Book Club for April 2026 - HARM

By Heather Goodman Lytwyn

Join our host, Heather, when she invites the author and the translator of our next book, HARM. After reading the intriguing journey of the detectives, both at work and their home lives, you won't want to miss the Book Club on Thursday, 9 April. Please note the timings: this will be a daytime event.

Icelandic Roots Book Club on April 9, 2026, features the murder mystery Harm with author Sólveig Pálsdóttir and translator Quentin Bates. Our two guests in April have a long list of accomplishments.

Sólveig Pálsdóttir

Sólveig Pálsdóttir's first degree was from the Icelandic Drama School, now the Iceland University of the Arts. She has a teaching degree, and has taught linguistics, drama and public speaking. She was involved in theatre, television and radio, both as an actor and as a producer. Sólveig's  first novel was published in 2012 and became a bestseller, and was the beginning of several successful publications. Harm was published in Icelandic in 2021 and translated into English in 2022 by Quentin Bates.

Quentin Bates

Born in southern England, Quentin Bates decided to work in Iceland for a year but ended up staying for a decade. His own published  novels are set in Iceland and are identified as Scandinavian crime fiction. He has translated books of the same genre by several Icelandic authors, among them Óskar Guձmundsson and Ragnar Jónasson.

Harm, featuring the Reykjavik detective Guձgeir Fransson, is Sólveig's third novel to appear in English. The drama begins in the opening pages when a wealthy doctor vacationing in the Westman Islands goes to sleep in a luxurious caravan and does not  wake up. Upon discovering him the next morning, his girlfriend fears she will be suspected of causing his death, and runs away. Guձgeir Fransson is called in to investigate. 

The setting is perfect for a murder mystery and one familiar to Icelandic Roots' Book Club members from Eliza Reid’s Death on the Island. The next time any of us are touring around  Iceland, I think taking a ferry to the Westman Islands will be added to our itinerary to explore on foot a setting that inspired at least two authors to use as the perfect location for a murder mystery.

Please note that our April Book Club will meet on 9 April during the daytime (12 noon Central Time/5 PM in Iceland). It will also be held on the second Thursday of the month to avoid potential commitments on Easter Weekend.

Hope you will join us to discuss the mystery with Sólveig and Quentin.

The Zoom link will be sent in the Samkoma newsletter on 8 April with the appropriate timings for the different time zones. If you need additional information beforehand, please link to the Icelandic Roots Event Calendar.