While I loved the idea for this one, and the setting, it ended up not being quite what I expected. This is a book that some people will love, especially those looking for an eerie story in a fantastic setting, but for me it just didn't have enough to hook me in. I was unable to connect with the characters, and the eeriness fell short of it's potential. However, I do think that this was a case of me personally not gelling with the book.

GREAT THRILLER!

The Lost Villiage follows a hopeful documentary team into a small remote town where they intend to uncover a decades old mystery: all the townspeople disappeared without a trace. Strange and sinister things start to happen and things are not all that they seem.....

I struggled to get into this initially and nearly put this one down. Things started to pick up and my interest was certainly piqued! I was pleasantly surprised once things started unfolding and I'm glad I didn't give up on it. If you enjoy a slow burn thriller with lots of surprises, The Lost Villiage is a great one to pick up!

My Review:⭐️⭐⭐⭐/ 5 stars

Oh my gosh, I was utterly spooked by this book. Mind you, I am easily scared and cover my eyes through most horror movies. It’s always the thing in the corner of the eye that suddenly moves that freaks me out so much and this book did a great job helping me visualize these creepy images. It's translated from a Swedish book, I believe, from Camilla Sten and it follows the story of Alice, a struggling filmmaker, who picks a small mining town as the topic of her next documentary. She had heard about this town from her grandmother (her home village) and how the entire village of almost 900 people vanished without a trace, except for a lone crying baby left behind and a woman stoned to death, tied to a pole. The mystery of what happened to their family has plagued Alice - and the significance of the abandoned baby. With a scrappy crew, they arrive at this deserted village for preliminary shootings for 5 days. Surely enough, their equipment /food is destroyed, people go missing, and that itchy feeling like you are being watched. They are definitely not alone.

The tone and backstory of the whole town is creepy as all hell, but the one thing bugging me throughout the entire story was how much I disliked Alice and her relationship to her crew. She was so unlikeable and selfish, endangering the lives of the people around with her mindless decisions. There were genuinely very spooky moments and would highly recommend.

Thank you to Minotaur Books and Netgalley for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review!

I was sucked right in to this book. I loved how it went from now to then. It was very interesting.
Alice was convinced she could solve the mystery of Silverjarn, the place where everyone disappeared. With solving it, the documentary will make her feel as though she’s accomplished something. She travels there with Tone, Emmy, Robert and Max. Soon after arriving, the mystery starts to unravel, but it is more than any of them bargained for..
This is a definite must read for anyone that enjoys mystery and intrigue.

The Lost Village is creepy and terrifying in the most horrible and wonderful way. Picture an unbelievably eerie setting of an abandoned Swedish mining town, with dark surprises at every corner. The writing was superb and I found myself with a chill running down my spine while quickly flipping the pages.

I enjoyed that the gore was few and far between and the terror came across as more atmospheric than brutal and in-your-face. If you enjoy Horror and an excellent setting this one is a must read.

I was so intrigued by the premise of this book - very Blair Witch Project meets American Horror Story: Roanoke.

While reading, I loved the concept - a documentary crew going into a creepy abandoned town whose villagers all mysteriously disappeared - what’s better than that?

All the spooky happenings along the way really kept me wondering if this was a true ghost story and even had me jumping at otherwise innocent sounds around my house.

I won’t spoil the ending, but it just didn’t do it for me - I was so enthralled throughout the book to find out what was going on and unfortunately the answer was a letdown.

Loved this book. Perfect amount of suspense. Great character development and most importantly one of the best plots I have read in awhile.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for my copy to read and review.

When I first seen this book I was beyond stoked about it because I'm obsessed with abandoned places, ghost towns and the like. I will read and watch anything that involves this kind of stuff but once I started getting answers this kinda took a different turn from what I was anticipating. it's a great mystery no doubt but it's less ghost town and more like psycho religious cult killer. I does have a supernatural touch but not much though. I was constantly expecting something spooky to happen but it didnt happen. So it wasnt that suspenseful or scary to me. I think it needed a little more writing to help add more dramatic and tension. I did like the flow of the story and how it switch between the present and the past and what lead up to everything. I also loved how it seemed like if it was a movie it would be a found footage kind of thing even though they didnt do much filming. I was a little disappointed that that it wasn't real when I first started reading this. I still enjoyed the story nonetheless.

Firstly, check out the other reviews that accurately warn about mental health and disability portrayals in this book. It’s not for the faint of heart! If you think that might be a trigger for you, I would not suggest this book.

Secondly, this is a wild, fast-paced thriller that feels like the best kind of B-Horror movie. You know those horror movies where the group of young adventurers with lots of sexual tension and dark pasts go into the woods for some innocent documentary filming only for everything to go wrong?! It’s ominous and a little mysterious.

