I really enjoyed this book - it had twists and turns that were unexpected. Very well written and interesting. I did find all the V names to be confusing though - it made it harder to keep track of which character was which!

The Life & Times of a Book Addict blog.
Posted on May 2, 2022.

The Resting Place was an atmospheric and fun suspense story that kept getting more and more interesting, the further I got into the book.

Due to not being able to recognize faces, Eleanor has lived her life with a certain amount of fear. That fear and uncertainty increased after bumping into her grandmother’s murderer and not being able to recognize him or her.

The story largely revolves around Elanor’s larger than life grandmother Vivianne and Eleanor who cannot identify people’s faces clearly. But her logical yet always skeptical boyfriend Sebastian, her unique and interesting Aunt Veronika and the lawyer handling her grandmother’s estate all add something to this mysterious tale.

The story bounces back-and-forth between the past and the present which I enjoyed. The characters were interesting, especially Eleanor’s grandmother Vivian.

I did get a little frustrated with Sebastian. I wish that he would have been more understanding and supportive of Eleanor especially given the fact that she doesn’t recognize people and faces like the rest of them do. Aunt Veronika was a bold and unapologetic character also…it would have been nice to discover more of her backstory.

I also listened to the audiobook while I was reading. Occasionally I will switch between reading and listening. The narrator, Angela Dawe is one of my top narrators. She always does a good job of bringing the characters to life and adding to an already interesting storyline. The audiobook is just shy of 9 hours, but nothing felt slow or dragged and that time went by fairly quickly.

This is the second book that I’ve read from this author, and it will not be the last. I enjoy her writing style and the creative way she spins a story. There were a couple of twists and surprises that occurred that they took me by surprise, and I honestly did not guess who the murderer was until it was practically revealed.


**Though I received this book on behalf of the Publisher, the thoughts and opinions expressed are solely my own.**

RATING: 3½ OUT OF 5.

This one has everything I love about a thriller… an isolated stately old home in the middle of a frozen world, footprints in the snow, strange happenings, questionable characters, an old diary, and no way out! I was totally engaged right from the beginning! The narrator does a fantastic job - with accents, alternating voices, and accurately portraying the personalities of each character. I couldn’t listen fast enough! And you won’t guess the ending! Read this if you love locked room mysteries, ulterior motives, and questionable characters!

My sincere thanks to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for my audio copy. My thoughts are my own.

Eleanor’s grandmother has been murdered and Eleanor saw the killer. But she suffers from prosopagnosia. Eleanor is unable to recognize faces. She has been haunted by this fact and it is taking over her life. She can barely function.

Then, a lawyer calls and tells her she has inherited an estate. A home with a terrible past. Eleanor and her boyfriend, Sebastian go to the house and are joined by her aunt, Veronika. This turns into a real life nightmare!

Oh wow! Give me a creepy house and weird people and I am mesmerized. This story had me reeled in from the very first. Talk about suspenseful, especially toward the end. This is a tale, which is a bit far fetched in places, but I truly did not care. I wanted to find out who was doing all this insane stuff and why.

The narrator, Angela Dawe nailed it…and I mean all of it!

Need a startling tale which might keep you awake at night…This is it! Grab your copy today!

I received this novel from the publisher for a honest review.

Deep rooted secrets. 
A twisted family history.
And a house that will never let go.


This story is told with dual timelines between past 60’s Annika and present day Eleanor. Eleanor has prosopagnosia (inability to recognize faces) to throw in a twist. She witnessed her grandmother being murdered, but not able to identify the killer. She then learns of an estate her grandmother never spoke of. So off we go to the creepy old house full of secrets!

The setting has an eerie feel. Middle of winter, middle of nowhere, with her boyfriend, aunt, lawyer, and missing groundskeeper. And who else 🤔…

Once the secrets started coming out I couldn’t wait to get to the end! I was back and forth on “whodunit” several times through this one!

Narrator, Angela Dawe, did a fabulous job!


Thank you @netgalley and @macmillanaudio for this advanced copy!

I didn't care for The Lost Village but was still excited to try The Resting Place. This was a twisted narrative with characters with secrets they are trying to protect. The story is set in a very creepy and atmospheric estate in the Swedish woodlands with no cell service, desolate forest, and an intense blizzard.

