The Resting Place was a struggle for me. It took me longer to get through this one, and just didn’t give me the wow factor that i look for in a thriller.

After The Lost Village, I knew I could expect immaculate tension and edge-of-my-seat unanswered questions from Sten, and she didn't disappoint. One of my favorite features of her books is that there are so many questions that need answering, and she is par for the course on holding out some of the juiciest bits until the end, keeping you hooked the entire way.

While I wasn't overly attached to Eleanor as a narrator, her prosopagnosia is an incredible tool for maximizing the tension in The Resting Place. Sten has a knack for creating (at least in my view) some distinctly annoying or dislikeable characters but placing them in a storyline you just can't put down.

Also worth applauding is Sten's skill at crafting settings for her novels that feel both true to the thriller genre and the likes of Agatha Christie will also staying edgy enough to be just the slightest bit unpredictable, and this held true for Solhoga. Giving Solhoga a backstory bolstered by the dual narrative helps it feel like a character all on its own.

Many thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press in addition to the author for this ARC. This is my unbiased and honest review.
#NetGalley #TheRestingPlace #St.MartinsPress #CamillaSten

This one was a touch more difficult than Ms. Sten’s earlier books. I tried to go in blind but, honestly, I was expecting more of a haunted house book. Eleanor has had a tough life. She suffers from a condition called prosopagnosia, also known as face blindness. Basically, she can’t tell one face from another. This poses a bigger problem than normal when she sees the person who murdered her grandmother running from the scene of the crime. Her grandmother leaves her a creepy old house in Sweden. She, her lawyer, her mother’s awful sister, and her boyfriend go to check out the mansion that Eleanor is just now learning exists. It has all the makings of being an awesome haunted house story.
Honestly, I struggled with this one. The writing is superb. Ms. Sten does a great job with the atmosphere. I’m still a fan. This one lacked a key element for me and that is characters. I really didn’t care about any of them. Eleanor was the most interesting of them but even she could have been better established. I really wanted more supernatural content and less drama.
All that being said, I’m still glad I read this. I love the writing style. This is a decent thriller but shouldn’t be billed as horror.

THE RESTING PLACE is another winner from Sten. It is dark and twisty with all chills I wanted from a book like this. The tension and overall suspense level were so high that it makes the reader compulsively keep reading. Or maybe just me? Anyway...this novel completely brought me down the rabbit hole as it quite frankly scared me a little too.

An atmospheric, suspenseful novel told in two timelines. It has all the usual elements of a creepy gothic tale . . . a dead grandmother, an isolated old mansion, a missing grounds keeper, severe snowstorm, power outage, false identities, murders, orphans, and deeply buried family secrets. I enjoyed the story with several surprising twists, and the characters were well fleshed out. The prosopagnosia (face blindness) condition of the main character added an interesting element.

Camilla Sten has done it again! #therestingplace is a twisted, convoluted, grab-you-by-the-throat triller with so many twists and turns you’ll get dizzy. But you won’t be able to stop reading because you’ll want to know what happens next until you get to the very end. I thank #netgalley and the publisher for this arc to read and review—all opinions are my own.

I've known someone with prosopagnosia well, and for a lot longer than I have known the word or the condition existed. It's one of the reasons I was really eager to get this book's DRC and devour it. I was so happy to see this under-represented and misunderstood disability represented at all. I hoped, of course, to see it represented well.

It was. The condition of "face-blindness" was truly well established, in a complex and multivalent way; it was also chillingly effectively woven into a deeply unsettling, even unnerving, plot.
<blockquote>Prosopagnosia, face blindness. It means my brain doesn’t process human faces the same way others’ do. I can’t recognize faces, so have to memorize distinguishing features instead.</blockquote>
What happens, as you've seen in the book description, is a scene of brutal violence that simply can't be forgotten by anyone who's experienced anything remotely close to it. But, in Eleanor's case, it's a scene that lacks a very important resonance. She's seen a murder, and a murderer, and she can't forget it but can't process it, can't help assign guilt to the guilty because she is biomechanically incapable of the necessary function. And then what happens? She inherits the house her grandmother failed to tell her that she owned. Way to lard the stress into the liver of the story...another set of unknown people, faces ever unknown to her and markers to somehow fasten onto their identities.

From that point on, I was so very sold on this read. I could not WAIT to see how this awful psychological double bind would resolve.

