I absolutely loved this book. Every chapter moved the story forward and each one interesting. The relationships grow (or not) by chapter, too. Great mystery that will creep you out and keep you up at night. Highly, highly recommend.

THE LOST VILLAGE
BY CAMILLA STEN

A woman goes back to the village where everyone in it mysteriously disappeared in 1959 and is a part of her lineage on her grandmother's side of the family. Strange things start happening. This had so much potential until the crazy devil worshiping pastor entered the story. I don't like witchcraft or black magic or demons. This aspect seemed to ruin a creepy paranormal story that had some eerie vibes to it like their two vans mysteriously getting destroyed and spotty cell service to all of their cell phones being dead. When members of their team started going dead I started having serious reservations.

Mental illness was abruptly introduced as being the cause of the first member going missing I really felt that plot device was not handled in good taste. Honestly, the sadistic pastor from then on lost any credibility that this story had started out with. The ending didn't make any sense to me. I am usually a pretty careful reader that pays attention to the written word that appears on the page. In this case there wasn't any coherence and the jump from past to present left me feeling whiplash mentally. At the end there was all hell breaking loose in a jump into the past and it just stops. Who was narrating? I have an idea but it went from bad to worse and the epilogue left me with more of a untimely end. I don't mean to sound harsh but it was hugely disappointing. If I am going to invest my time reading over 350 pages I hope to not be so disenchanted by feeling the ending which was bad just stop. This started out so good and I really was loving it up until the demonic aspects and the rushed ending that I still don't understand. I am sorry I can't honestly recommend such a promising premise in good conscious for some of the reasons I enumerated, but that is my humble opinion. There are other's who may not mind some of the reasons that I have enumerated. I do wish the author and Minotaur Books every best wish and am grateful for them making this available.

Publication Date: March 23, 2020

Thank you to Net Galley, Camilla Sten and Minotaur Books for providing me with my ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review. All opinions are my own.

#TheLostVillage #CamillaSten #MinotaurBooks #NetGalley

The Lost Village is a page turner of a mystery full of suspense, drama and intrigue. A documentary film crew goes to a remote town that has a centuries old mystery. 60 years ago all members of the town disappeared at once, leaving behind a lone infant. Alice, the lead on the project, has made it her life's mission to solve this mystery, as her ancestors were among the missing. She grew up hearing stories about the town and its people from her grandmother.
Shortly after the crew arrives on location, strange things begin to occur, and it becomes clear that they are not alone in this isolated town in the middle of the woods. As the story progresses you learn the motives of each character, and what has brought them each to this project. Amid the mystery and suspense, the characters are well drawn and interesting in their own right.
The book is fast paced. The reader is led to hypothesize many conclusions as Sten takes you along for the ride of this story. The climax is not predictable at all, but satisfying.
There are definitely some dark moments, with adult content (rape, gore, abuse) but in the end this is a quick and enjoyable read perfect for someone looking for a good mystery that may just keep you up at night.

I loved how creepy this book was, but some of the elements were a bit intense for me. Admittedly, I have a weak stomach, so some of the descriptions hit hard and it was difficult for me to let them go. There are definitely other reads out there are a better fit for this book than me. However, I look forward to reading more from this author in the future.

This book was so scrumptious. Reminiscent of the Blair Witch Project, a film crew sets out to investigate a small village of 900 people who completely vanished In 1959. This mystery has never been solved.

Alice, a fledgling documentary filmmaker, has struggled for many years to make this documentary. Along with Tone, Emmy, Robert and Max. When they arrive at the lost village, they realize all is not what it seems.

I love books like this. I was so excited to get this ARC. The parallels with the Blair Witch Project; the creepiness of the first night, the realization that they are not alone; the singing that they keep hearing; the disappearances all keep the reader going, unable to put down the book. I especially loved the creepiness of exploring the abandoned houses and structures and learning what things would look like after 60 years! This book was was very near perfect. The ending has the reader suspending belief a bit. It was definitely not something I would have guessed. I gave this book five stars because I could not think of a way it could be improved upon. I loved it that much.

Thank you to NetGalley and Minotaur Books for providing me with a digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.

In 1959 a village disappears in rural Sweden and none of the villagers are seen again. How could that happen? 60 years later a group of documentarians come to scout out a potential movie and maybe find out what happened.

Alice, the leader of the team, is the granddaughter of a former resident of the village and lost all of her family with this event. Alice's grandmother, Margareta, had done some research over the years and saved all of the letters her sister, Aina, wrote to her during that time. With all of this information available Alice and four others start to search the village. From the first night strange things start to happen. Is there someone else there or is there really a curse on the village?

I feel like this is a story that only a Scandinavian writer would write even though I could see this being set in rural America as well. So if you are a mystery or semi-horror fan pick this one up.