I loved the setting of an abandoned 1950s mining town in the mountains, the images were so vivid for me. I could imagine the town and the houses in it, and the square and schoolhouse where so many scenes take place. It was also very fast-paced and hard to put down. I read this in one sitting after procrastinating on picking it up for months. I think this is a great summer-ween or Halloween read for anyone who likes creepy abandoned buildings.

This book is about Alice who decides to get a team together and make a documentary about a ghost town in Sweden. Alice's grandmother grew up in the this very same town and while over 900 residents disappeared, she was one of the survivors.

This one was marketed as The Blair Witch Project meets Midsommar which originally drew me in! I think comparing the book to those two movies set my expectations way too high. I would say this book has its very own original plot as it's not really similar to those two movies at all. I think if you go in knowing that, you might enjoy this book way more than I did.

Overall, this was a fun book, and it had a pretty good pace that kept the creepy vibes going the entire time. It would definitely make a good movie, and I hope we get to see an adaptation soon!

2.75- I was so excited to be able to read this promising thriller through Netgalley but sadly it was disappointing.
This story switches back and forth from 1959 to present day when a documentary team go to a place known now as the lost village due to its inhabitants that went missing and the only people found were a baby and a woman found stoned to death. I was ready for a good creepy thriller but never felt connected to any of the characters and felt that not much at all happened until about 80% into the book. After certain events started unfolding, I did not feel the suspense or caring for the main characters that a good thriller should have. It felt so nonchalant and left me feeling quite disappointed.
Kudos to the cover design and story idea though.

1959 Silvertjarn, Sweden. An entire village of people disappear except for a broken body of a woman and an abandoned newborn. Alice Lindstedt, filmmaker, decides to do a documentary as her family members are some of the missing. Mysterious things happen. Equipment destroyed. People go missing. One thing is clear to Alice; they are not alone. This is a creepy, spooky story and mystery. I did expect more tension and suspense but still found the story interesting enough to enjoy. I did need to suspend belief in some areas but did find the characters unique. There are two POV's - Alice in the Now and Elsa from Then. I'm looking forward to see what Camilla Sten comes up with in her next book. I would like to thank Minotour Books and NetGalley for a free copy for an honest review.

Camilla Sten you are a new fave in the creepy category! Dear readers this is a novel that will drag a slow crawling chill down your spine when you least expect it. You’ll be looking over you shoulder and staring into dark rooms while you devour the chapters of this novel needing to know the ending.

At least for me this was totally my reading experience. Sten delivers an eerily atmospheric plot with characters I found well developed and flawed enough to set off a realistic casting. When I read horror novels or branches of this genre, I tend to find that slasher movie character setup. It’s always refreshing to find authors who put more depth into the individual personas allowing the reader to connect on a deeper level with them. Sten did just that!

This novel is told in alternating timelines between the past and the present (more specifically ‘Then’ and ‘Now’). Alice is in the present trying to make a documentary in hopes of unearthing new clues to the mysterious disappearance of this entire village and the baby left behind. As Alice and her ties to this village start to merge, we move between the past and present as the sinister and downright creepy starts to escalate in intensity. The reality behind some of this is enough to make your emotions rage. What occurs in these pages can be considered horrific in nature. Not necessarily a horror novel in the traditional sense but creepy enough to make the chills creep along your skin and raise your hair. The Lost Village is one I would recommend to those across the horror and thriller genres who can handle the darker side of human nature.

Thank you to Minotaur Books, St. Martin’s Press and Shelf Awareness for the to read and review this gifted copy in exchange for an honest review. True rating 4.5/5.

The Lost Village is mystery/thriller. I would even call it a psychological thriller. Alice grew up hearing stories about the lost Village of Silvertjarn from her Grandmother. Alice's grandmother, Margareta had moved away and left behind her mom, dad and younger sister Aina. Aina' letters to her sister are full of town news about the new preacher in town and requests for her sister to come for a visit.

Alice is producing a documentary on the disappearance of the people of Silvertjarn and is spending a week there with four other people, filming the town and trying to figure out what happened to all of the people. This is how the books starts.

This book is told in Now/Then format. Then being in the late 50's. You also get to read the letters from Aina to Margareta. I enjoyed the format and the different points of view. It made the book move fast and it was easy to keep up with what was going on. This book kept me guessing, and I loved that the author threw twist after twist at you. I kind of had and idea of why it happened, but "how" was an absolute shocker and I loved it!! 4⭐

Thank you to Minotaur Books and Camilla Sten for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Thanks to NetGalley and Minotaur Books for an advanced copy of The Lost Village in exchange for my honest opinion This Swedish thriller was super creepy. So creepy that I couldn't read it before bed, and that's when I do the majority of my reading!!
If you enjoy being creeped out, check out this horror novel that centers around a group of young people scouting a mysteriously abandoned village for a documentary. People go missing, strange things happen... the story definitely keeps you on the edge of your seat while reading.
I enjoy thrillers and mysteries but this one was probably a little too scary to enjoy, in my opinion, but if that's your style I bet you will enjoy it!