This has very chilling, slow burn, and building tension. Many breadcrumbs are left out in the story and escalating tension makes for a very suspenseful read. The story is told in multiple timelines and multiple POVs. I don't read much in the Nordic Noir but I recommend this one to jump into the genre! However, this was a bit tough to sort through the characters since so many started with the same letter!

I read this in physical and audio forms and the audiobook was great - the narrator nailed the eerie vibes of the book. Thanks to NetGalley and Minotaur Books for my gifted copies

Thanks to NetGalley for the audiobook ARC!

The Resting Place was definitely chilling. If you love ominous thrillers that slowly come to a boil, this book will probably delight you. I enjoyed the dual timeline and the macabre setting. The protagonist's prosopagnosia is central to the plot, and I had kind of a love-hate relationship with that fact. I kind of felt like the plot had both too much and not enough to do with that. Overall though, a fine thriller.

THE RESTING PLACE by Camilla Sten
Translated into English by Alexandr Fleming
Narrated on audio by: Angela Dawe ( 8 hrs 52 min)
Publication: 3/29/22 by St Matin’s Press / Minotaur Books


Camilla Sten, best known for the international bestseller “ The Lost Village “ returns to the English bookshelfs with this propulsive psychological suspense yarn that defies unspooling until the last page. She serves up a stew of murder, laced with family secrets, a brooding isolated estate, and trapped by a blinding blizzard, while a murderer lurks and hunts.
The tale is woven in the tapestry of three perspective. Eleanor in the present, as well as her cranky and contentious grandmother, Vivianne, and the found diary of Anushka (providing insights into the many secrets of her grandmother) ….Vivianne’s cousin from Poland turned into the maid. Eleanor has long suffered from social anxiety due to her rare condition of prosopagnosia. Her “face blindness” has left her dependent on secondary cues to recognize people …. their hair color and style, clothing, voice and gait. She has been raised by her cantankerous , controlling , and sometimes cruel, grandmother since early childhood, due to her mother’s death from cancer. She reluctantly visits her every Sunday for dinner. She is little prepared, when a faceless person, rushes past her , as she enters her grandmother’s home, to discover her dying from a slashed throat. Being unable to assist the police, her anxiety, grief and depression escalate forcing her into further therapy. A lawyer contacts her with the knowledge that she has inherited the country estate of Solhoga - buried deep in the woods of the Swedish countryside. Apparently this is the site where her grandfather Evert killed himself. The site was willed to Vivianne, but has not been visited in decades, and is being overseen by the caretaker, Mats Bengtsson. Eleanor had no knowledge of its existence. The lawyer insists an inventory of the assets must be obtained. Eleanor, with her boyfriend, Sebastian, her quarrelsome aunt Veronika , and the lawyer, Rickard, journey to the isolated Solhoga, as a winter storm is brewing.
Camilla Sten proves to be a masterful storyteller as she weaves the twisted narrative, with multiple characters and their secrets, in the face of the brooding atmospheric estate, as cell service is lost with the building intensity of the blizzard overwhelming them.
The caretaker is nowhere to be found. Eleanor feels she is being watched and sees glimpses of a person in the gloom of night. Veronika is attacked and bludgeoned on the head. The blizzard has blocked all roads out of the estate. Rickard went to fetch another bottle of wine, from the underground cellar, and has never returned. While playing dress-up with her boyfriend, she finds in the fold of a dress, a photograph. She earlier found Anushka’s diary. It shows the images of what she surmises to be Anushka, the cook, and her daughter …. one of many bread crumbs of clues possibly leading to the true reason why Vivianne was murdered. Past and present are intricately woven together, as secrets are revealed. The chilling feeling of building tension and intrigue inexorably escalates to a denouement that no reader will anticipate. Nothing is as it seems.
Personally I switched back and forth between my kindle and the audio, narrated by Angela Dawe. Her excellent voice and inflections, provided insight into the many nuanced characters that came alive in the “theatre of my mind”. Thanks to NetGalley and St Martin’s Press / Minotaur Books who provided an Uncorrected Proof and Audio Recording in exchange for an honest review.