The Lost Village by Camilla Sten is a superb page turner. Well worth the time and the read! Looking forward to the next novel.

Alice grew up hearing her grandmother's stories of her abandoned home town in Sweden, Silvertjarn.
One night in 1958, 900 people, her parents and sister included, disappeared never to be heard from again. The police did a quick investigation but not much was found. Alice has wanted to solve the case of what happened to everyone her whole life and wants to film a movie about the town.
In the beginning Alice has just arrived at the abandoned town with the intention of filming enough through the empty town to convince people to invest in the project. She has her grandmother's stories but also old letters from her grandmother's younger sister just before they disappeared to help her decide what to film and where to look.

This is told from Alice's perspective, but we get to learn more about the town and it's inhabitants from before they disappeared from the old letters, and snippets of Elsa, Alice's great grandmother's, perspective.

I don't read many thrillers, but it is written well and the mysteries unfolded in a great way. I really enjoyed this.

Thank you netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

A mysterious creepy village, set off the path of every day. The disappearance of 900 people a mystery, the only witnesses are a stoned woman dead in the village square and a squalling baby found in an abandoned school. Decades later, Alice and her ragtag group of 5 set off into the village to solve the mystery of her grandmothers family’s disappearance.

At once creepy, the setting leaves nothing to be desired. An abandoned town with no signs of animal life, rotting buildings, and walkie talkies moaning on their own in the background it’s clear the group is in over their head. When equipment goes missing, vans blown up and people disappear one thing is clear; they are not alone.

I have to say the second half of the novel moved a lot faster than the first. A lot of waiting for something to happen. This may translate a lot better as a movie than a book- it’s got that vibe. I absolutely enjoyed the “then” chapters much more than the “now”...but that’s the pull. You go back and forth to find the truth and when you finally get it the result is unexpected and not predictable at all- I was assuming the dead bodies would be in the lake the whole time. I was also not expecting the deaths as they occurred. All in all this was a great read!

The Lost Village is such a deliciously eerie mystery! I first started reading this book alone in the dark and made it approximately 5 pages before I had to put it down because I was so creeped out....but then I immediately picked it up again because the story and writing are so compelling.

The premise is great, and in my opinion lives up to its potential: In 1959 900 villagers disappear from a remote mining village, leaving behind only an infant and a woman who was stoned to death in the village square. In present day, the ancestor of one of the villagers returns with a small group of friends to make a documentary about the town. The small group is already tense as they arrive in the town and begin scouting for the documentary - there are secrets amongst them, as well as some some history with unresolved issues. The tension only gets worse as they begin to see and hear unexplained things, and things go from bad to worse with the trip.

The story is told in alternating time periods. In the present day, Alice and her friends are experiencing mysterious issues as they investigate the town and the events of 1959; in 1959 Elsa, Alice's grandmother, lives the events leading up to that fateful day when the villagers disappeared without explanation. I don't always like alternating timelines, but it works really here, with the tension ratcheting up in tandem in both time periods. At first I found myself wanting more detail from the 1959 storyline, but ultimately I think the detail that was provided was perfect to maintain tension.

There are hints of supernatural elements throughout the story, but ultimately this is an Intense and atmospheric mystery.

Thanks to netgalley for this book. I found this book to be solo slow, and I forced myself to read it. Wish I hadn't. It just felt flat, uninteresting. To me anyway. It was full of descriptions and no interesting story line.

When I saw the tagline of "The Blair Witch" meets "Midsommar" I knew I had to read this. I'm so glad I was approved for the ARC. Wow, this was such a great read, I could not put this down. Alice is wants to film a documentary about a village that went missing -- not the village itself but the villagers -- many years ago. This is because her ancestors were inhabitants. Her grandmother's family -- parents and siblings -- were among the missing. All she had to go on was her Grandmother's stories and letters her Grandmother had from her family before they disappeared. The story goes back in forth between the present day with Alice and her small crew and back to the 50s leading up to the disappearance of the villagers. The story didn't take much time to pick up and I was on the edge of my seat needing to know what was happening pretty quickly. I'm pretty sure this is one I will buy the physical copy of to read again, I've already been recommending it to people for when it is released. It's also one of those stories you kind of wish could be adapted exactly as is to a film - just to see some of it play out.

Highly recommend this one.

The Lost Village surpassed my expectations! This is the first time I truly felt that the summary actually summed up a book PERFECTLY! This in an intense and creepy read and I wish I could experience it all over again. WOW! Highly recommended!

