From the publisher: A spine-chilling, propulsive psychological suspense from international sensation Camilla Sten.

The medical term is prosopagnosia. The average person calls it face blindness—the inability to recognize a familiar person’s face, even the faces of those closest to you.

When Eleanor walked in on the scene of her capriciously cruel grandmother, Vivianne’s, murder, she came face to face with the killer—a maddening expression that means nothing to someone like her. With each passing day, her anxiety mounts. The dark feelings of having brushed by a killer, yet not know who could do this—or if they’d be back—overtakes both her dreams and her waking moments, thwarting her perception of reality.

Then a lawyer calls. Vivianne has left her a house—a looming estate tucked away in the Swedish woods. The place her grandfather died, suddenly. A place that has housed a dark past for over fifty years.

Eleanor. Her steadfast boyfriend, Sebastian. Her reckless aunt, Veronika. The lawyer. All will go to this house of secrets, looking for answers. But as they get closer to bringing the truth to light, they’ll wish they had never come to disturb what rests there.

A heart-thumping, relentless thriller that will shake you to your core, The Resting Place is an unforgettable novel of horror and suspense.

I am a huge fan of the creepy house genre. An inheritance, a long-lost or mysterious ancestor--give me all of it. I was not disappointed by the setting. Eerie flashbacks, an unreliable narrator, and several disturbing instances right off the bat sets a gripping pace I quite enjoyed. The remote location and wintery setting gave me definite Sanatorium vibes, so if you loved Pearse's work as much as I did, I think you will love The Resting Place. A chilling exploration of family secrets and loyalty, this is one you'll want on your tbr.
Big thanks to Minotaur and NetGalley for providing an eARC in exchange for honest review consideration.

The Resting Place is an atmospheric, page-turning thriller full of dark drama. The setting is gothic with an almost tangible creepy country mansion. The story is narrated by two somewhat unreliable characters and alternating timelines. Prepare for some shocking twists and turns. It’s definitely a stunner!

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and Netgalley for this advanced readers copy.

I truly enjoyed this book. The Resting Place has the old, haunted house vibe going on. Eleanor suffers from prosopagnosia. She watches as her grandmother’s killer walks past her on the way out the door after murdering her grandmother. However, Eleanor is unable to identify the murderer. This leads Eleanor, her boyfriend, aunt, and lawyer to spend what is supposed to be a couple days at a summer home no one knew Eleanor’s grandmother owned. As soon as they arrive, odd things begin to happen. Eleanor is sure they are not the only people visiting the home.

I tend to gravitate to books that have shorter chapters. This book hits the mark on short chapters. It is also told from a duel now and then timeline. I felt the timelines came together perfectly.

This is not a huge issue, but I did struggle a bit with the multiple “V” names and the fact that most of the characters also had different first names in their pasts. I really had to think to keep everyone straight for the first couple chapters. This may be because this book has been translated into English.

Thank you, NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press, for the digital ARC in exchange for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions expressed above are my own.

2.5 Stars

Hate to say it, but this was a huge let down for me. I absolutely loved The Lost Village by this author; it was atmospheric and tense and scary and I was hoping her second book would be every bit as amazing. Unfortunately, this was just an average or below average thriller for me, and barely held my interest. The characters got on my nerves, their relationships with each other were ridiculous and not believable, and the ending, while I didn’t see it coming, was flat, un-exciting, and just seemed rather random instead of a well-crafted plot tie up. There was no building of suspense for me, I saw the plot twists coming from a mile away and then it took me like another 50 pages for the “reveal” to actually happen. The diary entries were actually my favorite part of the story and the only plot I really enjoyed.

My recommendation is to pass on this one and pick up The Lost Village if you haven’t read it already!

Many thanks to Netgalley and Minotaur/St. Martin’s Press for the e-ARC!

When I first started this book, I thought , “Oh, this is going to be just like Rock Paper Scissors by Alice Feeney. A snow storm. A character with prosopagnosia (face blindness). A creepy house.

But the two stories go in completely different directions!

The story is told from the perspectives of Eleanor (current day) and the diary of Anushka (in the past). Both characters describe their experiences from the house, known as Solhöga, where bad things tend to happen.

This family is SO twisted! Some parts are creepy from a mental health standpoint, and some parts are sad. You won’t believe what is going on here.

I really thought that, from the description, this would be a supernatural story. It is not. That was a little disappointing.

Still a great read!

Wow…if you are looking for a Nordic Noir look no further. While I liked The Lost Village, this book blew me out of the water. It’s creepy, suspenseful and full of atmospheric locked room mystery chills!
 
