Member Reviews
The Lost Village is not a book to read before bed, it is creepy! That being said, it's also well written and entertaining. The author really knows how to build and atmosphere of tension and though I didn't really connect to the characters, it was definitely an entertaining read!
Initially I was not sure about the subject matter of The Lost Village by Camilla Sten, but I gave it a try as my first pick of 2021. Camilla Sten wowed me! I loved the back and forth from present time to the past, learning about the town of Silvertjarn. This book definitely read like a "Blair Witch-like" documentary. My only complaint is keeping the characters straight in my own mind. I kept getting lost in who was who but I still managed to enjoy the book immensely. So don't let that deter anyone.
Alice and her team of documentary film makers, get together to help put together what exactly happened to the town dubbed "The Lost Village" which included Alice's grandmother and family. Driving into a deserted town, staying for days, and having the unexpected happen is my own worst nightmare. Sten did an excellent job of conveying that in written form and kept you going wanting more from her story.
I will definitely be recommending this book to others and will be anxious to see what Camilla Sten does next! Special Thanks to NetGalley, Camilla Sten, and St. Martin's Press for the advance digital copy in exchange for my honest opinion! 4.5 stars!
#TheLostVillageBook #NetGalley
While not what I was expecting, I did enjoy this book. It had glimpses of The Blair Witch Project with its own unique twist. O would read more from this author.
This book was astonishing. I am obsessed with ghost towns, lost villages, and disappeared communities throughout history, so I eagerly devoured this one in just two days. It follows two timelines--the year of the disappearance itself and the investigation half a century later--and as the story comes together the two narratives seamlessly fall together like the shuffling of a deck of cards. As a voracious horror fan who finds themselves frequently disappointed, I can say that this book gave me several delicious shivers as I read it after dark. Definitely recommend.
An empty town and a documentary bring 5 20-somethings into danger in an attempt to discover the truth.
Alice has made the documentary on "the Lost Village" her dream project. Her grandmother came from the town originally, but had moved out long before every one of the townspeople had just...disappeared. Food still in pantries, belongings on the shelves. A dead woman found in the town square and a newborn found in the school are the only signs of a body and life, respectively. No one knows what happened to the baby - adopted out to a family - and no one knows what really happened to the town. Alice wants to solve the mystery. Very quickly, things get weird, one of the members of the crew gets hurt and then disappears. Then their truck is blown up. Is someone or something out in the darkness watching them?
With flashbacks to what happened then in between what is happening now, the author blends masterful suspense and tension into the story that's a bit Wicker Man meets Roanoke. It's a chilling story that will keep the reader on the edge of their seat.
Alice is trying to put together a documentary about a ghost town, where 900 inhabitants vanished without a trace years earlier. As her team explores the town, it starts to seem like they may not be alone. It's hard to decide until late in the book if there is something supernatural going on or not. Not bad but not great. 3.5 stars rounded to 3.
The Lost Village grabbed me right from the start! It definitely has a Blair Witch Project feel, but wasn't as scary as I expected. It's a solidly creepy read with bits of gore that sneak up on you and an ending I didn't see coming
I liked the 1959 chapters about life in the village as the town becomes hostile and obsessive, but I was left with some unanswered questions that I'd have preferred to know the answers too. I also thought there was going to be a little more of a mystery, but things were revealed early on just kinda without preamble-- this is probably more of a translation issue.
Either way I enjoyed the story and am ready for more from this author!
Thank you so much to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read a copy of this book. The Lost Village was a creepy read, weaving together an investigation into an entire town that disappeared and something horrible happening in present day.
This book reminded me of a movie I had watched about a relatively similar topic - an abandoned town and something still alive that starts killing people who come to investigate. I was worried it would turn out to be the exact same thing but this book took some turns I wasn't expecting and I did not see the ending coming. The book was paced well and kept my attention.
Recommended for people who like mysteries and murder.
I ended up really enjoying this book. It started off slow, but it really kept getting more and more suspenseful. Definitely a page turner. Any thriller and horror movie fans would probably really enjoy this. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free copy in exchange for review.
