I had a hard time getting into this. I’d read almost 70 pages before deciding to set aside. I hoped it was more my mood than anything else, as I was still extremely curious about the story and I had been looking forward to the creepiness it promised. After a couple weeks, I tried again.

Unfortunately, it’s taken me two sittings just to make it through another 50 pages. I am not finding this story to be compelling at all. Admittedly, I am not a fan of slow burns , especially if there is nothing else to captivate me along the way. This book just isn’t working for me.

I am immensely grateful to Minotaur Books and NetGalley for my digital review copy. All opinions are my own.

The premise for this novel seemed right up my alley. Unfortunately, the alternating timelines didn't keep me interested, and I found the writing to be bland.

This book was quite the page turner! It had The Blair Witch Project vibes but without the jumping-out-of-your-skin fear factor. But don’t let that deter you; the story has all of the best qualities a reader looks for in a suspenseful thriller.

I really enjoyed the backstory of Silvertjarn and getting to know the characters that disappeared from the infamous village in 1959. Through Alice’s efforts to create a documentary along with her crew of friends, she’s able to dig deeper into what really became of “The Lost Village” and its residents. But soon they feel a presence among them as equipment is destroyed and people go missing. Is the nature of their documentary taking a toll on them or are they truly not alone?

Overall, I thought this was a great story. It kept me on the edge of my seat, and I was definitely surprised by the ending. At times I was a little annoyed with some of the present-day characters and some of the dialogue felt a bit repetitive, but it didn’t take away from my enjoyment of the story.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3852722279

This was a good twisty thriller that I enjoyed meeting. The use of letters to tell part of the story was well utilized and the flashbacks were interesting. The author was able to create a sense of dread the further you got into the story and my stomach dropped a few times while I was reading.

The Lost Village is really good! It’s been on my radar for a while now and I was lucky enough to get an advance copy, so I dove into it asap.

First of all, it’s unbelievably creepy and the atmosphere is off the charts. There are definitely some Blair Witch vibes along with major religious cult vibes. That’s an extremely compelling combination if you ask me.
There’s a dual timeline structure, flashing between current day and the late 1950’s, and it really works well. As you learn more about what happened in the 50’s, the more worried you get about the current events.
It was a really fun read, a 100% popcorn page turner that I would highly recommend.

Here’s the pitch: In 1959, police are called to an isolated mining village of 900 people in rural Sweden. When they arrive, they find a woman who has been brutally murdered and a crying baby, but absolutely no trace of any of the other 898 residents. The current timeline follows a group of filmmakers shooting a documentary about the village. Things do not go as planned, of course.

This one comes out on March 23rd - and it’s one you definitely need to check out.
Thank you to @netgalley , @stmartinspress , and @minotaur_books for the advance copy.

Alice, a budding documentarian, is off to the Swedish village of Silvertjarn with her skeleton crew team to capture images of the village to entice backers to fund her documentary. The village has been abandoned for the last eighty years, the stories of it's last years passed down to Alice from her grandmother who grew up there with her family.
 
What is the big mystery? 900 people vanished, seemingly without a trace. When police arrived to investigate, they found a woman dead, stoned to death in the town square, and a newborn baby, left by herself in the schoolhouse. What happened to the villagers? Who was the dead woman? Why was the baby abandoned?

Many comparisons have been made between this book and The Blair Witch Project. I think this comparison is completely valid. Young adults go to a creepy abandoned place and bad things start happening to them, one-by-one. Don't be discouraged here though, unlike the 90's horror flick, we find out what happened in the lost village by the end of the book.

The dual timeline used between Now and Then really helped build the background for the story. I liked that they didn't switch off after every chapter, only when more information was needed. I found this to be more immersive than if it had been done another way. 

Let's take a moment to discuss the creepiness factor. There was a low buzz of creepiness throughout the book, but I was surprised that I didn't feel like it was ratcheting up towards the climax. There could have been more tension and dramatic moments. Ultimately, it felt a bit anticlimactic to me.

Everything that happened is spelled out to the reader before it gets to the conclusion, if you are paying attention. This didn't take away from the overall story, but I was anticipating a bigger twist. 

Thank you to St. Martin's Press via NetGalley for providing a digital review copy.

Oh my goodness! This was a wonderfully atmospheric and spooky read.

