldn’t sleep so had to get up and read to the end!) I loved the way actions are gradually revealed and the ending was fantastic.
Although I do love unreliable narrators, it is perhaps refreshing to have a break from Cecilia’s concerns to hear from two other first-person narrators: another woman and the boy himself. Gradually, the history of all three characters is fully revealed, offering fresh insight into the events at the beginning of the story. Dahl cleverly interweaves the three, revealing or hinting towards just enough information to keep us frantically turning pages, searching for the truth. Cecilia herself wonders: ‘Have I told so many lies, both to myself and to others, that I have lost the ability to recognise the truth?’

Final thoughts

This was an absolutely compelling domestic thriller with two deeply troubled female protagonists. Having thoroughly enjoyed reading this, I now find myself still thinking about the characters and the connections between them, their obsessions, their choices and, of course, their impact on a small boy who just wanted love.

I can’t wait to read what Alex Dahl writes next.

Many thanks to Alex Dahl for giving me an advance copy of this book at CrimeFest. This is my honest review. show less

Cecilia Wilborg has everything a woman could want. She's married to a handsome, caring man, has two bright, wonderful daughters, and lives in the posh Norwegian suburbs. She's blessed with the perfect life. Her life begins to unravel when she's asked to drive a young child home from the pool after his mother fails to pick him up. When she arrives at the address given, she finds the house is abandoned and there's no sign of his parents. Cecilia's story proves that secrets hide behind the show more closed doors of even the wealthiest homes and those secrets always come out.

At first glance, and even after some in-depth reading, Cecilia comes across as a bitch. And not even one of those ladies who you hate, but can find some secret, soft hearted inner core that you can respect. She's vicious, manipulative, self-centered, and a horrible mother. But she's also fascinating. I simply couldn't put this book down and ended up reading it in almost one sitting. The self-induced drama that she inflicts on herself and others is a train wreck I just couldn't look away from. The cold, dark Norwegian setting is fantastic and lent the book an eerie quality. The characters were very detailed and felt real. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and look forward to more by this author.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the advanced copy of the book which I received in exchange for an honest review. show less