My biggest complaint about this one was that it was incredibly predictable. I usually don't mind predictable, but it seemed like the type of narrative that wasn't meant to be. I'm also a bit tired of the prosopagnosia trope. I did enjoy the setting and other atmospheric aspects though.

I think audiobook was pleasant to listen to. I liked the narrator and the speaker's pace was perfect.

Enjoyment: 4
Total rating: 4.21


Eleanor came face to face with her evil grandmother's killer. But she suffers from prosopagnosia, face blindness. The anxiety of not knowing who the killer was and fear that she may encounter them any day, anywhere, profoundly affects her life.

Her grandmother left Eleanor a house in the middle of the Swedish woods, the same place in which her grandpa died suddenly. A place with many secrets. Unable and unwilling to go to that house alone, the lawyer, her aunt and her boyfriend join Eleanor's visit to this house of secrets and help her find answers. If that is a good choice, now that's a different story.

The Resting Place was highly atmospheric - and it hit the right spot with its ever-increasing sense of foreboding, dubious characters and their complicated interpersonal relationships, secrets that consume those who keep it and destroy those who find them out. I was gripped from the first page to the last period. Sten's character work was fascinating. I particularly enjoyed how she wrote Eleanor's face blindness into the plot and how she managed to make Eleanor's angst and anxiety relatable.

The audiobook was phenomenal; Dawe's narration enhanced the tension and brought us right into Eleanor's inner turmoil while keeping the reader well-situated through the different timelines and PoVs.

Disclaimer: In exchange for an honest review, I am thankful to the publishers and NetGalley for providing a copy of The Resting Place.

As always Camilla Sten delivers a well told story. Lots of suspense and surprises. The use of alternating the story in the present and the past slowly reveals information to the reader to keep them guessing.

I really enjoyed Sten’s previous book The Lost Village, especially the chapters written in the past, so I was excited to get an early listen to her newest book The Resting Place, which will be released March 29th.

I had never heard of prosopagnosia, or face blindness which is the inability to recognize a familiar persons face , so the concept that the main character Eleanor having this condition fascinated me , especially that in the story she witnesses the murderer who is killing her grandmother face to face.

Like The Lost Village the chapters of The Resting Place alternate between present and past, with Eleanor giving the reader her POV in the present and Annushka ‘s POV from 1965.

The story was suspenseful, gripping and at times creepy. I especially like the feel of the Swedish woodlands that the story took place in. Imagine a snowy, cold, desolate and dark forest and of course the creepy family home that Eleanor inherited from her grandmother.

As the story unfolds secrets will be uncovered by both Eleanor and the reader about the family and the houses past- along with some good twists.

If you are a lover of Swedish Noir or are wanting to give it a try, pick up The Resting Place, it is a great quick read that will keep your attention from the beginning .

I listened to The Resting Place and really enjoyed the narration by Angela Dawe, who had a clear reading voice that made listening both easy and pleasant

Eleanor lives with prosopagnosia, the inability to recognize a familiar person's face. It causes stress. Acute anxiety.
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, the horror of having come so close to a murderer—and not knowing if they’d be back—overtakes both her dreams and her waking moments, thwarting her perception of reality.

This is the second book by Camilla Sten I have read, and like the first, it starts as a slow burn. A slow but steady build, where the characters are introduced and we are shown their faults and their gifts before we even know why we are here. But the story continues to build as does the tension.
You think early on that you know what the great family secret is, and maybe even sigh at how pedestrian a trope, but you will find as I did that I was wrong and my assumptions were not even close to the truth that is finally revealed.

I listened to the audiobook version of this and was quite pleased with the narrator, Angela Dawe. Her voice does well with the changing characters and has the right amount of timber to make you feel the tension and the anxiety of these characters.

Thanks to @netgalley, MacMillian Audio, Angela Dawe, and Camilla Sten for the opportunity to listen to this audiobook in exchange for my honest and unbiased opinion.

3/3.5 stars!

From the creepy cover to the atmospheric setting, I was excited to read THE RESTING PLACE.

I enjoyed the past and present timelines that took place in the Swedish countryside of spooky Solhoga Estate, and loved the Nordic Noir vibes!