I was literally hooked right from the beginning. The characters are all so enjoyable and fit with the story/setting perfectly. The book alternates POVs between Eleanor (our main character in present time) and Anushka’s diary entries (from the past) This really helped the story move right along and the plot thicken at a deliciously slow pace, but in a good way. I could not figure out who to trust, believe or even see where this was going until the end which I love.
 
Sten has a way with details. You know you need to pay attention to them because she is giving you clues however, you get swept away by the ambiance and atmosphere that you just get wrapped in! Also I want to point out that this is a translation but you would not know it! It is seamlessly done!
 
If you are looking for a story full of dark family secrets, atmosphere and cold chilling temperatures look no further!

Thank you Netgalley for my advance copy!!

This is a very creepy novel. Some parts are so disturbing that they made my skin crawl. I didn’t quite enjoy it as much as her previous book, but it is a very good story, impeccably written. Eleanor has been cursed with prosopagnosia, a condition that makes people unable to recognize anyone, not even their closest friends and family members. This is at the core of why this novel is so unsettling. Eleanor witnessed the murder of her grandmother and saw the killer, but she has no idea who it was. It could have been anybody, even the person standing next to her. When she, her boyfriend and her aunt go back with a lawyer to her grandma’s estate to inventory the contents, things start getting scary. The mansion is spooky, and so well described that it feels like being there. In a blizzard. In the middle of nowhere. The sense of isolation makes everything more disturbing. There is also an old diary where a maid who worked for her grandma tells another story, one of secrets, betrayal and murder. I figured out how they intercepted, but I still enjoyed the read. I’m looking forward to seeing where the author goes next.
I chose to read this book and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased. Thank you, #NetGalley/#St. Martin's Press, Minotaur Books!

This was ... underwhelming. Unmemorable, even. How do I know this? I almost forgot to write a review for it.

I had such high hopes for this after falling head over heels in love with The Lost Village. This certainly tried to follow with the same elements. We've got an isolated setting, this being a house unlived in for decades and full of family secrets, trapped by a snow storm. There's the unsettling piece of seeing people that shouldn't be there, hearing voices, belongings going missing, characters being injured by mysterious strangers. Even the main character adds a spice of terror with her inability to remember faces and not knowing if the people she meets are involved in the murder she witnessed. The right vibes were there but the execution was poor this time around.

I struggled to get into this. Part of the issue, I hope, is the translation. There was a lot of passive voice that had me editing as I read, and where is the fun in that? The really short chapters didn't help much either. The story bounces back and forth in time, shifting from present day with Eleanor to the 1960's with Anushka, a maid who worked in the house. With such brief chapters, there was no time to settle into either timeline and pick up on what was happening or how the events paralleled. I felt two steps behind at all times.

And because of that, I thought that the twists didn't land the way they should have. These should have been big revelations, yet the people attached to each were confusing to sort out. You really have to pay attention to names and identities. There are name changes across time, people changing entire identities, other characters having multiple names. For instance, the main character is Eleanor and Victoria. The maid is Annika and Anushka. None of it hit the way I expected and left me unsatisfied by the ending

I don't think you should have to reread a thriller to understand what is happening for obvious reasons, so I think it best I wash my hands of this book and look forward to Sten's next one.

𝘽𝙤𝙤𝙠: The Resting Place
𝘼𝙪𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙧: Camilla Sten
𝙋𝙪𝙗𝙡𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝘿𝙖𝙩𝙚: March 29, 2022

I have so many things to say about this book, I don’t even know where to start!!

𝗔 𝗛𝗜𝗦𝗧𝗢𝗥𝗬:
I read 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘓𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘝𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘢𝘨𝘦 last year. I went in expecting a good (if average) horror read. Then I read it, and it rocked my socks off! And Camilla Sten immediately became a must-read author for me 😍😍

So, imagine my delight when I saw she had a new book coming out! #NetGalley and #MinotaurBooks were kind enough to grant me an #ARC and now I’m here to yell about how much I enjoyed this book 🗣🗣

Eleanor’s grandmother is dead. Eleanor, her boyfriend, her aunt, and their lawyer journey to a previously unknown family home, Solhöga, to inventory the assets.

With 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘏𝘢𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘧 𝘏𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘏𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘦 and 𝘑𝘢𝘯𝘦 𝘌𝘺𝘳𝘦 vibes, 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘙𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘗𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘦 has the creepy house setting that I absolutely live for. Outside, a blizzard gains ferocity trapping them inside the house with its long buried secrets.

With spooky twists and turns, this book was hard to put down!

