The Boy at the Door

By: Alex Dahl

Narrated by: Mozhan Marnò, Sophie Amoss, Jenna Lamia

Length: 12 hrs and 1 min

Publisher's summary

Set against a stunning Scandinavian backdrop, a gritty novel of psychological suspense that asks the question how far would you go to hold onto what you have?

Cecilia Wilborg has it all - a loving husband, two beautiful daughters and a gorgeous home in the affluent Norwegian town of Sandefjord. And she works hard to keep it all together. Too hard. Because one mistake from her past could bring it all crashing down around her.

Annika Lucasson lives a dark life with her abusive, drug-dealing boyfriend. She's lost everything one too many times and now she's got one last chance to save herself, thanks to Cecilia. Annika knows her secret - and just how much she's willing to do to make it all go away...

When someone forgets to pick up their little boy at the local pool, Cecilia agrees to take him home, only to find an abandoned, empty house. It's the first step in the unraveling of her meticulously crafted life, as her and Annika's worlds collide...

©2018 Alex Dahl (P)2018 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"Dahl savagely delineates the price of living in a society that insists women must try to be perfect wives and mothers and have successful careers, too, or they’ll be inevitably made to feel they’re never good enough." (Publishers Weekly)

"A tangled web, masterfully constructed and certain to satisfy fans of the genre." (Booklist)

"Scandi Noir at its best... Atmospheric and beautifully written...combines complex and believable characters with a heart-breaking and head-spinning plot." (Mary Torjussen, author of Gone Without a Trace and The Girl I Used to Be)

"The three actors who voice Cecilia, a beautiful rich housewife, Tobias, an abandoned child, and Annika, a doomed junkie, are perfectly cast, have appealing voices, and do exactly what the story needs them to do....this is an unusual and brilliantly executed example, and a flawless listen." (AudioFile)

I listened twice

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The story was hard to follow at times because it skipped back and forth in time and one character lied often, but that made it interesting as well. Alex Dahl’s writing is good. I look forward to her next book.

Excellent Book & Outstanding Performances

The writing is superb! And each performance was as outstanding as the story.
This is a must read/listen!

A beautiful, heartbreaking story flawlessly told

I was drawn in almost immediately, the characters and their situations had me so engrossed that I didn't want to stop listening. The three actresses beautifully narrated this heart-breaking tale of loss and redemption mixed with pain and the cruelty humans sometimes inflict on others and themselves. Every character was brought to life, but of course Cecilia, Annie and Tobias were so gorgeously given life that it was as though I was there, in the story, with them. I sobbed, I smiled and I loved them all, as flawed and beautiful as they are.

One of the best

Liked everything about this book. Story and performance were both excellent. Loved the way it unfolded

Page turner!!!

This book took me by surprise. I did not expect the twist and the turns it took. I also enjoyed the narrators. You will not want the book to end.

Great Narration

I liked it. The mother was an awful person who didn't deserve what she got in the end.

Loved to Hate Cecilia!

The main character is despicable, a true narcissist thru and thru! This plot is intricate and the characters are written really well. I especially enjoyed Cecelia's narration. Annie's was a little whiney, but rang true.

Beautiful understanding and articulation of the female human condition

Dahl explores addiction, narcissism, love, abuse and the metaphysics of the parental bond in this exquisitely narrated novel. Marnò’s performance was as always wonderful to and the actor that read the part of the little boy was painfully marvelous. This is the suspense genre at its best—there were no innocent bystanders or straw men in this novel.

Truly superior narration of a wonderful story.

The story had me hooked right away. The narration, particularly for the child, was really wonderful.

Strange

It started off interesting enough. Caught my attention, made me want to keep listening. But the storyline was so sad, so depressing. There was nothing pleasant, nothing redeeming about the main character. She was a liar, cheat, immoral, and sociopathic person. And then it all just went downhill from there. It was great at first, I thought, wow, this author really knows how to write a character who people can despise, feel anger about and hate. But there needed to be also some empathy for her, some personal connection. There was all that with the character Annie. As the reader, I learned to like her, feel sorry for her, empathize with her and hope for her to find peace, make it in the world and be happy. But with the main character, um no. I wanted her locked up. Put away for good. Maybe that was the point? Some how though, it seemed like the author just kept trying to add more and more crazy stuff as she went along. It didn't seem planned out and the consequences of her actions NEVER really caught up to her.