Alice has always dreamed of returning to her grandmother’s abandoned village called Silvetjärn. When her grandmother moved away, the rest of her family stayed and mysteriously vanished along with the rest of the villagers in the late 1980s. Police stumbled upon the ghost town and found a woman who had been stoned to death and a newborn baby with no one else in sight. Alice makes her dream a reality when she receives enough funding to direct a documentary over the course of 5 days on site in Silvetjärn. When things start to go wrong, Alice must decide how much she wants to risk to find out the truth. It suddenly seems like Silvetjärn isn’t totally abandoned after all…

Okay I have seen a lot of mixed reviews about this one so let’s just address that right off the hop. This is a highly entertaining horror novel. Is it necessarily always logical? NO. Is it always easy to follow? NO. Is it totally creepy and addicting? YES. The setting was so atmospheric, it was making me shiver just thinking about it. I was flipping pages trying to figure out what was going to happen next. I can totally understand why this has already been picked up for a movie. The motives of each character were hard to decipher and I was trying to pinpoint what their next moves were going to be the entire time. There were some plot points that were meh, but overall I really enjoyed this one. What a wild ride.

#thelostvillage #camillasten #stmartinspress #netgalley oh my gosh. New author. New love 🥰 this book 😱 released TODAY so GO BUY IT NOW!! #noregrets we are in two different times. A time where the village is booming. Small mining town. Many families living there happily. And. Present day. Where we have a the grandchild of one of the former villagers. One day the villagers just vanished. Without a trace. The present day people want to know why. You will not believe the twists. The turns. What happens. Why. Such a phenomenal book. #disappearingvillagers #netgalleyreads #netgalleyreview #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #readersofinstagram #readersofig #bookaddict #bookrecommendations #booklover #bookobsessed

The Lost Village had a promising premise of a haunted ghost town. I was keen on reading it because I always connect such works to House of Leaves which is an amazing horror story (one I am too scared to finish). However, what I expected to be a ghost story ended up being a religious doomsday unraveling that just did not add up.

I did not find any of the characters likeable at all. While this is not a deal breaker in a book, it is hard to enjoy a book where everyone has secrets and past lives which affects the whole project but no one is speaking up. I found most of the plot predictable and the people ill equipped to take on such an exploration of a town that had been left untouched, and would most likely be in ruins, after sixty years. There was a lack of research around how such an exploration of old buildings would have to be done. I personally have a little more context for it because my partner’s family owned a home restoration business and talk often about demolitions and charting damaged structures. They were more panicked than they needed to be and all the secrets between them and unresolved issues caused more mayhem than the town itself.

Thank you to the publisher for providing me a complimentary review copy for an honest review.

Are you looking for a creepy slow burn mystery that will raise the hair on the back of your neck? Then The Lost Village is for you. It follows a small group of Scandinavian filmmakers who are investigating the mystery of an old mining town that was found deserted in the late 50's. The group is unusually motivated to find out what led to the stoning of a woman, the disappearance of its residents and the lone survivor, a baby. Alice, the leader of the group, is driven by a family connection to the town. As they drive into the town they are isolated from the outside world, there is no cell service and the nearest village is hours away by car. When they begin to explore, they are met with lots of signs that the town does not want them there and even that they might not be alone.
I wouldn't say that this one has a ton of heart pounding action so I'm not sure I get the "thriller" tag on this one. I'd say it's unsettling and even disturbing at times where you're very interested in turning the pages to figure out just what is going on. The pacing reminded me in a lot of ways of Get Out. There are small clues and breadcrumbs along the way but mostly you'll be shaking your head wondering why these people didn't get the heck out of the town as soon as things began to go awry. 

I liked that the story flipped back-and-forth from present day to the time just before the disappearance. You’d figure something out in the present and then go back to the past to see it unravel in real time. I’m not sure in the end that the mystery was that hard to figure out. As always the cruelty of humanity shines throughout this one. The sense of community and tradition and how those things can sweep an entire town away reminded me a lot of The Mercies. How a misunderstanding or old world view of a person who doesn’t conform (read: mental illness) can lead to such cruelty.

Thanks to Netgalley for a copy of this book. All opinions above are my own.

Documentary filmmaker Alice has been obsessed with the creepy village where her grandmother grew up for years, and now she's finally approaching investors for a proposed documentary. Short on cash, she enlists a group of friends to help her shoot some preliminary footage. That group on its own makes the trip wrought--Alice, her old friend Emmy, her new friend Tone, Max, and Robert.

Most of Alice's family disappeared with the village's other inhabitants in 1959. The fate of only two villagers is known--the woman who was stoned in the village center and an infant, who became Tone's mother.

The village is in a dead zone, so when things start to go wrong, the group has no way to get help from the outside world. And things go very wrong, turning a filmmaking project into a battle for their lives. This is a delightfully creepy and disturbing suspense novel--perfect distraction from pandemic blues. #TheLostVillage #NetGalley