I loved this novel. It was so creepy and the feeling of dread started almost immediately. The alternating timelines just added to the suspense. The setting of the abandoned village was so atmospheric and chilling, and the characters were intriguing. There was nothing truly predictable and I was still trying to figure out the mystery as I neared the ending, which was really satisfying. This was a truly enjoyable novel.

Thank you Netgalley and St. Martin Press for the E-Arc! I was so excited to read this book described as "The Blair Witch meets Midsommar." The cover was very eye catching also. I loved the cloudy background with the run down old school in the front. Looks so creepy and scary.

I gave The Lost Village four stars because I was instantly hooked on the story. A documentary film student, Alice Lindstedt along with her crew of 4 people go to film at the village of Silvertjarn where her grandmother's family and the rest of the village disappeared without a trace. The only two that were found was a body of a woman stoned to death and a baby left in the school. As soon as they start filming, weird things start happening. It is very clear that they are not the only ones in the village.

I enjoyed both timelines and loved how it all came together at the end. I was very surprised at the ending and really liked it. I actually didn't see it coming. I highly recommend this book to anyone that loves mystery/thrillers and a fear of the unknown. Looking forward to reading more books by Camilla Sten.

How does an entire village disappear? Filmmaker Alice has a personal connection to Sweden's only ghost town - her grandmother was one of its residents. Alice is determined to secure funding for a documentary about Silvertjarn, but there's a lot standing in her way: limited seed funding and crew, the cell phone "dead zone" in the town, and the creepy accidents that can't be just coincidence. What is Silvertjarn hiding, and will Alice live to tell the story?

I usually read psychological thrillers rather than horror, but the description sounded so good that I had to pick this one up. I enjoyed the dual timelines - present day and 1959 (the time of the disappearance). I was very engrossed in the story, and I liked that it was intense but not too scary (although maybe horror fans are looking for something more terrifying!) The plot took some nice twists and turns, and it was very satisfying to lose myself in the village of Silvertjarn for an afternoon. If you're a thriller fan, definitely consider picking this one up!

Thank you to St. Martin's Press for providing an ARC on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

887 residents of Silvertjärn had disappeared into thin air. Alice is the daughter of one of the village residents (Margaret) who left to Stockholm before the tragedy. Now, Alice and her team is back to the lost village aiming to make a documentary film. However, they are not alone in Silvertjärn. Strange noises, strange explosion, and she also lost two of her team. I love the creepy and horror atmosphere.

I absolutely loved this book! I was interested the entire time, hooked on both then and now storylines. It was so very worth the time (2 days max!) to read. I’m thinking I’ll even buy it for my bookshelf when it comes out,

I love horror. I can't get enough of it. The main problem I usually have with horror is that it's tough to really scare/surprise me because I consume it so much. The Lost Village popped, and its tagline of "Blair Witch meets Midsommar" twanged my internal horror trip wire. My internal compass pointed right at Silvertjärn.

Sten's uneasy novel gave me the creeps right from the start. It contains all of my favorite horror elements: an abandoned, remote town, a group of unlikely friends with complicated relationships, family trauma, body horror, a barely-out-of-reach mystery, an accident, found footage/documentary, murder, the feeling of being watched.... really all the classic tropes we seem to never get sick of--or perhaps that we never get over. They're always scary). One of the most enjoyable parts for me was that regardless of these familiar elements, the story felt fresh. Yes, I will agree that I felt elements of both Blair Witch and Midsommar, but it didn't feel redundant. I had inklings of what might happen, some of which were right and some of which were definitely not right, but my tension remained high the entire read. The pacing keeps you pulled in throughout the story without the lulls of specific character building or scene setting horror can fall into. You're not waiting until the last three chapters for the scare to come.

