Review: The Reckoning by Yrsa Sigurdardottir

Title: The Reckoning

Author: Yrsa Sigurdardottir

Series: Children’s House, #2

Published: February 2019, Minotaur Books

Format: ARC Paperback, 384 pages

Source: Publisher

Summary: 

The Reckoning is the
stunning follow-up to The Legacy, which was the start of a thrilling new
series that Booklist (starred) recommends for fans of Tana French.

Vaka
sits, regretting her choice of coat, on the cold steps of her new
school. Her father appears to have forgotten to pick her up, her mother
has forgotten to give her this week’s pocket money, and the school is
already locked for the day. Grownups, she decides, are useless.

With
no way to call home, she resigns herself to waiting on the steps until
her father remembers her. When a girl approaches, Vaka recognizes her
immediately from class, and from her unusual appearance: two of her
fingers are missing. The girl lives at the back of the school, on the
other side of a high fence, and Vaka asks to call her father from the
girl’s house. That afternoon is the last time anyone sees Vaka.

Detective Huldar and child psychologist Freyja are called in. Soon, they find themselves at the heart of another shocking case.

From
the international number one-bestselling author of The Silence of the
Sea, winner of the 2015 Petrona Award for Best Scandinavian Crime Novel
Yrsa Sigurdardottir returns with the follow-up to The Legacy.

My thoughts: This is the second book in Yrsa Sigurdardottir’s Children’s House series, and I was quite excited to read it. I loved the first book in the series, The Legacy, and I was eager to pick up this sequel…needing to see what came next for Detective Huldar and child psychologist Freyja. I will just say though…this series is dark and a bit disturbing, so proceed with caution!

This book picks up where the previous book, The Legacy, leaves off. Now, you don’t necessarily have to read that book in order to completely understand everything that happens in this book, but I just think you will have a more complete understanding of the character development if you do. That being said, the cases in the two books are completely separate, so they really do stand on their own.

This main focus of the case that Detective Huldar, and consequently child psychologist Frejya, are called to work on deals with judgement day…who is going to answer for their actions in the past? And it is up to Huldar and Frejya to put the pieces of this case together before too many more people are hurt or killed.

This case really kept me guessing as to who was behind everything. The crime happened years ago, but the vengeance is happening now and Yrsa does such a good job leading you down a path where you second guess everyone and never quite end up guessing the right person…I love books like that! It keeps you on your toes the entire time.

I also loved the continued development in the Huldar/Frejya potential relationship. While this is certainly not the focus of the book, or the series, I like that it has been poked at in each book so far in an organic way. These two work together and you can feel the tension between them. This is why I believe in reading series in order…you get that character development as it is written and in following their “relationship” or whatever it might be, you need to see it happen from the start.

I really am enjoying this series, however dark and gritty it is. The murders are grisly and horrific, the cases keep you flipping the pages frantically and you easily become addicted to the storyline. I am hoping the rest of the series – I believe Yrsa has already penned books 3 & 4 – are translated into English soon!!! 

Books in this series:

1. The Legacy
2. The Reckoning
3. The Absolution – (not sure about this title)
4. ???