Alice, a Swedish documentary maker has been fascinated in stories about a village her grandma had lived in years before. This village had mysteriously been deserted, and no-one knew why or what happened to its residents.

Alice gets a group of friends/documentary makers together to explore the village, to film, and to try to uncover the secrets that have never been discovered. The longer the group is there, the more they realize that the mysteries and horror live on.

The story alternates between past and present, and resolves beautifully. I recommend this book to all who love thriller/horror stories.
Thank you Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

In 1959, all of the 900 residents of Swedish village of Silvertjarn went missing. The only clue to their whereabouts came in the form of letters from a teenager to her older sister, Margarite who had moved the Stockholm, over the course of the previous year, which describe the community, devastated by the local mine’s closure, growing affinity for the new, young, charismatic pastor. Sixty years later, Margarite’s granddaughter, Alice, heads to Silvetjarn with four others to raise support for a documentary about the town’s lost residents. The crew isn’t there long before things begin to go bad, indicating that either the story is getting to them or something evil still lives in Silvertjarn.

The story is told on two timelines - the modern one with crew exploring the abandoned town and in 1959, following Alice’s great-grandmother, Elsa, as she experiences Silvertjarn’s last year.

This book was really amazing, because it had a fantastic backstory as well as a great “modern-day story. So not only was I hooked on finding out what happened back in 1959, but I also wanted to know what was happening to Alice and her friends in the present day. Both were very suspenseful and I really enjoyed reading both.

Alice was a good character because she was both interesting and frustrating. I liked that she had drive and what seemed like a good heart, but sometimes I really wanted to shake her and get her to see reason. But I think that made it more realistic. She was in such a weird position for most of the book, I can’t imagine what that would have been like. I think having her be completely “normal” would have been worse. The other characters also had their flaws which made them fit well together and made the book super interesting.

[Minor, minor talk of the ending ahead, but I want to give warning because this is the kind of book that is best read without any knowledge going in, so read with caution.]

The ending was really good. I don’t want to give any spoilers - but I know some people I other reviews have mentioned that it seems impossible that it wouldn’t be found out, but I think that it’s entirely possible it wasn’t considered because it just wouldn’t seem obvious or logical. I don’t want to say too much more.

Overall, if you like scary, suspenseful, edge-of-your-seat books, get this one. It is among my recent favorites!

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


‘The Blair Witch Project meets Midsommar in this brilliantly disturbing thriller from Camilla Sten, an electrifying new voice in suspense.

Documentary filmmaker Alice Lindstedt has been obsessed with the vanishing residents of the old mining town, dubbed “The Lost Village,” since she was a little girl. In 1959, her grandmother’s entire family disappeared in this mysterious tragedy, and ever since, the unanswered questions surrounding the only two people who were left—a woman stoned to death in the town centre and an abandoned newborn—have plagued her. She’s gathered a small crew of friends in the remote village to make a film about what really happened.

But there will be no turning back.

Not long after they’ve set up camp, mysterious things begin to happen. Equipment is destroyed. People go missing. As doubt breeds fear and their very minds begin to crack, one thing becomes startlingly clear to Alice:

They are not alone.

They’re looking for the truth…
But what if it finds them first?’

(Very mild spoilers ahead.)

I. Loved. This. Book.

It was so creepy and atmospheric. I could not put it down. The chapters are short and snappy and are told both in the present-day and the past. I love that it is set in Sweden. It somehow adds to the story. The dialogue throughout feels very realistic. I could hear the conversation play out in my head. It felt like very realistic reactions to being in a situation like this.

The story itself is at times predictable. I feel like when you know the fact that it is a mining town and there is a new weird pastor it becomes obvious that the mass disappearance must be in relation to this. This in no way affected my enjoyment of the story, however. And I definitely didn’t predict exactly what happened.

Nothing majorly scary actually happens it is more so the anticipation of something happening throughout and the tense atmosphere which kept me on edge. When reading at nighttime with the lights out I definitely found myself a little spooked when I put it down. It takes a lot for a book to do this to me so that is how you know Sten is a great writer.

I think fans of Stephen King will enjoy this a lot.

(Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the advance copy of this book).