The other element I really loved was the intimacy and detail of all the characters. Horror can be hard to connect to, whether the scares start too late or the characters fall too flat as an unfortunate result of putting too much emphasis on the spook factor. Sten's characters felt real to me, and their relationship to one another continued to clarify and deepen throughout the novel. I felt like I knew Alice and her crew in the present day, and I felt like I understood Alice's family and the town of Silvertjärn in the flashback sequences. The insertion of crowdfunding and letters and other "found" elements enhanced the story and made sense without feeling overly expository.

The main reason I knocked this from 5 to 4 stars was that I did catch on to what was happening before everything was revealed, but that didn't make it any less enjoyable for me. Definitely something I'll recommend in the future, and I'll absolutely be waiting for Sten's next project.


Thanks to St. Martin's Press and Minotaur Books for allowing me to read #TheLostVillage early on #NetGalley.

Delightfully creepy, this book manages to hold my interest throughout. As a reader who is not typically a fan of horror, this was overall a good book but maybe just not a great book for me. The mental health issues left me sad and drained.

Oh my goodness..I have not read a horror book like this one in quite awhile. I loved it. The characters, the place, the descriptions of the places. I especially loved the format of the book, the back and forth between now and then. The build up of the what happened was keeping me up at night.
This book will win awards for the storytelling.
I especially loved the build up, learning more and more while still unwinding the mystery.
A great book.
TWO THUMBS WAY UP!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC for my honest review.

This was not my normal type of book to read, thought it sounded interesting. It was a easy quick read and definetly grabbed your attention and kept me guessing all the way till the end.. lots of different twist and stories. Definetly recommend !

This was definitely a slow burn. While I wanted to find out what happened to the lost village and what would happen to Alice and her team, I definitely wasn't captivated or enthralled by any means. Overall, this book was just okay. There was a pretty decent spook factor and the shift in POV/time was well done.

Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for this ARC.

This book reminded me a little bit of The Lottery with a twist. Told in two story lines, I thought the ‘now’
story line more interesting. I did enjoy the story but wanted to shake the ‘now’ characters.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the early copy

Deliciously creepy and compelling…like a train wreck you just can’t look away from. The characters, full of dimension and depth, pull you into the tale and drag you into their settings. The chapters alternate between the past, 60 years prior to a time when the village was undergoing a change. To the present day, young film makers trying to solve the mystery of the Lost Village, telling you the tale from both perspectives. The author weaves together alternating time periods, friendship, zealotry and murder. It was a fascinating read!

I read this in a day, a kept-telling-myself-one-more-chapter-and-then-I'll-do-chores-but-it-never-happened kind of book.

It was creepy, chilling, the suspense and atmosphere were brilliantly written as it had me nervous but I couldn't tell you exactly why. Like a bad feeling in your gut you can't explain. The dual narratives were spaced out well, at first I craved more "Then" chapters but the spacing added to the suspense and just enough information to keep you invested. I thought the identity of the baby's mother would be the climax/big reveal (and thought it was a little too obvious) but I was wrong and not disappointed.

The true cause of the villages disappearance is almost creepier than a supernatural cause, and it totally clicks. Silvertjärn is the perfect town with the perfect circumstances, again brilliant.

Although, a few times the dialogue didn't feel natural and the pace could have picked up half a notch.

this was a really good read, it was suspenseful and I think it was better than the Blair Witch Project. The book really getting you hooked into the world and it doesn't stop till the end. I really enjoyed reading this book and look forward to more from the author.

My first thought was that 352 pages was a lot of pages to read on my Kindle. It seemed like forever. The first 50% of the book kind of dragged for me. A lot of the story set up was kind of boring, what with all the talk about the documentary she wanted to produce and how she wanted to find out what happened to the people of the Lost Village. But once I hit that second part of the book, it very quickly got much better and it was very hard to put my Kindle down. The story was told from 2 points of view, past and present. This made it easier to understand what had happened and what was going on in present time. I thought that I knew who the last person of the group was, but I was wrong. Several good twists to the book.

Blair Witch meets Stephen King in this creepy tale of the exploration of an abandoned town!