Pick up a copy and see for yourself on March 29th! You won’t be disappointed 🤩🤩

#therestingplace #camillasten #stmartinspress #secretsdontdie #advancedreaderscopy #bookstagram #bibliophile #igreads #instaread #lovetoread #booksarelife #bookreviewer #bookaddicts #bookpost #tbrpile #justread #bookishphotography #whattoreadnext #readallday #bookworms #booksofinstagram #bookwormproblems #bookaholic #bookpic #newreads #booknerd

Eleanor has come face-to-face with her grandmother, Vivianne's, killer. Unfortunately, Eleanor also has prosopagnosia, or face blindness, so she cannot identify the murderer. But does the killer know this? Eleanor's anxiety and terror mount every day with the stress of knowing someone has gotten away with murder and she may be next.
In the meantime, her grandmother's attorney calls. It seems Eleanor has inherited a beautiful old house in the Swedish woods. The place her grandfather died and where a secrets have been buried for 50 years.
Eleanor, her boyfriend, Sebastian, her aunt Veronika and the lawyer All go to this house of secrets, looking for answers. But as they get closer to bringing the truth to light, they’ll wish they had never come to disturb what rests there.
Camilla Sten is my new favorite.! I love the way the suspense builds in her novels.

*Special thanks to NetGalley and Minotaur Books for an early copy of this novel.*

This is the second book I have read about prosopagnosia- otherwise known as face blindness- and it makes a great base for a whodunit thriller. Eleanor, the main character, walks in on her grandmother's murder and sees the killer but due to her condition she cannot identify who it is. It sets a very anxious, creepy tone of the novel, as the killer could be anyone, which is only heightened when she gets trapped in an old family home during a snowstorm. Eleanor travels with her boyfriend, aunt and agent of the estate to an unknown property that her grandmother has left her, and oh boy, is this house full of secrets!

I am a huge fan of Swedish mystery authors and was very intrigued to get my hands on a copy of a Swedish author I hadn't read before. I am also a big fan of locked room mysteries. This story was told in alternating chapters between the past and the present that all weaved together in the end. The chapters were short and easy to read. There were twists that were well thought out and brought more interest to the story.

Overall, I did feel like there was a lack of character development which made it hard for me to connect with the characters. The pacing was also a little off which knocked this read down to 3 stars for me. Thank you to @stmartinspress and @netgalley for an ARC in exchange for honest review. Pub date is 29 Mar 2022.

I really did not like this book. Unlike "The Lost Village," which I found incredibly problematic but ate up in one sitting, this one was incredibly boring and hard to get into. I found the characters, particularly the main character, very bland and generic, and most of the eventual plot twists were pretty well telegraphed and easy to see coming. (And as for the ultimate twist...it just seemed weird and random to me.) This was a let down, though I'll consider reading other books by Camilla Sten translated into English in the future.

This is the first book that I've read by this author and I thoroughly enjoyed it. A well written, fast paced and atmospheric thriller. I loved the twists and turns and I especially. enjoyed the family secrets that were revealed as the story progressed.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the digital arc. Thanks also to the author for this enjoyable read.

Prosopagnosia...I had never heard of this, and now I'm absolutely terrified of it. Not being able to recognize people by their faces would be so scary! The MC may have seen the killer of her grandmother, but she won't be able to recognize them because of her prosopagnosia...Yikes! I thought this was a spooky story, and I enjoyed the plot with all its twisty turns!

Between a 3.5 & 4 star - The atmosphere in this one was what I thought was really effective! So cold and creepy... I would characterize this as a psychological thriller verging into horror territory, and while I'm not totally convinced about the path that the resolution took, I am always a sucker for an isolation trope and this delivered on that score. Definitely the writing from this author has clicked for me best among the Nordic crime writers I've tried so far, so would certainly look for more from them in the future

Thank you so much for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for my honest review! This book was so unique. It was told in dual timeline mostly from Eleanor's POV but we get to know Annushka by her diary entries. This book kept me on the edge of my seat really needing to know what happened! So FUN!

I moved to Arizona because I truly and sincerely HATE cold weather. Yet, give me a book about a group of people stuck in a remote location during a hellacious snowstorm, and I'm glued to the page!! Such was the case with The Resting Place. I zoomed through it -- couldn't put it down.

The protagonist of the novel is Eleanor. Poor Eleanor suffers from a rare condition called prosopagnosia, which is more commonly called face blindness. She can't recognize even the faces of her closest family and friends. So when Eleanor arrives for a weekly visit with her grandmother, Vivianne, and walks in on the murder of her grandmother, she has no way of identifying the attacker. Not only does this stymy the police, but it leaves Eleanor in constant fear that she will again encounter the murderer and not even know it. Even with her boyfriend, Sebastian, by her side, Eleanor hasn't had a moment's peace or a good night's sleep since the crime.