I have been going back and forth on this one; I both liked and didn't like it. I didn't find it compulsive or engrossing, but did find it compelling enough to keep me mildly intrigued and interested. I am teetering between 2.5 stars and 3 because I think there are elements to this story that work, but overall it is a novel with a great premise, but overall poor execution.

In general terms, the story lacks some character development and tension build up. When I read <i>horror</i> novels or <i>suspense</i> novels I need that tension, that scare factor and really I just never felt it. This book was both slow and incredibly rushed.

The main character is literally working on her <b>dream project</b> yet doesn't have a plan for how they are going to film this documentary. They just walk around taking photos of abandoned buildings and getting stuck in abandoned buildings. I feel like the town itself could be a character and the atmosphere was never built up. There were just a lot of descriptions of the characters camping and cooking on makeshift stoves.

I also think there were storylines that we're introduced that weren't flushed out. For instance, <spoiler> what was the story with the priest? Grandma was investigating him and he seemed SUPER sketchy. Then appears out of nowhere and convinces the town to stone a woman who he was sleeping with an impregnated? There was so much you could do with that plot line!</spoiler> There were just a lot of examples of elements being introduced and nothing really happening; whereas had they been expanded on or written slightly better, it would have created a much creepier, atmospheric novel.

In general I think the story was interesting and had good elements. The twist was pretty obvious, but there is something there that keeps you going. It just lacked some polish and nuance.

Honestly, the creepy cover and title is what drew me to this book. And I'm so happy it did. So basically, years ago this whole town disappeared overnight except a woman who died and a baby. And now a crew is coming in to figure out the story and hopefully get some answers. But they all have their reasons for being there, and nothing goes as planned.

Picture a bunch of empty buildings, unexplained noises, and a place where their phones won't work. They're totally cut off. And the events that transpired were scary. Also, I could never have seen the end coming. I wasn't even close to figuring out any answers. That's a sign of a good story to me. I won't give away any more, as you'd have to see for yourself, but if you want a book that keeps you up at night, The Lost village is a good choice.

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Alice, a filmmaker, heads with a crew to the abandoned village of Silvertjarn, fulfilling her lifelong dream of trying to discover what happened to her grandmother's family. The book alternates between the NOW - Alice and her crew/friends- and the THEN - POV from her great grandmother Elsa who lived in the village and disappeared with the rest of the inhabitants in the 50s.

I thought this book started a little slowly, but it soon picked up and what a ride it was! As things unravel in the NOW, the reasons behind the abandonment start to become clear in the THEN.

Definitely a wild (and somewhat creepy) ride!

When I first read the synopsis of "The lost village" the first thing that came to mind was "The Blair Witch Project". Then I learnt that the author is the daughter of one of my favorite nordic authors, Viveca Sten, so with those two pieces of info I just knew I had to read this.

In 1959 hundreds of people disappeared from a small Swedish town. Left behind were only a newborn and the body of a dead woman. Nowadays, a film documentary crew goes back to that town to try and find out what happened there 60 years ago, but soon after their arrival it comes clear they may not be all alone there.

This book grabbed me right from page one. The initial scene was quite spine-chilling and that tone was kept all throughout the story. The easy writing and that creepy atmosphere had me turning pages quite fast! At first the story unfolded in a slow burning mode, but the combo of past and present lines helped me to not lose interest at any moment. Once the strange happenings began pace picked up a lot, leading to the unveiling of what happened in 1959.

I would have liked a bit more development in the 1959 time line and its characters. Most of what we learn from that time is through letters, but we don't get to witness first hand how and why the town's people behave like they did.

The present line was filled with a foreboding feeling that something bad was about to happen at any given time. All the characters were pretty flawed, but despite their faults I could not help to feel some sympathy for them, especially Alice.

Part of the ending was a complete surprise and it never crossed my mind, in part cause I'm not sure how truly believable was the villain's choice. I like when "supernatural" things have an earthly explanation, so that part of the resolution was satisfying enough.

Really entertaining mix of nordic noir and gothic horror. I will surely keep an eye out for the author's next book.

I was all set for a creepy abandoned Ed town story, but it just wasn’t all that creepy. I would probably recommend this to patrons who want something a little scary, but not very creepy. It was pretty atmospheric, but I wanted a little more. I also thought the character introductions were confusing. Friends? Lovers? It wasn’t clear, and not in a good way, just a confused reader way.

