Cabin Fever by Alex Dahl

 

Cabin Fever by Alex Dahl.

Published 8th July 2021 by Head of Zeus.

From the cover of the book:

Alone and isolated in a vast Scandinavian forest, a therapist begins to read her client's novel manuscript, only to discover the main character is terrifyingly familiar...

You are her therapist...

Kristina is a successful therapist in central Oslo. She spends her days helping clients navigate their lives with a cool professionalism that has got her to the top.

She is your client...

But when her client Leah, a successful novelist, arrives at her office clearly distressed, begging Kristina to come to her remote cabin in the woods, she feels the balance begin to slip.

But out here in the woods...

When Leah fails to turn up to her next two sessions, Kristina reluctantly heads out into the wilderness to find her.

Nothing is as it seems...

Alone and isolated, Kristina finds Leah's unfinished manuscript, and as she reads she realises the main character is terrifyingly familiar...

********************

Kristina is a successful trauma therapist in central Oslo, happily married to a man destined for the highest echelons of Norwegian politics. She draws on the trauma of her own past to help her patients find peace in their own troubled lives, but is struggling with the apparent relapse of one of her long-term clients, Leah Iverson, a successful novelist. A situation that is bringing up some uncomfortable reflections and her feelings of guilt over the way she was unable to prevent the suicide of her childhood friend, Elisabeth.

When Leah arrives late for a therapy session, showing signs of great agitation, bearing the hallmarks of a violent physical assault, and begs Kristina to follow her to a remote cabin in the woods before fleeing her office, the therapist is very concerned that her patient intends to do herself harm. Unable to shift this feeling from her mind, suspicious of the offhand and puzzling responses she receives from Leah's own mother and former partner, and concerned about a strange email she has been sent by Leah, Kristina eventually decides to take a journey into the wilderness to check on her. 

What she finds at the snowy cabin in the woods shocks her to the core and brings home some horrifying truths around everything she thought she knew about her patient... and her own life.

This is a cracking Scandi noir thriller that pulls you in from the very first page and then proceeds to twist you around until you don't know which direction to turn - something that is beautifully reflected in the menacing theme of the desperate need to escape from danger that pervades the whole story. What starts out as a tense psychological thriller about the relationship between therapist and patient, morphs in unexpected ways into something terrifying in the hands of Alex Dahl, turning everything you think you know at the beginning of the story completely on its head with a delicious play on the 'physician, heal thyself' theme.

Dahl ups the pace as the story progresses, shortening the chapters and swapping viewpoints between the characters, in a punchy format that builds the tension and barely allows you to recover between each reveal,  and the way it unfolds in the most disquieting of settings in an isolated cabin in the woods is a disturbing delight. I was very impressed by the way she keeps the suspense going all the way to the slick ending, when everything falls cleverly into place and answers all the little whispering questions that have demanded answers as events played out. 

It's really interesting to discover that Dahl in a great believer in the way therapy can help you look inside yourself and discover the truth of who you really are, and her fascination with the way this allows someone to explore the facets of reality and illusion really comes across well in this story. The way she plays with the relationship between Kristina and Leah breaking down the barriers between them, bringing in elements of obsession, control, hidden darkness, and drawing out similarities between their stories is so compelling.

I could not put this book down, even though it chilled me to the core. Its smart, gripping and an absolute must read for the lovers of snowy thrills!

Cabin Fever is available to buy now from your favourite book retailer in hardcover, ebook and audio formats.

Thank you to Head of Zeus and Sophie Ransom at Midas PR for sending me a proof of this book in return for an honest review, and for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.

About the author:

Alex Dahl is a half-American, half-Norwegian author. Born in Oslo, she studied Russian and German linguistics with international studies, then went on to complete an MA in creative writing at Bath Spa University and an MSc in business management at Bath University. A committed Francophile, Alex loves to travel, and has so far lived in Moscow, Paris, Stuttgart, Sandefjord, Switzerland, Bath and London. She is the author of three other thrillers: Playdate, The Heart Keeper, and The Boy at the Door, which was shortlisted for the CWA Debut Dagger.