The setting for this book waas beyond creepy and unsettling for the entire read. The twists and surprises kept coming as you kept reading this chilling, gory story too. I felt like this story similar to creepiness and chills of the movie, Blair Witch Project. I love that just when I thought I had this book figured out, something else happened; hence this is not predictable which is important for any book.
If you want a creepy, thrilling book this is it! Highly recommended.
And the creepy cover? Hell yes!
Thanks to Netgalley, Camilla Sten and St Martin"s Press Minoutaur Books for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Available: 3/23/21
Thank you #netgalley and St. Martin's Press for allowing me to read an ARC of The Lost Village by Camilla Sten. I loved the premise of this book! One thing that was kind of weird was the "past" was in the 50s, but was written like it was much longer ago, or at least that is how it felt to me. The book had its share of creepiness and kept me guessing if the weird things that happened really did have simple explanations.
I didn't like any of the characters. For me this made the book less enjoyable. Alice was a weak leader, and she should have called the whole thing off pretty early. on. She was so single-minded she didn't realize something pretty important about Tone that even I figured out!
The past stories were also creepy, and ultimately heartbreaking. Both the past and the present stories were great, but the ending was so implausible it ruined the stories for me.
I liked the writing, though, and would try another book by this author.
2.5 stars rounded up to three
Alice Lindstedt makes documentaries. It only makes sense that she would make a documentary about what came to be called The Lost Village, the small village in which every one of its 900 inhabitants disappeared overnight without a trace. Alice has heard about this village’s mystery since she was a small girl, because everyone in her grandmother’s family lived in that small town and disappeared that day in 1959. Not one of those missing inhabitants was ever found, except for a dead woman tied to a pole in the town center and a newborn baby found abandoned in a room in the schoolhouse. But, when Alice takes her crew to the abandoned town, strange things start happening. Are they imagining things, or is the deserted small town inhabited after all?
This is an incredibly exciting book. Narrated in turn by a town inhabitant in 1959 and by Alice in the present, as she takes her filming crew in, the reader is allowed to learn, enticingly little by little, about the mystery of the town. It is so exciting, I read it in only a couple of days. The characters are very real, and the settings are memorable and vivid! It was deliciously scary, and it will haunt me for a long time to come! I could not put this one down!
Thanks to netgalley.com for a free copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review.
Creepy suspenseful tale featuring a documentary film crew and a village where all inhabitants disappeared. Atmospheric.
Disclaimer: I received an arc of this book in exchange of an honest review.
This was another one I kept seeing as highly anticipated but kind of fell a little flat for me. It definitely held attention and flowed nicely - and the story matter itself was so intriguing and macabre that I had high hopes while reading.
I feel like it just never got there - never really climaxed and had that "oh my gosh!" Moment where a book seals the deal for you. I felt like I was holding out for something great and unique that just never came.
The ending was extremely underwhelming but overall the story was just okay.
I'd recommend but it's definitely not a book you need to rush out and get. More so something to use as filler.
Loved this eerie tale of a village that disappears under mysterious circumstances. How can hundreds of people disappear into thin air? That's what Alice Lindstedt seeks to find out when she brings her documentary crew to scout out the ghost town of Silvertjarn. The remote abandoned village serves as an excellent setting for this unsettling, disturbing tale. Lots of scares and tension. Ironic that the characters have come to make a film, as this book would translate so well onto the screen!
Many thanks to Netgalley for providing this advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
This novel reads more horror than mystery/thriller. Has a familiar vibe, similar to other stories but with clever and entertaining twists.
Location is a small mining town in Sweden whose mine has closed and the residents are slowly relocating. But what has happened to the remaining residents. A granddaughter whose grandmother’s sister is one of the missing residents wants to make a documentary trying to find answers. She and a film crew go to check out the town. The author takes us through the abandoned buildings while also recounting the final year before the disappearance. Strange happenings begin to occur, is it one of the film crew or a former resident. An enjoyable read with a surprising and satisfying ending. Only complaint is mental health issues of two of the characters. I would have liked an explanation or removal.