I love a creepy Scandinavian horror story and this book fits the bill. I appreciated the way Camilla Sten created the eerie, unsettling atmosphere of a mysteriously abandoned village.
The story itself moves between the last days of an old mining village in 1959 and the present day, when filmmaker Alice Lindstedt, granddaughter of a village resident, returns to shoot a documentary about what may have happened to the village and its residents. The plot was interesting enough to keep me invested in discovering what happened in 1959, but the ending was a bit ridiculous and disappointing. Overall, it was an enjoyable read.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the digital ARC.

This book is about an aspiring film maker named Alice, who wants to create a documentary about the people of "The Lost Village" in a small mining town in Sweden. 900 people there one day, and then just gone the next. Alice's obsession with this town comes from her grandmother's stories about her family, and through letters from her great-aunt, before they all vanished. Now, Alice hopes to travel to Silvertjarn with her small crew, and uncover some clue left behind as to what happened in this town. But over the course of five days, as creepy and terrifying things begin to happen, Alice sees her chance at making this movie, and possibly ever leaving this village alive, dwindling every day.

When I saw this book was a mix between Midsommar and Blair witch, I couldn't wait to read it. It definitely had a creepy factor to it, and at times I quit reading because I was freaked out.

The ending was not as expected, and the I wish there had been more supernatural occurrences at play, but I did like that you got answers at the end and were not just left empty handed. I would definitely recommend this book!

"The Lost Village" by Camilla Sten is a brilliant and astoundingly dark, Scandinavian horror/mystery novel. Unsettling, eerie, and completely bizarre, Sten leads readers down a dark and twisted path to a village that was unexplainably abandoned sixty years prior. What happened to the residents? Where did they go? Why did they leave? And where are they now?

The events of what happened in this village have haunted Alice's Grandmother (who used to live in the now-abandoned village Silvertjarn) for years and fueled the fire of Alice's desire to get to the bottom of what truly happened to the people who fled their homes with no explanation. As a novice videographer, Alice brings a group of people along with her to create a documentary that will uncover the events of what truly happened to the people who lived in this village and bring about a breakthrough in her career. Except, there's shocking and terrifying evidence that Alice and her ragtag team are not alone. If this village has truly been abandoned years ago and no one has returned, then who else is haunting Silvertjarn?

A brilliant novel that is absolutely mystifying and unsettling right from the very first pages. Sten's writing is stunning, evocative, and hauntingly chilling as she guides readers right into the heart of terror. Split into two different perspectives, "The Lost Village," takes on a gothic-mystery spin that fights to uncover Silvertjarn's secrets that leads characters down a dangerous and life-threatening path. A genuine thrilling novel and Scandinavian noir at its finest.

I thought this novel was incredibly well written and enjoyed the complexity of the characters that brought a whole other level of realism to their stories, evoking a wide range of feelings from this reader, mainly sympathy. These characters are all struggling with ugly, violent, and sorrowful issues that have all, in one way or another, driven them to this isolated and abandoned village with terrifying secrets. Somehow, Sten has brilliantly reflected those emotional struggles in the atmosphere of this lost village and its decaying, desolate state of existence. Horror has an entirely new and fresh feel in this tale that is immensely enjoyable. "The Lost Village" by Camilla Sten is expected to be published on March 23, 2021, and I highly recommend taking note of the date and giving it a read!

A huge thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for providing me with a free e-arc in exchange for an honest review!

The Lost Village by Camilla Sten has been described as an amalgamation of the Blair Witch Project and my favorite movie of 2019, Midsommar. Sten uses elements of horror, mystery, and the history of a fictional isolated town in Sweden which is somewhat reminiscent of the town in Midsommar. I was intrigued.

The Lost Village started out strong. A scrappy documentary film crew arrives at this remote, isolated, and abandoned village; a village that was once thriving until an unknown incident caused every resident to disappear. Unfortunately, the story dragged for far too long and I ended up not caring much about the mystery halfway through the book. I think that the flashbacks to the prior town, which came about every 3 chapters, combined with the letters took the mystery out of it for me. It was too much backstory and plot points were given away too early on. I guess I'll just give Midsommar another watch.

Set in a deserted Scandinavian town, The Lost Village is steeped in anxiety and suspense from the first page. This book will freak you out, break your heart and leave you aching for everyone involved.

Thank you to NetGalley, Minotaur Books/St Martin's Press, and the author for the ARC. I voluntarily read and reviewed this title.

From the first chapter, I kept thinking, "The miniseries or film adaptation of this is gonna be SO good." The whole novel is incredibly cinematic, occasionally to its detriment (I got lost in some of the action), but it made for a thoroughly enjoyable read. While the twists weren't particularly surprising, the world-building is great and the scares are genuine. I liked this!

This was a fun spooky read. The set up was interesting with the missing village and the documentary film crew, but some parts felt a bit slow to me.
I did enjoy reading it, but at times felt like it took me awhile to get back into the story when I’d pick it up to start again.
Would check out more of her books in the future.