Book Review: Only One Life by Sara Blædel

July 18, 2012
Article first published as Book Review: Only One Life by Sara Blædel on Blogcritics.

About:
Only One Life by Sara Blædel is a fictional mystery book set in Denmark. This is the second book translated into English in the series featuring Detective Louise Rick.

The pub­lisher is giv­ing away one copy of this book—use the Raf­fle­copter form at the end of the post to enter.

  • 352 pages
  • Publisher: Pegasus
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1605983500

Book Review: Only One Life by Sara Blædel

My rating for Only One Life4

Buy this book thru Amazon.com

More Books by Sara Blædel

Thoughts:
Only One Life by Sara Blædel (website | Facebook | @sarablaedel) lives up to the previous novel, Call Me Princess, which I read about a year ago and enjoyed as well. The book is exciting and the characters are well written and continue to build up and expand from the previous book (even though I understand that there are more untranslated books).

The book touches on some relevant topics, such as honor killing, social intolerance and sexual based crimes. The author explores these subjects, and more, without forcing her own morality or ideology down the readers’ throats, which is a big plus for me. I love to read about different cultures and ideas, but I dislike absolutes. Ms. Blædel stays away from giving advice but supplying plenty of material to think about during and after reading.

There are several things I like about Ms. Blædel’s work, the social aspect and characterization come immediately to mind. The author writes about a conscious society, while not perfect it certainly isn’t the dog-eat-dog world which we read about in other books. I also like the character of Louise Rick, not a classic hero nor is she an anti-hero, just a simple working professional who makes mistakes, gets emotional, sometimes frustrated with her jobs, colleagues and her friends.
Basically, a human being.

Only One Life is an intelligent mystery, with a murder as a device to tell a story about people while bringing up some important questions. The book is solid, well translated and readable which is an amazing feat due to the heavy subjects it tries to deal with.

Related Reads:
Call Me Princess by Sara Blædel

So tell me, do you like books with social commentary?

Synopsis:
When a young girl is found in a watery grave of Holbraek Fjord , Inspector Louise Rick is called due to her experience, knowledge and tactfulness with immigrants. The dead girl, as it turned out, is Samra, who lived in a new country, while her parents enforced old traditions. Samra’s mother maintains that she did nothing to “deserve” an honor killing, but Inspector Rick can detect that there is more than meets the eye.

Buy this book thru Amazon.com

More Books by Sara Blædel

Give­away

  • Give­away ends: July 25, 2012

  • US/Canada Ship­ping Addresses Only

  • No PO Boxes

  • Win­ners will have 24 hours to write back with their address, oth­er­wise an alter­nate win­ner will be picked

Congratulations: wynterrayne@

Zohar – Man of la Book Disclaimer:I got this book for free. BOOK BLOGGERS – Have you read Only One Life? If so link up your review below:

--- Please like and follow ManOfLaBook.com ---

12 Comments

  • Sheila K.July 18, 2012 at 1:00 pm

    I would love to read this book—thanks for the opportunity to win a copy!

    skkorman AT bellsouth DOT net

  • nanJuly 18, 2012 at 2:25 pm

    nanze55 at hotmail dot com

    Thanks for the chance to win.

  • VesperJuly 18, 2012 at 2:31 pm

    Thanks for the giveaway – meikleblog at gmail dot com

  • MargieJuly 18, 2012 at 3:14 pm

    Book sounds interesting. Thanks for the giveaway.
    mtakala1 AT yahoo DOT com

  • CarlJuly 18, 2012 at 4:28 pm

    Cool sounding book, and an author I had not heard of before. Thanks. carlscott(at)prodigy(dot)net(dot)mx

  • Julie RupertJuly 18, 2012 at 5:46 pm

    Thanks for the giveaway. julierupert@gmail.com

  • Anita YanceyJuly 19, 2012 at 12:13 pm

    I would love to read this book. Thanks for having the giveaway.
    Email: ayancey(at)dishmail(dot)net

  • Aliya DJuly 20, 2012 at 12:11 am

    I would love to read this book! Thanks!

    Aliya D.
    aliyadaya(at)shaw(dot)ca

  • AmyJuly 22, 2012 at 1:59 pm

    I’m always interested in recommended mysteries and this one sounds riveting!
    Thank you!

    Aimala127(at)gmail(dot)com
    My blog: The House of the Seven Tails

  • Hira HasnainJuly 23, 2012 at 4:37 pm

    You already know I absolutely LOVE mysteries, Zohar… and since Steig Larsson and Lene Kaaberbol I’ve only become even MORE interested in authors from Denmark…so thank you very much for the opportunity to win this book! 😀

    • Hira HasnainJuly 23, 2012 at 4:41 pm

      Plus (and I don’t know why I forgot to add this when it was the first thing I wanted to write), I absolutely LOVE books that contain social commentary. All fiction is, is a reflection of ourselves, so I believe fiction novels should definitely serve to have the reader take a stark look at their own surroundings, comparing it to the world of the book they are lost within, you know? I like my fiction AND my rap music to be full of social awareness (although that rarely happens in the latter, anymore!).

  • Maegan MorinJuly 23, 2012 at 11:15 pm

    Thanks for the giveaway!!

    megnate at telus dot net

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