Eleanor witnesses her grandmother’s murder but is unable to identify the culprit due to a rare condition that leaves her unable to distinguish faces. She leaves behind a mansion Eleanor knew nothing about called Solhoga. When she is contacted by a lawyer to catalogue the estate, Eleanor and her boyfriend travel out there for the weekend. They are totally unaware of the family secrets they are about to uncover.

I read Sten’s debut and liked it a lot. This novel stalled out for me pretty quickly. While there is a nice back and forth between present day and the past, I found the characters to be flat. It was difficult to connect with anyone, especially the protagonist. The supporting characters were hardly developed and I don’t understand why Eleanor’s boyfriend stuck around. There were some plot holes as well (argh) which I just couldn’t get past. The setting was very eerie and creepy but Sten’s second novel just didn’t do it for me.

A good psychological thriller that keeps you guessing. There's enough twists that makes you keep going. Narrater was engaging and very good.

Damn. The story runs deep with this one. Family secrets abound as Eleanor struggles with the death of her not-so-lovable grandmother. In reviewing her grandmother’s estate, she almost drowns in family history that almost went buried forever. I’d like to note that this ARC comes out tomorrow 👏!!!!!

Also, this was my first Audiobook and as much as I didn’t think I’d enjoy audio, I LOVED it! Great for doing dishes, laundry, embroidery to!!! Thanks to Ashleigh, who motivated me to give audio a shot!

***SPOILERS***
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If you’ve read this ARC, please tell me if you’re team KiKi or Anishka(sp?) !?!? I’m struggling here. I definitely don’t think Eleanor, Sebastian, the PI or the other man protecting the estate should have been caught up in this nor do I condone murder but I feel Eleanor’s anger towards Kiki is slightly displaced. The freaking woman’s mother was MURDERED AND KEPT A SECRET bc of Eleanor’s family! My heart just goes to Kiki. They should have sent her to her aunt’s and ran with their whole, “Merit took off,” ploy if they were going that route NOT ruining her life, causing her to snap, only to lock her up and treat her like scum. I hate that Eleanor doesn’t see that side of things. So her grandma who was kind of crappy to her is dead but no consideration for her involvement in Kiki’s mother’s death!? 🤯 anyway, I’m team Kiki

Carmilla Stem is becoming a favorite author of mine. Like The Lost Village, this book is very atmospheric and the setting is part of what makes the story so intriguing.

The haunted feeling kept me uncomfortable and unsure of what was going to happen next. I loved the characters and the pace of the story as it unraveled between past and present.

Although this one is more thriller than horror, it's still an excellent read.

Have you ever heard of prosopagnosia? It’s face blindness, meaning details on someone’s face are unrecognizable. I actually have read a couple of thrillers about this but I thought the author put her own spin on it. The best part of this one for me was the setting, it was claustrophobic and isolated set mainly in an old house and I thought it was a character on it’s own. There was a great sense of underlying tension and dread from the first page to the last and enjoyed both the past and present timelines. I didn’t see the big reveal ahead of time, which is always great and thought the audio narration was excellent and engaging. Overall I enjoyed this one a bit more than the authors last book and if you like creepy books that leave you unsettled try this!

I really enjoyed Sten‘s The Lost Village, so was very pleased to be able to listen to a copy of The Resting Place, thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the audio-copy in exchange for review.
I likely would have enjoyed this a bit more if I had read it rather than listened, as I seem to be missing parts of the audio frequently these days due to zoning out.
This was still a haunting, atmospheric read which is what I now expect from Sten. She creates very isolated, eerie settings which help amplify the plot and the way the characters interact with the setting.

This was an interesting read. I always find the face blindness of a character to be fascinating. The writer has to be hyper aware of description, and this one is done very well. I do appreciate that it wasn't brought up continually, but just enough. This was told in a dual timeline and I often find myself liking one storyline better than the other, but this one was one I really enjoyed both timelines and how they came to their conclusions. The writing is phenomenal and I was completely engaged in the story. I will be reading more by this author. I also found the narrator to be fantastic. I will be recommending this one for sure! Well done!

A main character with prosopagnosia (the inability to recognize a familiar person's face), a brutal murder and the inheritance of a creepy house lead to a perfectly atmospheric mystery thriller from Swedish author Camilla Sten. Really great on audio narrated by Angela Dawe. Perfect for fans of Jennifer McMahon. I was on the edge of my seat listening to this one and definitely would recommend. Much thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my ALC!

Imagine brushing up against the person who murdered your grandmother. This was the fate of Eleanor, who suffers from an illness called, prosopagnosia, which renders her unable to recognize people's faces, Even her own face feels foreign to her.

Finding that her grandmother has left her summer cottage to her, Solhoga, a place that Eleanor has never heard of, she, her aunt, her grandmother's lawyer and her steadfast boyfriend, Sebastian travel to this cottage. It's sinister appearance adds to the gothic mood of the story, and of course we have many strange occurrences, as winter sets in and snow falls trapping them inside.

As the house starts to reveal his hidden secrets, we witness the cruelty of her grandmother, Vivianne, and the other former tenants of this creepy dwelling. Her aunt Veronika inherited the property as well, but as the circumstances slowly evolve, we are overwhelmed by the sense of being locked into something unreal and perhaps a tad supernatural, as Eleanor is fearful of losing her life and her days seemed to be filled with the feeling that someone is watching her.

This was a slow moving story that reverts back and forth between the past and the resent. The character study was interesting, but it was a bit too ponderous for me.

Thanks you to NetGalley for the audio version of this story due out March 29, 2022.
I neglected to add I listened to most of this book and the narrator was good, and I finished up a physical arc of it.

