This book was incredibly spooky. The author set up the scene from the moment the story began. Only some details were given over a period of time and then as soon as you thought you had the complete history weird things started happening. Without revealing too much, I will say that who the author leads you to believe is the problem really is not. She/He just adds to the mystery of the background story. This to me had a Blair Witch Project type feel. 4 Young people headed to a deserted town to investigate and document a ghost town and it's murder. This book will keep you reading until the end is reached.

More atmospheric than truly terrifying. I wasn’t invested in these characters enough to be truly scared or shocked with events. Reads like a screenplay adaptation that’d make a decently scary movie.

I just read The Lost Village by Camilla Sten and really highly recommend you pick it up - it makes a great read on a cold dark night! While growing up, Alice had always heard tales of her grandma’s small remote village that one day they found every resident had vanished, leaving behind one dead body of a local girl and a newborn found alive in the abandoned school. Alice assembled a crew and returns to make a documentary and investigate what happened. Surrounded by abandoned buildings, they camp out in the town square with no cell signal or contact with the outside world - soon a number of unexplained incidents begin to happen as they search for the truth. This book flies along and the suspense builds. This is my first book by Sten and I look forward to more. I received an ARC of this book, all opinions are my own.

Great read from Camilla Stem. Figured much of the story and confirmed that farther I got into it. A entire village of people disappear and no one knows what happened as it's a remote community. But some of what you probably can figure will happen in it does once it starts giving the pov of one of the disappeared characters. After that it's pretty easy to figure out. Religious following, pastor taking advantage of a vulnerable flock as well as mentally handicapped person. Shows how True evil can be in human form.
I received this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Slow burning horror story following a film crew to an isolated Swedish town where all the inhabitants suddenly vanished in 1959 except for one who was stoned to death. The creepy atmosphere of the abandoned town is palpable, and the tension builds from eerie sounds and sightings to more tangible threats. The main character, Alice, and her relationship to the rest of the crew was well developed, though I would have liked a bit more background on Tone given the pivotal nature of her role. Flashbacks and letters flesh out the backstory, and the two timelines converge in a dramatic and satisfying climax.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the review copy.

I loved this book. I spent many nights up late reading it. Things were slightly predictable; however, the story was still very gripping and entrancing. I don't get scared easily by books, but this book sent a few chills down my spine. It is described as Blair' Witch' meets 'Midsommer' and I very much agree. Thanks to Minotaur Books and Netgalley for the advance copy in exchange for my honest review!

The Lost Village by Camilla Sten follows a crew of filmmakers making a documentary about the abandoned village of Silvertjarn. Alice pours over letters her great-aunt wrote to her grandmother while living there. She is determined to uncover the truth about the community’s sudden disappearance while on site. Then scary, unexplainable things happen during their stay. Maybe they aren’t alone after all...

I loved the premise of this book. A ghost town, resurrected letters, and all around creepiness? Sign me up. The dual timeline and letters created a great contrast between the town leading up to the sudden disappearance and present day. It built the tension well.

Two critiques - Some moments were predictable. When they keep worrying about old stairs being unstable, you know the stairs will collapse. The ending felt a bit predictable, yet abrupt. There were some loose ends left untied.

The portrayal of mental health made me feel sad and uncomfortable. Perhaps it was the authors intent to show the appalling mistreatment and stigma, but was not executed well.

This book reeled me right in until the very end. I will say I saw a lot of it coming a mile away, but it didn’t take away from the story. The actual story is sad, I mean I was angry and sad and sickened by some things. Although, things like this happen every day. Well, not the creepy lost village but the evilness of asshole people.

Page turning haunted tale that will keep you reading! Nothing better than a good "ghost' story with strong characters. Sten does a good job of building suspense, claustrophobia, tension, and interpersonal conflict all revolving around the addictive core theme of the mysterious ghost town, abandoned village theme with characters that have many secrets and history. No gore, just tension and mystery - a good one! Read it.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to read this book. I'll be posting my review on Goodreads and Amazon

A horror novel set in modern-day Sweden. In 1959 an entire village of 900 people vanished – leaving behind no bodies, no footprints, and no trace of where they'd gone. The only clues were one newborn baby, abandoned in the local schoolhouse, and one corpse, that of a woman who'd apparently been stoned to death in the village square.

In 2019, a group of five young filmmakers arrive at the still-abandoned Silvertjärn to investigate the mystery and film a documentary, led by Alice, whose grandmother lost her parents and sisters when the village disappeared. The others are Tone (Alice's best friend, with her own secret connection to Silvertjärn), Emmy (Alice's ex-best friend and there is quite the backstory there), Max (who provided most of the funding and is interested in being more than friends with Alice), and Robert (Emmy's partner and kinda just there to provide another body). In appropriate horror tradition, Silvertjärn mysteriously renders cellphones unuseable and the only way in or out is a long, nearly overgrown dirt path. In other words, once the five arrive, there's no way of getting help from the outside. Weird stuff immediately begins to happen: muffled voices, half-seen glimpses of silhouettes, rotted buildings collapsing around them. Is it paranoia from being so isolated? One of the five fucking with the others? Ghosts of the vanished? The cause of the disappearance, come to claim more victims? Or something very human and non-paranormal, but using the empty buildings to stalk them?

