I hate the blurbs and quotes on the back of books. They seem to use up all the fitting adjectives and then when I want to describe the book I think I'm copying or stealing from fancy newspapers and book reviewers.

So this time I will piece together the more fitting ones: quiet, lyrical, bleak yet utterly beautiful, as lucid as a sheet of ice (okay, I wouldn't have been able to think of that one).

The book is composed of short little chapters, interweaving between the present and the past. Our main character Disa is Icelandic but running an English inn in the UK. She's returning to Iceland again and we follow her there mostly through her memories, until finally the story is pieced together and we know why she returned to Iceland.

At first the story is genuinely quiet and lyrical. Disa is a cook and her inn is very pleasant and homely, so we're given lots of glimpses into that and wonderful dishes I'll probably never try or even ever look at. As the book progresses it seems the chapters gradually get longer and the story much darker, showing a very unsettling past for just about everyone Disa knows and also the events of World War II.

The memories are very well done. Normally such time shifting is confusing but the book made it seem natural. Despite this I felt like I never really got to know Disa, and the book seems to rely on the characters having the saddest fate possible.

The book tried to end on a hopeful note but I just didn't buy it. Ólafur is a skillful writer but, perhaps cruelly, I find it difficult to care for a character that seems out of reach and whose life is nothing but bad happenings. The heavy-handedness of the events leaves no room for the otherwise lyrical quality of the book.