The things I liked were, like the things I liked in The Lost Village, the ones that brought the character to life:
<blockquote>...it’s the body that panics first, the brain that follows. If I can just keep my breaths slow and force myself to relax then I can trick my mind into calm.
–and–
“Your fear is valid, but that doesn’t make it real. The fear may be true, but it doesn’t have to be your truth.”</blockquote>
They're present, they're satisfyingly numerous, but in the end the thing that will make or break the read is one's response to the ending. The entire book is a set-up to the set-piece in the last, say, thirtyish pages. It's a big ask from a sophmore novelist. I was rewarded by it because its resolution was so very timely and so personal to me. I can't say more because the Spoiler Stasi will descend on me with malice and fury. This post will clue you in to the direction we're heading if you care to be enlightened.

I thought the use of a big, old, dark manor house in the country was going to be a silly distraction, a gewgaw meant to distract me from something...it wasn't, and it was; the big winter storm, another gothic-storytelling staple, was similarly used. These weren't my favorite moments in the book. I will say they didn't "ruin" my experience of the story as can happen with such inessentials. The nature of the story is so basically well-crafted that Author Sten could've chosen any one of an array of settings and accomplished her task.

I confess that, as I read along and Eleanor kept doing her Eleanor thing, I was half-dreading the need to slap an "ableism" content warning on the review. I was so relieved that I did not feel Author Sten had crossed my own mental threshhold for use of a disability shading into the old, dark "crippled" territory I've still been hit with in the twenty-first century.

I'm going to leave the last words to Eleanor, via Author Sten. I think they say more about what I derived from this read than I can.
<blockquote>She says that wounds can leave scars on our souls just like on our bodies, and that we have to learn to live with them rather than try to rid ourselves of them completely.</blockquote>

🏚 This story is told from two perspectives and in two different time periods. Ultimately, the two timelines merged, and I thought it was done very well.

🏚 I wanted more in the story about the MC’s prosopagnosia (face-blindness). I felt like that was going to be a huge focus of the story based on the synopsis, but it wasn’t. It felt like a missed opportunity to have it be such a small part of the story.

🏚 I saw the ending coming a mile away – well, part of the ending anyway - but I think you were supposed to figure some of it out because there were simply too many clues. However, there was one little twist at the end that I didn’t see coming and I appreciated that.

🏚 The story definitely had some thrills and chills. There were tense situations, lots of things happening in the dark, a snowstorm, and of course the creepy old house itself. It was very atmospheric, claustrophobic, and had an awesome gothic feel to it.

🏚 I felt like this was a slow burn, but the buildup was perfect.

🏚 I enjoyed Sten’s previous book - The Lost Village – but I liked this one more. Anyone who enjoys atmospheric old houses, family secrets, and murder mysteries would likely enjoy this book.

Thank you @NetGalley and @StMartinsPress for an eARC of this book, which I have read and reviewed honestly and voluntarily.

I tell you what, Camilla Sten is an automatic read for me. I loved The Lost Village and I truly loved THE RESTING PLACE. I'm fairly new to Nordic Noir and it is my absolute favorite "new" genre. Nordic Noir has elements of mystery enveloped in some type of cold weather element, a locked room or mansion, stranded characters, freaking freezing temperatures, snow, weird personalities and did I mention the cold?

I love all of it and Camilla is fantastic at writing in a way that makes you panicked that you will die in the snow along with the rest of her characters.

Eleanor has prosopagnosia, a condition that keeps her from recognizing people's faces. When she witnesses her grandmother's murder she is thrown into a mystery surrounding a secret mansion.

Eleanor, her boyfriend, her estranged aunt and a lawyer are all stranded at the mansion in ... THE FREAKING COLD.

There are two plots in the story and, at times, these are a bit confusing. By the end of the book all is revealed, but it's important to pay close attention to each plot.

I loved how Eleanor, who was perceived to be the weak one, ended up being the strongest of all.

I am SO ready for Camilla's next book.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for an e-copy of THE RESTING PLACE to review.

I rate THE RESTING PLACE four out of five stars.

OMG! I read this awhile ago and kept meaning to post.

This was fantastic. Such a great thriller. [book:The Resting Place|57693360] by [author:Camilla Sten|14814374] is a book that must be read. Two-timelines, a murder - it was great.