A second narrative, consisting of flashbacks from 1959 of Alice's grandmother's family in Silvertjärn in the months leading up to the disappearance, slowly reveals exactly what happened. There's a nicely creepy resolution to the mystery, and one that proved satisfyingly difficult to guess ahead of time.

First of all: the entire premise of this book is self-evidently silly. There is no way nearly a thousand people disappear from a Western country in the 1950s and said country doesn't flip its shit attempting to find those people, or that such an event could be half-forgotten and degrade into a generic interesting factoid and not be, like, the most famous event in history. I mean, people still can't shut up about the Roanoke Colony, and that was a) in the 1500s, b) only 100 people, and c) has a fairly obvious answer. But it doesn't really matter; plenty of horror has a silly premise and still manages to be perfectly effective! One you accept the whole 'lost village' thing, <i>The Lost Village</i> has some very creepy scares.

It is also <i>incredibly</i> femslashy. So much so, in fact, that I spent a significant portion of the book convinced that Alice and Tone were current partners and Alice and Emmy were ex's, and in neither case just in the friend sense. I mean, here's Alice describing the tension between her and Emmy:
<i>“Alice, we need to talk,” she says, then sits down cross-legged on the cobblestones. She does it smoothly, in a single movement. She never used to be so agile. She used to be stiff and a little lazy, slow in the mornings and energized by night; used to yawn like a cat, wide-mouthed and red-tongued.
How many times have we eaten breakfast together? One hundred? One thousand? Her with hair wet post-shower, like now, me with yesterday’s makeup still clinging to my eyelashes. But this time my face is bare, and hers is closed.</i>
SUPER PLATONIC, I ALWAYS THINK ABOUT MY FRIENDS' TONGUES. So, that's a bonus for some of us.

Overall, <i>The Lost Village</i> is a good source of page-turning chills and thrills, but also the kind of book where you'll probably forget what happened as soon as you finish it. It's a popcorn movie in horror novel form, but hey – sometimes that's exactly what we all want.

Note: there are two characters with mental illnesses (one with severe autism, one with a psychotic disorder), who suffer due to the prejudices of those around them. I thought it was handled better than you'd expect from a trashy genre novel, but one of them dies violently, and I respect anyone not wanting to read it for that reason.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3629209057

Engrossing and very well written story that gives the feel of paranormal without any actual ghosts. Great novel for someone that enjoys dark mysteries or horror. I would recommend this book and would like to read more from this author.

I was so excited to be able to read this ARC but unfortunately I did not find it interesting at all. I couldn't get through the entire book since it didn't hold my attention at all.

The book is compared to The Blair Witch Project, and that is completely true. Just like the movie, not a lot happening and was also just really slow. It didn't keep my attention or pull me in and felt like it's been done the same way before multiple times. The writing wasn't too horrible though but was just okay. Just felt bored and left wanting more.

This book attempts to be more than it is, supernatural without anything supernatural truly happening. A modern documentary-style account of a tragedy in a small town. This is a mildly entertaining tale, but I was hoping for more from it....more edge of your seat. Thank you to NetGalley for an Advanced Reading Copy of this title in exchange for my honest review.

Documentary filmmaker Alice Lindstedt has thought of nothing but the old mining village called The Lost Village from the time she was a child on her Grandmother’s lap, hearing tales of the people and the mystery of where they all disappeared. In 1959, all the residents of the village mysteriously disappeared in some unknown tragedy and all that remained was the unanswered questions surrounding the only two people who were left—a woman stoned to death in the town center and an abandoned newborn. She’s gathered a small crew of friends in the remote village to make a film about what really happened.

Her decision to put everything and everyone aside to find the truth that she believes only she can uncover is the catalyst for what becomes a spooky, unsettling mystery. The village is almost as it was in 1959, cups still sit on tables with the remains of 60-year-old coffee, beds still unmade, clothing still in drawers and closets.
The very night they arrive, the problems start and just escalate from mild annoyance to life-threatening dangers.

I have never read Camilla Sten before, and I understand this is her first published work, though the skill of her prose makes that hard to believe. She writes a mystery like an old pro, on the level of fellow Swede Stieg Larsson.

If you like an intelligent and creepy mystery, I highly recommend you pick this one up ASAP! Worth every minute of your time.

I received this free from St. Martin’s Press, Minotaur Books, and NetGalley in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.