I was most fascinated with the present day storyline, featuring a woman named Eleanor who has prosopagnosia (the inability to recognize faces) but realized I’ve read this same storyline plot which took away some of the shock for me.

This was definitely more of a slow burn suspense, but you really felt the anxiety at every turn wondering what exactly is going on at Solhoga Estate.

I alternated between the physical book and the audio, and thought the audiobook was wonderful! The narrator nailed the eerie vibe perfectly and really set the tone for the story.

*Many thanks to Minotaur and Macmillan Audio/Netgalley for the gifted copy and ALC for review

The Resting Place by Camilla Sten was an atmospheric page turner that had me captivated the whole book.

Brief Synopsis: Elanor is an amazing and a very lovable character. She suffers from prosopagnosia which is a medical condition that means face blindness. This would be challenging every day but it was especially challenging when Elanor walked in on her grandmother’s murderer and she couldnt identify them. With each day passing she was more and more nervous of the murderer coming to find her. Six months later, Elanor and her estranged aunt were asked to go to the family home in the countryside to go through the estate. Once they arrive at this abandoned cottage things begin to happen that makes Elanor question everything she had ever known about her grandmother. This story intertwines both past and present seamlessly.

Overall Thoughts: I would recommend this book to anyone who likes a good book with character development and dual timelines. This book was a little spooky but not nearly as much as the Lost Village. I loved the setting of this book and the overall atmosphere where this book took place. It felt like a claustrophobic thriller and I enjoyed it. I liked the short chapters and overall mystery. I would rate this book a 3.5 out of 5. I am knocking a few off because I got a little lost with the past story. I also found that there were too many names to keep track of that all started with the letter V. The story was a little far-fetched but for the most part I enjoyed it. The twist at the end was unexpected and I always like when I can be surprised by an ending after reading so many books of this genre. I will definitely read more from this author in the future!

The audiobook was excellent and the narrator was very expressive and did a fantastic job of reading the story and setting the tone.

Thank you so much to the publisher, Minotaur Books and Macmillan Audio, for providing me with copies to read and review. I'm excited to see what Sten comes up with next!

I had really high hopes for this book, because it has all the tropes that I love: weird eccentric family members, possibly haunted houses, an unreliable narrator.

I loved the atmosphere in this book. The isolated winter setting was great, and I loved the tension that it created. I also liked the restrained family dynamics.

But something was just missing for me, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. I thought the story was interesting, and I was really intrigued to find out what happened to the old housekeeper. I didn’t like the reveal of who was in the house, the connection just seemed a little too weak for me.

I would still recommend this book, even though it didn’t end up being a favorite of mine.

This is the first book by Camilla Sten that I have read. WOW, I AM SO glad I requested this book. I felt like I was on a rollercoaster throughout with a feeling of dread mixed in. It was a super creepy and perfect rainy day weather kind of book. I really liked the dual timelines of this book and the many unexpected surprises. It kept me guessing until the very end of the book when I thought I knew who the killer was.... but boy, was I wrong!!

Eleanor has had a hard life after having been raised by her grandmother. Although they have a complicated relationship, Eleanor is left reeling after seeing her grandmother murdered. She ends up at a secret estate she never knew about to go through things with a lawyer. There, she, her boyfriend Sebastian, her aunt and a lawyer encounter some chilling horrors.
The story vacillates between present day and years past. I tried to like the story, but it just didn’t do it for me. I felt like the characters were week and I had little connection to them. I struggled to make it through the book.

**Very huge thanks to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for my copy of The Resting Place by Camilla Sten Narrated by Angela Dawe in exchange for an honest review. It published March 29, 2022.
The premise of this book drew me in, and the fact that it was translated from Swedish also piqued my interest.
This fits in with psychological thrillers, and in my opinion, it wasn’t a horror.
Narration was well-done.

Thank you Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for this advance listener copy in exchange for my honest review.

This book disappointed me so much. The plot sounded so intriguing, with the use of face blindness, but I was so bored with the story that I found my mind wandering frequently. I just didn't like it. I gave it a very good chance, but I couldn't finish it. I couldn't force myself to listen to the last three hours of it. DNF 65%.

Since I didn't finish the book, I won't be reviewing on Goodreads or any other platform.