When I first heard about this book and saw it being compared to The Blair Witch Project, it went straight to the top of my must read list. As a huge fan of that movie I actually visited the town/woods it was filmed in. I love creepy stories about ghost towns and haunted forests. After reading the book, I don't think it's fair to compare it to Blair Witch because The Lost Village is a very different story, and a good one at that. I loved the book and couldn't put it down. While both are about film crews visiting haunted creepy places the similarities end there.
This book delivers it all, creepiness, mystery, suspense, and gore. The characters and backstory were very well done. Parts were predictable, you could see things coming a mile away, but it didn't ruin the story. This is one I'll highly recommend to my friends.
Thank you to St Martin's/Minotaur Books and NetGalley for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Silvertjårn. An isolated town in Sweden. A town where, sixty years ago, a brutally murdered woman was found tied to a pole. A town where all the residents had vanished, never to be found. A town where the only one left alive was a newborn baby.

And a town where, today filmmaker Alice Lindstedt has brought her crew of four to film a documentary and perhaps solve the mystery of the missing residents. Her team are friends who have some film experience but also a lot of problems which become evident during their five troubled days in Silvertjårn.

The story alternates between the present and the past. Elsa Kullman has always lived in Silvertjårn, raising her tamily there. The mine, where many of the men in the village work, has just closed, leaving her husband Steffan out of work. Many villagers are leaving, going elsewhere to find employment. More changes will bring darkness and horror.

Silvertjårn reaches out and grabs you in The Lost Village, pulling you in to a world of unfinished letters, abandoned buildings with rotting stairways, strange drawings and evil. The book will not let you go until the last page and, even then, it will haunt your dreams. 5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press and Camilla Sten for this ARC.

Thank you to Netgalley and Minotaur books for this ebook review copy. Thus book had ben on my to-read shelf for a while. I saw the title and cover and knew I had to read it. Patiently awaiting its release. I hadn't used Netgalley in a while, but figured I'd get back into it. I'm glad I have.
This was very fast paced. As soon as I got it loaded onto my Kobo i started reading. I got halfway done in one day. (Im sure i would of got further, but did take a break). This book pulled me in from the start. Thus was very well written, and i highly recommend. A top new release of 2021. On my list.
A group visit this abandoned village for a documentary film. It gets weird quick. Ghostly visions and abandoned buildings. The book goes back and forth between the past and present day.

If you like creepy haunting stories this is the book for you. 5 Stars

In 1959, all the residents in a small town in Sweden disappeared. Everyone, that is, except the woman murdered in the town square and a baby crying near by. Now, decades later, a small film crew wants to make a documentary about the tragedy in hopes of finding the truth of what happened. When they arrive, the town is frozen in time. Not long into their stay, however, mysterious things begin to happen and it would appear the team is not as alone as they originally thought.

The first thing I'd like to address is that there are some really heavy topics/tropes used in this book that center around disability and mental health (my list of other content warnings is at the end of this post). Most reviews I've seen mention these in some way, but I thought Alexa Donne's review was particularly in depth. Here is her video review (link) and her Goodreads review (link). Both have general content warnings and then go more in depth with spoilers (which she warns about ahead of time). I know this content may be divisive for readers, but in my reading experience I thought they were handled well. In both cases, the characters involved were treated with empathy and had other characters advocating for them. However, both cases did have the characters being blamed for bad things happening and in one case are treated pretty horrifically because of this. I highly recommend checking out the above links if you'd like more spoiler-y details.

The pacing of this book was phenomenal. I would categorize this as a straight-up thriller and it has been a while since I've read one of those (most of my reads end up being mystery with a bit of thriller at the end). Once you get past the set up, creepy stuff starts happening pretty much immediately. There's a bit of a question at the beginning as to if there's something supernatural going on but that is quickly rejected once more concrete threats happen. I was expecting this book to be much more creepy and atmospheric (which is what it started out as) so I was surprised when it took a turn where the characters are focusing on surviving this outside threat until they can either go get help or help arrives. This book also holds back no punches on the level of danger these characters are in. There are direct and consistent threats to their lives and I didn't feel like any of them were safe.