BOOK REVIEW ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 (3.5 / 5)
“𝘐𝘵 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘭𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘺𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘣𝘺 𝘮𝘺𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦, 𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘢𝘱𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘷𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘢𝘨𝘦 𝘢𝘴 𝘐 𝘴𝘦𝘦 𝘪𝘵 𝘯𝘰𝘸, 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘴𝘵 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨. 𝘋𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘰𝘶𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘥. 𝘐𝘵'𝘴 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘢 𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘱𝘩𝘰𝘵𝘰𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘱𝘩, 𝘢 𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘤 𝘰𝘧 𝘢 𝘣𝘺𝘨𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘢𝘨𝘦.“

𝙿𝚞𝚋𝚕𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚎: 𝙼𝚊𝚛𝚌𝚑 𝟸𝟹, 𝟸𝟶𝟸𝟷

This was the perfect spooky read for October. It was a great book to finish reading on Halloween and I definitely recommend it for anyone looking for a spooky read / thriller.

𝙿𝚕𝚘𝚝
This novel is based on a small, remote town where everyone mysteriously disappears. Decades later, a group revisits the town. I found myself genuinely curious about what was happening throughout this entire novel. It was an extremely quick read as I was trying to determine what happened! One piece I loved was that it took a long time for me to be certain whether it was supernatural or natural occurrences happening to the characters (in the present & past).

𝚃𝚒𝚖𝚎 𝙵𝚛𝚊𝚖𝚎
The novel goes back and forth between the current time period with the group exploring the town and the past occurrence where everyone in the town disappeared. The back-and-forth was executed extremely well, and it allows readers to slowly discover what is happening in both times over the course of the book.

𝙼𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚊𝚕 𝙷𝚎𝚊𝚕𝚝𝚑
There are some comments regarding mental health throughout the novel. Some of the comments bring up important conversations about mental health. Without providing spoilers, I can vaguely say some characters presented views about other’s based on their mental health that I don’t fully agree with, but other characters did not present those views / argued with them.

I am a big psychological thriller fan and am okay with dark and creepy.
In this story a village disappeared in 1959.
Alice Lindstedt is documentary filmmaker and her family is from Silvertjarn a small mining town now referred to as “The Lost Village”.
She is determined to find what happened 60 years ago to her family and the other residents.
Story is story in two narratives ‘Then’ and ‘Now’. Alice, of course, is the now.

It appears my current ‘2020’ mood ~ area fires and evacuation as well as new increases in ‘covid’ cases' has me in need of some cheering up and I had problems getting into this story. True there were times I was totally engaged, then I thought parts were too detailed, then I was saying//Wait a minute. What just happened?
I plotted through but wondered if I should have put on the back burner.

Want to thank NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press and Minotaur Books for this eGalley. This file has been made available to me before publication in an early form for professional review purposes only. Opinions expressed in this review are my own.
Publishing Release Date scheduled for March 23, 2021

Woah can’t explain how surprised I was by the ending of this book! You have to wait a little while for it to get going but once it does, you’ll find yourself frantically reading to find out what is going to happen next. A wonderful thriller and mystery! I’d say even horror fans will enjoy this immensely.

Character development was great, I just wish there had been a bit more focus on the pastor even though he wasn’t my favorite character. Amongst all of the suspense we see humanity at its best and worst. This book had some warmth which I really appreciated as it’s more than you get from your average thriller or mystery. Can I offer a suggestion to the author if they even read these reviews - write a novella from Birgitta’s perspective. I absolutely adored her and would’ve loved more exploration of her mind.

The atmosphere the author created was creepy and unsettling...which I loved! Isn’t that what most of us come to mysteries and thrillers for - an escape to a state of heightened anxiety. Not exactly what we need right now in this world but what we crave! Give me all the thrills and chills! That’s exactly what The Lost Village did! Thank you, Camilla Sten!

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press, Camilla Sten, and #NetGallery for this ARC of #TheLostVillageBook in return for an honest review. Review will be posted on NetGallery, Goodreads (goodreads.com/radicalrachelreads) and Facebook,

I love the Phantoms vibe that this book has. It's more mystery than horror but I was definitely intrigued from the first page. The creepy setting was perfect. I don't have a lot to critique here. Told from different points of view in different time periods, it sometimes got confusing as to who/when the characters were but it was easily worked out.

A large portion of this book is reliant on perspective and how it can all be wrong; Alice and Emmy's point of view on her suicide attempt, her grandmother's opinion on Silvertjarn from the outside, Aina's on the pastor and her parents, Elsa's view point on the town from the inside, and the town's fears about Birgitta, everyone's opinion on mental illness and how those opinions affect their actions. All of it is important for the tragedy (or tragedies) to play out. I could go on and on but it's an important life lesson. Reality is subjective. It was just an enjoyable creepy read. Thank you for allowing me to review it.

Trigger Warning: There is disturbing abuse of a special needs woman that is integral to the storyline in this book.

I will be sharing this review on my Bookstagram (AprilsBookishLife), Goodreads (AprilsBookishLife), Twitter, Facebook and in two of my Facebook reader groups.