Kate’s 2¢: “The Legacy” by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir

“The Legacy” by   Yrsa  Sigurðardóttir

Kate’s 2¢: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as,     describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ merely shares my thoughts about what I read.  I’m just saying…

I am, somehow, drawn to stories that are written from a culturally different perspective than my own. This story, written by an Icelandic author, was translated into UK English by Victoria Cribb. While I’m not knowledgeable enough of Icelandic to know if the translation is precise, I’ve enjoyed the narrative, suspenseful  arc of this story.  A phrase, such as “take a leg” instead of “shake a leg” might be a cultural difference between British English and American English.

The narrator, Lucy Paterson, has done a good job in her lilting British, not cockney,  accent of reading the text and I’m glad she could pronounce the various Icelandic names, such as Yrsa Sigurðardóttir, Thóra Gudmundsdóttir, Freyja, & Huldar, as they are strange to my ear and took a while to figure out who was who.

I wouldn’t recommend reading this before bedtime or if you’re alone at night, but definitely a good book to read.

From Wikipedia:

This is an Icelandic name. The last name is patronymic, not a family name; this person is referred to by the given name Yrsa.

Vilborg Yrsa Sigurðardóttir (born in 1963) is an Icelandic writer of both crime novels and children’s fiction. She has been writing since 1998. Her début crime novel was translated into English by Bernard Scudder. The central character in her crime novels so far is Thóra Gudmundsdóttir (Þóra Guðmundsdóttir), a lawyer. Yrsa has also written for children, and won the 2003 Icelandic Children’s Book Prize with Biobörn.

Yrsa is married with two children, and she has a career as a civil engineer.

From NLS/BARD/LOC:

The legacy DB96756

Yrsa Sigurðardóttir; Cribb, Victoria. Reading time: 13 hours, 42 minutes.

Read by Lucy Paterson.

Suspense Fiction

Mystery and Detective Stories

The only person who might have the answers to a baffling murder case is the victim’s seven-year-old daughter, found hiding in the room where her mother died. And she’s not talking. Detective Huldar turns to psychologist Freyja for her expertise with traumatized young people. Translated from the 2014 Icelandic. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. 2015.