Eleanor, our main character in present time has a medical condition called prosopagnosia. She cannot recognize faces. And this happens when she enters her grandmother (Vivianne's) apartment for her weekly meal with her - and comes face-to-face with her grandmother's killer! But she can't see the killer! The whole situation haunts her!

She finds out Vivianne has left her a home that she did not know existed - A childhood home of her mother and aunt. Both of them have V names - not significant - but can get a bit confusing!

Anyway, Eleanor (along with her boyfriend and aunt) meet up at the house with the lawyer and all sorts of strange things start happening. We learn of a timeline in the past narrated by a woman name Annika - who is she?? Why is her story important?

This book keeps you on the edge of your seat!

I can't say more - you have to trust me when I say - read it!

Thank you so much @minotaur_books for this book in exchange for my honest opinion!

This was the second novel by Camilla Sten that I've read, the first being The Lost Village, and though I preferred the more general creepiness of The Lost Village, The Resting Place was a solid mystery in it's own right. It could be a bit confusing at times, but I overall enjoyed it.

I was eager to read The Resting Place by Camilla Sten after loving The Lost Village, but this one took me longer to get into. It has numerous elements that are an instant draw for me, but it does take until about midway for everything to start clicking into place and for the pacing to pick up. After that, though, this one was impossible to put down!

The Resting Place is a family drama that takes place at an old, remote house. The main character, Eleanor, has prisonagnosia, face blindness. At the start of the book, she witnesses someone leaving her grandmother's home and finds her grandmother murdered, but she can't recognize the face of the person. After dealing with the death for months and getting treated at a hospital, Eleanor learns that she and her aunt are named as heirs to an estate left by her grandmother. Eleanor, along with her boyfriend agree to meet with a lawyer at the estate to try and inventory all of the items, but her aunt shows up as well and quickly things begin going awry.
In between Eleanor's chapters, we also get diary entries from years before of a housemaid that worked for Eleanor's grandmother. Through each timeline, we get glimpses of what life was like with grandmother Vivianne and how absolutely harsh she could be.
Overall I thought this was a very entertaining read, learning about all of the family drama and the secrets each person is keeping.
Thank you so much to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book!

Wow! Camilla Sten is very quickly becoming my favorite author.

This book was just as great as her other books. The setting was creepy and the story was well written. I did feel like there were too many V characters, and I did have a hard time keeping track of them all.

I enjoyed this novel and would definitely read this author next book.

I didn't love it as much as her first book but I still really enjoyed it. The characters are what drew me in more than the actual story. They were super interesting and not the usual tropes and stereotypes. It was very creepy in parts. Sten definitely has a talent for writing eerie scenes. A different take on the genre. I am fast becoming a superfan of hers.

I greatly enjoyed The Lost Village by this author, but The Resting Place ended up being a solid middle of the road thriller. This one lacked the spooky elements that The Lost Village gave me and was more of a typical thriller, which was a disappointment. I have to give The Resting Place a low three star rating, I can't even remember who the killer was, but I do remember being pleased with the twist at the end. The pacing was on point for a thriller and just like her previous book, the two timelines we have were woven together very well. Camilla Sten is absolutely an author that I will keep on my radar for future releases.

Ooh time goes by and if i don't write the review right away...sigh. I'm trying to be better. The best i can do right now is give a star count...

I love Camilla Sten and her style of writing. This story kept me hanging on to every word.

How do you know if you can trust someone when you can remember what anyone looks like? For Eleanor, that was everyday life.

Now she’s in a house she had no idea existed and things are getting hairy. Can she trust the people with her? Is everyone being truthful?

Grab this book for a read you won’t want to put down!

The Resting Place has all the earmarks of a great gothic novel - an isolated, creepy setting, an unsolved murder, family secrets, and characters we don't quite trust. Add to that a main character with prosopagnosia--the inability to recognize faces--and the intrigue ratchets up. Sten is adept at immersing you into the Swedish winter of the novel, and putting you into the mind of Eleanor as she struggles to come to terms with her grandmother's murder, which she witnessed, though she can't identify the killer. The tension never eases, and there are some great twists before the satisfying conclusion. Perfect for fans of domestic thrillers with strong female characters, as well as Nordic noir novels.

I really enjoyed this psychological thriller. I love the dual timelines and how they let the plot unfold. I was gripped and couldn't stop reading. This story definitely builds the tension and you're not quite sure how it's going to end. I will say that the pacing was a little slow in the middle, but overall, this book had me gripped and I needed to see how it all came together.