Working as a journalist in Iceland, I was once blacklisted by a prime minister. But I got my revenge. He became the inspiration for the most obnoxious villain I’ve ever created in a novel.
The Sharp Edge of a Snowflake
All writers are thieves. In my office, there’s a sign that says: “Careful, or you’ll end up in my novel.” As a writer you steal characteristics, you steal experiences – and everything in-between.
But in my latest novel, a feminist Nordic noir YA thriller called The Sharp Edge of a Snowflake, I borrowed more than just a few bits and pieces.
The Sharp Edge of a Snowflake tells the story of Hannah who has spent her life taking care of her troubled mother. When her mother dies suddenly from cancer she goes to live with her estranged father in Iceland. There she turns her hand at journalism. While reporting on a social media influencer accused of murder, she uncovers the dubious practices of a data-driven marketing agency called London Analytica which appears to be willing to go to any lengths to protect its efforts to capitalise on people’s personal data.
While writing The Sharp Edge of a Snowflake I wasn’t furtively nicking little fractions from people’s lives. Instead I was deliberately and openly celebrating two women I’ve never met.
In 2018 the journalist Carole Cadwalladr revealed that a British company called Cambridge Analytica had harvested the personal data of millions of Facebook users without their consent and used it to influence elections. It was a scandal that made us all think seriously about how our personal data can be abused with grave consequences.
Around the same time the #metoo movement was gaining momentum. In 2018 the actress and activist Rose McGowan released her captivating book Brave in which she exposed the predatory misogyny within the film industry and told of how the most influential man in Hollywood sexually assaulted her.
It was the heroism of these two women that inspired my book. Carole Cadwalladr and Rose McGowan are living proofs of how a single person can change the world.
It’s my hope that The Sharp Edge of a Snowflake can be a tiny drop in the sea of change Carole Cadwalladr and Rose McGowan triggered with their courage.
Sif Sigmarsdóttir is a writer and journalist originally from Iceland. She lives in London and writes books and journalism in both English and Icelandic. Her new book, The Sharp Edge of a Snowflake, is a Nordic noir YA thriller with a feminist twist which can be described as “Nancy Drew meets The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.” Eoin Colfer, author of Artemis Fowl, described it as “a breathtaking, thought provoking and wildly entertaining YA thriller”.
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