(#gifted @pushkin_press) I was pleasantly surprised by this refreshing historical fiction novel set in Iceland during the 1960s! I've not read anything from any Icelandic authors before, and really don't know much about the country except that the landscape looks beautiful 🙈 But in Miss Iceland we see a different side to the usual tranquil nature and Northern Lights - rather, we see a tight-knit community that is proud of its literary heritage and yet resistant to change.

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One such change is women writing. Enter Hekla, named after one of Iceland's volcanoes and harbouring dreams of being an esteemed author. But her country is reluctant to allow her beyond the traditional roles for women: raising a family, or working in retail or hospitality environments where sexual harassment is part of the daily norm. Hekla takes such a job in a hotel, where she avoids the advances of older men, including one stubborn man determined to convince her to compete in the Miss Iceland competition. At night, she writes.

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As well as Hekla, we follow the lives of her two friends Ísey and Jón John. Ísey succumbed to the pressure to marry early and is now expecting her second child at 21, utterly overwhelmed by motherhood and turning to writing in secret to sort through her feelings. Jón John is a gay man, putting his life in peril every time he is forced to take a job on a fishing trawler, while dreaming of a life abroad as a costume designer. I think I was most moved by Ísey's storyline, as I'm a sucker for any exploration of motherhood, but all three were well written.

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The translation by Brian FitzGibbon is smooth, and Ólafsdóttir's prose is simple and straightforward - maybe a bit too simple on occasion. There's no flowery language or anything like that, which I'm sure will be a positive for many readers, but I am partial to a bit of purple prose if I'm honest! Still, it's refreshing and it gets the job done.

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I highly recommend this one if you're looking to read something a little different in the historical fiction genre!