Alice Lindstedt has been obsessed since she was a little girl with the mystery behind the vanished residents of an old mining town dubbed “The Lost Village”. Her grandmother was from that town but was living in Stockholm at the time of the disappearance, in which she lost her mother, father and little sister. Alice grew up on stories of the town and when her grandmother died she found all the research about the disappearances in which she found out about the only survivor which was an abandoned newborn girl and that the only body recovered was a woman who was stoned to death in the town square and left tied to a pole. Alice heads to the town with a crew of 4 Max, Robert, Emmy and Tone so they can scout the location and drum up some buzz for the project to attract some funding so she can get the film made. But not long after setting up camp, weird things start happening like the walkie talkies get weird interference, they start seeing what might be a person lurking outside the tents or vans in the middle of the night. But there is no turning back once they start.
Oh man this was a wild ride. I thought I knew what was going on and I was kind of right but not at the same time. The chapters alternate between Now and Then which is Alice and the crew in the town in the present time and Then which is Alice’s great grandmother Elsa’s POV as well as letters from Aina Elsa’s youngest daughter to Margareta who is Alice’s Grandmother. It was so creepy and the plot unfolded really well. All the alternating POV really fleshed out everyone’s mindset and gave us the background we needed to piece the puzzle together. All in all, a really good read and not what I was expecting in the best way.
Thanks to St. Martin’s Press/Minotaur Books and
Special thanks to NetGalley, Goodreads and the publisher for a free ARC of this novel received in exchange for an honest review.
Expected publication date: Mar 23, 2021
<i> Documentary filmmaker Alice Lindstedt has always wanted to find out the secrets in her grandmother’s past, the secrets her grandmother refuses to reveal, around her life in Silvertarn. A former mining community, Silvertarn slowly turned into a ghost town after the mine shut down. Legend has it that one day, seemingly without rhyme or reason, all of the residents of Silvertarn had disappeared; the only survivor seemingly being Alice’s grandmother and an orphaned newborn. Desperate for answers, Alice leads a team to uncover the secrets of her grandmother’s past, and hopefully make a name for herself in the filmmaking world. But soon, strange things start happening and her friends are slowly being killed off—but by who? What is the real secret of the town of Silvertarn? </i>
Camilla Sten is not a new novelist, however “The Lost Village” appears to be the only one translated to English <i> (by translator Alexandra Fleming) </i>.
Although this novel has been compared to “The Blair Witch Project”, I found a lot more similarities to “Silent Hill”, the video game turned movie starring Sean Bean from a few years ago. The abandoned town, the sect of people who had once lived there, and the religious connotations behind it all. The only “Blair Witch”-y part of it was the documentary filmmaking crew.
I enjoyed the characters in this novel, although I felt that they weren’t entirely developed. The novel reads like a sequel in that it feels like the characters have already formed a relationship in previous novels that we aren’t privy to <i>(especially Max and Alice)</i>. I wanted to know more about them and their history, but instead we get a random selection of characters with backgrounds that we don’t know about. Of course, the character of Birgitta stole my soul, as she struggled alone with what was clearly autism, before people understood what the disorder was. Her hardship and rejections were devastating to me, and Sten portrayed her well.
Overall, the novel was definitely creepy, and I thoroughly enjoyed all of the explorations that the group made throughout the abandoned churches, homes and schools. I found Sten’s depiction of mental health in the novel to be a bit stereotyped however, as the character of Tone <i> (who had a diagnosed mental disorder) </i> was automatically labeled as the villain due to her “tendency to violent behaviours”. It was conflicting for me that Sten could portray Birgitta so accurately, and yet be so off base when it came to Tone.
“The Lost Village” had some elements that were really well done. It was dark and atmospheric and I enjoyed the ghost town vibes. However, some of the characters were poorly developed, and I found some of the plot to be far-reaching <i> (seems the author was trying to add a few twists in there that weren’t organic to the plot, and some exaggerations were made) </i>. This novel is definitely worth a read though, and should be explored!
Thank you net galley for giving my a ARC in exchange for a honest review.
From the start I really enjoyed this book. The setting was beautiful and also creepy. The book did start out a little slow in the beginning but it didn't effect the story for me. I also really enjoyed the flashbacks to the past because that helped you to figure out what happened in the town and why the villagers suddenly just went missing without a trace. It is sad however what happened to those teens there. As a horror lover I really did enjoy this book form start to finish. There were a lot of good scary parts of the book, but also a lot of details that allowed you to understand why things were the way they were.