This book is a split timeline with chapters showing us the months in the past leading up to the villagers disappearing. These chapters in the past are much more quiet and disconcerting once we get an inkling to what is going on. They work as a nice balance between the more direct threat in the present day. It was also interesting where the present day characters would find something and then that same thing was discussed in the past. It was a nice way for the two timelines to feel really connected. Our main character Alice is the granddaughter of one of the villagers who moved to Stockholm before the villager disappearance. In the past, we follow Alice's great-grandmother as she tries to understand what is happening to the village and her family. The chapters in the past are a bit short so the reader is quickly put back into the present timeline but the information we find out in the past really helps ramp up the tension in the book because the reader knows how the village ends up but no one ever figured out why or how almost 900 people just disappeared. I really enjoy dual timelines in my books as long as both timelines are equally engaging and move the general plot forward and I think this book did that extremely well.

For all the tension and build up, I did find the actual reveal at the end regarding what happened to the villagers to be a bit more basic than I was expecting. I think the reveal made sense but was the most obvious (at least to me) option. I was hoping the real answer would be something a bit more unexpected or have a twist on what I was expecting. I think I feel this way because I guessed the ending about halfway through and thought there's no way that's it. So maybe if other readers don't guess, then maybe the ending would have been more of a surprise. I do feel that the ending was well hinted at and developed, I just wanted something a big more surprising at the end. The reveal about what is happening to the characters in present day was interesting and a bit surprising. This part, I felt does ask the reader to suspend some disbelief which I've seen some reviews feel this part got into plot hole territory. I personally liked how we didn't get too much detail into the how and why because our main characters weren't concerned with the details since they were busy trying to stay alive so it felt like the reader was in that situation as well. I think one way of getting the explanation would be to have a sort of info-dump/flashback but that would have felt very heavy handed to me and I think I would have liked that option less than what we got.

I really enjoyed the character building in this story. We're following a 5 person film crew in present day and the web of connections and relationships was really interesting. They are all interconnected so when things start to go south on their trip, it really heightened the danger/suspense for me. I enjoyed how some of the connections we knew right from the beginning but others were slowly revealed over the course of the story which was really fun. Sten did a great job showing the reader the tension between some characters and hinted at something happening in the past which, again, ended up as a source of tension later in the story when stress levels were high. I also found the characters to be very well developed and complex. There's one situation two characters were involved in that they both remember differently and seeing that conflict come to a boil was fantastic. The characters in the past, as well, had well developed ties to other members in the village and it was interesting to see how those ties were tested once events started to unfold.

Overall, I found this to be a very engaging and thrilling thriller. There was good character development and relationships, great use of the split timeline, and while I wish the ending was a bit more twisty it was still satisfying overall.

**CW/TW: abuse of mentally disabled person (described as likely non-verbal autistic), sexual abuse that results in pregnancy, cults, mental health struggles, depression, suicide.



352 pages

Thanks to NetGalley and Minotaur Books for the ARC.

Expected publication date: March 23, 2021.

Originally published in Swedish. English translation by Alexandra Fleming

This is one of my top reads of 2022! I absolutely love the story. A filmmaker travels to the place where her grandmother went missing. But she was not the only one to vanish, many others have as well. Not long after setting up they they begin to see bizarre things happen. It’s so hard to write without spoilers so just read the book!!! It’s utterly chilling and you’ll fly through the pages!

I'm a big fan of ghost towns. Places that seemed to stick around after the population disappeared, spooky little time capsules. So, when The Lost Village hit my radar I knew it was going to be excellent. A disappeared town, a documentary team, these are the makings of a great atmospheric thrill ride.

The Lost Village didn't disappoint. From the beginning, the characters and their motivations grabbed me and demanded I pay attention. The last was flawed and it meant that what was really going on in the town was a mystery until the halfway mark when things *really* go off the rails.

I love seeing the story unfold through the eyes of the town in the 50s as the modern-day cast tried to work it out, and survive what they'd walked into. Even then, I didn't quite see what was coming until the very end and devoured the last 30% of the book in a marathon reading session, desperate to know how it all ended.

It was a slow-moving atmospheric story that filled me with dread and demanded I stay up late to finish. I highly recommend it for any horror or thriller fans looking for something delicately plotted and desperately unhinged. An excellent foray into the genre, and one I'll be rereading for years.