A film team arrives on site ready to investigate a down whose residents disappeared without a trace half a century earlier. They each experience inexplicable sounds and visions as they work to unravel the mysterious end of the quiet small town. Creepy and unpredictable, this book has all the elements that make a horror novel good!

Admittedly, the last quarter started to get a little bizarre for me, but Sten did tie it all together well in the end!

‘The Lost Village’ is a deliciously spine-chillingly, creepy, tale from Camilla Sten. The book is described as “The Blair Witch Project meets Midsommar ” which is certainly an epic description and creates a high expectation level for the reader. Thankfully, ‘The Lost Village’ did live upto my expectations and I had to stay up reading to finish it – though I thought twice about turning off the lights afterwards!

The story is told in two converging timelines, referred to as ‘Now’ and ‘Then’. We are initially introduced to the storyline back in 1959, known as ‘Then’ when two police officers are sent to visit the village of Silvrtjarn. Until earlier that morning, the village had nearly 900 inhabitants, now a newborn is found in the local school and a woman is found stoned to death in the square. Everyone else has … disappeared. Washing is left on the clothes line and coffee cups left on the kitchen counter. No reason, no explanation.
Now, 60 years later a young documentary maker has come to the village to make a documentary and try to discover the truth. There is also a deeply personal angle to this programme for Alice, as her grandmother was born in the village.
The descriptions of the village are deeply atmospheric and the author has conjured up scenes from the classic haunted village of my nightmares. The documentary team struggle as they try not to let their imaginations take control, but yet, there is something strange happening around them … are the sounds and figures real? Or perhaps their imaginations are running away? The constant battle for control of their emotions, combined with their emotional baggage has combined to ensure that the group are engaged in minor warfare and unable to see what is actually in front of them.
An excellent read. Fun and scary in one go with some supernatural overtones that are absolutely perfect for this time of year. Thank you to Netgalley, Minotaur Books, St. Martin's Press and Camilla Sten for an ARC in return for an honest review.

Sten does a fantastic job of building you up in suspense in this book. It was a slow start, but this was to get all the groundwork going. As we learn about our characters and their histories, you start to question everyone's motives for working on this project.
The ending answered all my questions, which is all I ask for a lot of the time. It was wrapped up without being predictable. That's a challenging task in a book like this, and I think Sten did terrifically. The slow intro is completely worth working through for the rest of the book.

The Lost Village by Camilla Sten is an excellent atmospheric suspense novel that kept me on the edge of my seat, biting my nails, and wanting more right through to the end.

I just adore books that give you mystery, suspense, and that eerie/creepy feeling with all of the atmosphere and psychological suspense without it being overtly gory. You are thrust into the middle of a deep mystery and the author has the ability to weave a tale from alternating time periods and viewpoints and giving the reader piece by piece of information so that the puzzle pieces are slowly being put together all the while the tension and suspense continue to heighten before the reveal. That, my friends, is this book.

I enjoyed the plot, the execution of the concept listed above, I enjoyed Alice and the character cast, and I enjoyed the ending.

For those that have watched The Blaire Witch Project, that is my best description of a comparison. Still 20 years later I remember and am haunted by that movie. I enjoyed its unique concept immensely, and I hope I continue to feel the same about this book as well.

5/5 stars. Very entertaining.

Thank you Minotaur Books/St Martin’s Press for this ARC and in return I am submitting my unbiased and voluntary review and opinion.

I am posting this review to my GR and Bookbub accounts immediately and will post it to my Amazon and B&N accounts upon publication.

I seem to be one of the outliers of reviewers who was not impressed by this novel. The actual writing itself is okay and I enjoyed the juxtaposition of past and present storylines, but the ending was just so implausible as to border on the absurd for me to give this novel anything more than 2 stars. If you enjoy the genre and just want something to read as an escape, go for it. You could just as easily watch a junk series on Netflix for the same effect though, just say'n.