A Face in the Fjord, and Spirits in the Snow.... (The Nesting thriller Review)

A troubled young woman—fresh from trying (and failing) to end it all—finds new life with a grieving family that’s still trying to come to terms with their own sorrow after the loss of their young matriarch, in the picturesque wilds of rural Norway… that’s the bare-bones premise of C.J. Cooke’s latest thriller, The Nesting. 

Better, though, to add that it’s a gothic horror, eco-thriller, psychological suspense, and supernatural fairy tale, by turns… lest you’re tempted to write it off as a sappy romance (which it most definitely is not).

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Lexi Ellis hasn’t had what you’d call a great life, but things have gotten progressively worse, of late, and—on the heels of a botched suicide attempt—having her boyfriend of several years suddenly decide to end things is one more straw than she can handle.

No, make that almost one more straw; the last straw is that he also expects her—now jobless and still recovering mentally and physically—to also move out of his apartment… within the week. 

It can only be serendipity that finds her penniless, lugging a knapsack with her meager belongings around London, riding aimlessly on the train… and eavesdropping on a pair of posh contemporaries sitting in front of her, as they discuss a job opportunity one of them has applied for—a nanny position for a widowed architect, who’s in the process of building a show-stopping summer house for himself and his two young daughters in rural Norway.

Unbeknownst to either of the women, Lexi is paying rapt attention to every word… and covertly snapping screen shots of the filled-out application the woman is showing her friend.

With a little luck—and no small amount of subterfuge—Lexi lands the job… as “Sophie” (the girl on the train). And, in short order, she’s leaving her troubles behind… jetting off to beautiful Norway, and being driven to the remote north, where the land is rugged, fjords are many, and other people are few.

Once she arrives, though, she quickly realizes she’s in way over her head, in a household that expects her to teach a six-year-old and an infant in the Montessori style, and follow a learning-and-activities chart for every waking hour of their day.

Still, she’s made her bed… and gradually, she not only gets a handle on what she’s doing, but she starts to enjoy it. She plays outside in a veritable winter wonderland with the children, discovers how to educate them inside… and finds herself falling in love with them a little more every day.

When she learns why her job exists—the little girls’ mother killed herself, throwing herself off a cliff into the icy fjord—and strange, even dangerous, things start happening—hallucinations? evil spirits?—Lexi realizes the frozen land that has been her savior might also be her downfall, for there’s something very dark going on in that mystical land of white.

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The Nesting, as I said earlier, has many notes. There are classic gothic overtones, with the suicide and the moody, dramatic locale. It’s an eco-thriller, espousing the need to be environmentally aware and to respect the earth around us… with obvious repercussions when we fall short. (Set in Norway—a country that perhaps more than any other embraces the concept of being one with the environment—such messages have an added gravitas, which rings true.)

Psychological suspense? Absolutely. And, the lovely Norse lore which is woven throughout brings in a surprising supernatural element.

With a POV that alternates between Lexi’s and the dead mother’s, The Nesting is a lyrical story that takes its time in the telling (and the unraveling). Like the best fairy tales, it eventually reaches a most-satisfying ending… but only after thoroughly putting its protagonists through the ringer. And who, really, doesn’t want that?

~GlamKitty