Months later, Eleanor is informed that her grandmother left her a massive property that includes a mansion and several outbuildings, like stables and a hunting lodge. Eleanor had no idea that her grandmother owned this property, nor did her aunt Veronika. As it turns out, Eleanor's grandfather had died on the property 50-some years ago, and her grandmother never returned again. She did, however, hold on to the property, and had a caretaker living in one of the outbuildings and maintaining everything. With this news, Eleanor, Sebastian, Veronika, and the family lawyer head off to view the property and take inventory. As I said, this is a cold weather tale. The setting is the woods north of Stockholm, Sweden, and of course, upon their arrival at the mansion, a winter storm takes a turn for the worse! Now stranded, strange things start happening and Eleanor can't stop feeling as though she's being watched. What's more, the groundskeeper is nowhere to be found.

Most of the novel is told through Eleanor's POV; however, interspersed throughout, we meet Anushka in the year 1965. Anushka is a relative of the lady of the house, who it turns out is Vivianne. Despite being family, Anushka is treated no better than an unpaid servant. She sleeps in what is basically a closet and is taught to refer to the lord and lady of the manor as Sir and Ma'am. After suffering a miscarriage, Vivianne pretty much loses the plot and takes to her bed. Naturally, that leaves Anushka alone with Sir for extended periods. You can see where this is going to go.

Overall, I loved the mystery of what is going on in the present on the property and couldn't figure out who was behind the murder and odd events that were occurring. The writing is so atmospheric that I was convinced it was snowing here in Scottsdale, Arizona! And all of the primary characters were beautifully developed. My only complaint was about Eleanor's prosopagnosia. It was an important plot point at the beginning of the novel, but it didn't play into things much as the story progressed.

My thanks to NetGalley and Minotaur Books for providing me an eGalley in exchange for posting a review. The Resting Place was written in 2020 but has been translated and scheduled for publication in the US on March 29, 2022.

This is probably more like a 3.5 than a 4 but I'm rounding up! I don't read a lot of thrillers anymore so when I do pick one up I tend to be quite picky about them and they really have to grab and hold me and I think that's where this one fell flat for me. I will say I had no clue what was going to happen or how everything was going to connect at all until the final reveal. So it really did get me in that sense!! The downsides to this book were I just found it repeated itself a lot. I felt like Eleanor and Sebastian had the same conversations over and over again. As well, Eleanor's internal monologue was literally the same 5 points rehashed whenever we got a new piece to the puzzle and on one level I get that that was probably the point but about 50% of the way through I was skimming most of Eleanor's thoughts to try and avoid reading the same parts again and again. Compared to some other mystery/thrillers/horrors this one was just a little slower for me personally. However - the scariness in this book genuinely frightened me!! Multiple times I got actual chills and had to turn on more lights in my room, so on that front it totally delivers. Overall, really solid and I do want to check out other books by this author!!

I really enjoyed Stem’s last book, so I was super excited to be approved for The Resting Place. Unfortunately, I didn’t love it as much as her last, but that’s not to say it’s a bad book. I did find the story enjoyable, and Sten’s writing is impeccable. She is really good at writing believable dialogue that flows into the story well. I just didn’t connect with the characters as much in this story. However, the pacing flowed well and the mystery was definitely a surprise. All in all, I’d rate this a 3.5, rounded up to 4 stars.

Camilla Sten is a creep queen! She does a phenomenal job with atmosphere in The Resting Place, maybe even better than the stark isolation of The Lost Village. Certainly Sten is proving herself adept at writing mind bending terror.

Eleanor just hasn't been the same since she witnessed her grandmother Vivianne's murder. Unfortunately, due to face blindness, Eleanor was unable to actually identify the killer, and now she's begun to question her perception and grip on reality. When Eleanor learns that Vivianne left her a country house, a place no one ever mentioned before, it seems only logical to journey there for an in-person inventory. With her crotchety aunt Veronika, her boyfriend Sebastian and the lawyer in tow, Eleanor sets off for a weekend in the woods, to uncover the secrets Vivianne kept for decades. All four of them will learn that maybe some secrets should stay buried....

This novel enjoys a faster pace than The Lost Village, but it's still not a fast paced adrenaline-type thriller. This is more medium paced, but sets the tension ratcheting right up. That house, the slit in the old wallpaper, the chains in the dumbwaiter. I felt claustrophobic just reading! This is the second crime novel I've read lately to feature prosopagnosia, or facial blindness, so I hope it doesn't become too gimmicky, but I think it was used to good effect here. The helplessness and horror of seeing only a featureless blob in every face, when you already have good reason to be afraid? Ooh, that's some spooky stuff!

Grab your copy of The Resting Place Mar 29.
Then, curl up in a comfy chair, with a cat in your lap, and some hot chocolate, because the ice-cold Scandinavian setting won't be the only thing making you shiver!
Thank you to Netgalley and Minotaur Books for the chance to review this advance copy.