Slow burn domestic thriller set mostly on an isolated country estate in the Swedish Woods.
The author manages to just keep tension building and I was hooked right from the start and didn’t want to stop reading. I like the isolated country house - classic whodunnit trope the author used so that was an easy sell. The main character suffers from prosopagnosia- face blindness - and is haunted by the fact that she has seen her grandmother’s killer arriving at her grandmother’s apartment just a little too late to save her but without the ability to identify the killer or even recognize him or her - it could be anyone. Coming into her inheritance and especially the remote country estate she knew nothing about she will try to find out more about her grandmother and her family …
I don’t want to spoil the fun so I’ll leave you with this setup and the fact that I enjoyed this book a lot - it definitely kept me turning the pages. It was my first Camilla Sten book and I’ll dive into her backlist now !

3.5 stars This was an unnerving thriller whose description was a bit off the mark but still a gripping read. Eleanor has a condition in which she can't recognize faces. I thought this element would be a more prominent part of the story but it was actually not that important. I was also hoping for more of a gothic haunted house feature but it didn't really read that way. This was pure mystery thriller. A terrific mystery at that. I had no idea what the twist would be. I was glued to the audio eager to know how it would end.

The pacing was off at times but the ending made up for it. I will also add that the character's names confused me. They sounded similar to me and I kept getting mixed up as to who was who. I think reading the book might be a better way to go than audio. Although the audio performance was very good.

After Eleanor finds her grandmother murdered, she discovers that she's inherited an old mansion. She and her boyfriend arrange to meet the lawyer there. Her aunt also shows up. The house is unsettling and mysterious things start happening. Who murdered her grandmother and what is the dark history behind this house?

Thank you to Netgalley for an advanced audio copy in exchange for an honest review.

Fantastic audiobook. I loved the narrator! My full review can be found below:

**3.5-stars rounded up**

The Resting Place is the second novel I've read from Camilla Sten. The first was The Lost Village, which I read in early-2021 and gave 3.5-stars, not rounding up. While there were aspects of that story I enjoyed, overall I would say I had been hoping for a lot more. I'm happy to report, The Resting Place gave me more.

This story is about Eleanor, who suffers from prosopagnosia, or face blindness. As in, she is unable to recognize facial features. So, when Eleanor walks in on her Grandmother's murder and comes face-to-face with the killer, she is unable to describe the individual after the fact.

The grandmother, Vivianne, was a real piece of work. She was not a nice lady and even though she raised Eleanor, she never showered Eleanor with the love that a mother-figure should. She's Lady Tremaine basically. That's the vibe she was giving me.

Time passes and then Eleanor gets a call: 'Hey, hi, hello. So, your Grandmother owns this creepy manor home that she never told you about. It's where you're Grandfather died actually and guess what, now it's yours. We need you to come to the house and work through some estate dealings. Okay? Great, byeeeeeee.'

Eleanor agrees and travels to the property, tucked away in the Swedish wilderness, along with her boyfriend, Sebastian, her Aunt Veronika, and the probate attorney. Once there, the interactions are tense. Eleanor's Aunt definitely inherited the family gene of general bitchiness, so there are some uncomfortable moments.

Additionally, the property itself gives off an abandoned and haunted vibe. They're told there's a groundskeeper there, Benson, but they're unable to locate him. That fact alone puts a dark cloud over the travelers. It's a confusing first day and what's worse, there's inclement weather coming in. Of course!

The Resting Place is told through past and present timelines. In addition to Eleanor's perspective, you also get that of Anushka, who lived at the property decades before working as a housemaid. Sten uses diary entries as a medium for telling some of the past perspective and I really enjoyed that aspect. There's something about getting to read someone else's diary that is just so darn intriguing.

There's also some psychological tension created because of Eleanor's prosopagnosia. The woman literally came face-to-face with a killer and survived. This killer was never caught. He or she could be anywhere, be anyone, and Eleanor has to live with that. How can she trust anyone?

In addition to the tension, this story is full, absolutely over-flowing full, of dark family secrets. The kind of secrets that are hidden from future generations. They're that bad. I love family drama and I love family secrets. I always enjoy watching people's dirty laundry being aired. Call it schadenfreude, call it wicked, call it whatever you like, it's just me.

My biggest complaint with this one is that I found it to be slightly confusing. After I finished reading, I was thinking about it quite a bit, discussing it with my dog, as you do, and I realized, I have a lot of questions. Like here we were at the end, and I had numerous questions about the familial relationships, connections and the conclusion. I'm not sure if I just missed something along the way, or if the questions I have are questions that will arise for other Readers as well.

With this being said though, this is definitely a step up for me from The Lost Village. Frankly, I like that for my relationship with Camilla Sten. We're on an upward trajectory. I love that.

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 serves up next!

My second audio book and I am loving the genre. The Resting Place is told by multiple narrators, in the past and n the present day, and begins with the protagonist, Eleanor, witnessing her grandmother’s murderer leaving the apartment when she arrives for their obligatory Sunday dinner. But Eleanor suffers from prosopagnosia, the inability to recognize faces and as a result, is unable to assist the police in their investigation. With the reading of the will, Eleanor learns of a country house that her grandmother had never spoken about and the majority of the story takes place when she and her boyfriend Sebastian meet her aunt and a lawyer at the property to inventory. There, Eleanor uncovers long buried secrets about her grandmother who raised her as well as concerning the family that she never knew. This is a suspenseful tale that will keep the listener guessing until the very end and.I don’t think many will guess the secrets until, the very end. Thanks to Netgalley and MacMillan Audio for the preview recording.

A Resting Place by Camilla Sten was an addictive mystery thriller that I found hard to stop listening to. It had all the elements of suspense, horror, fear and tense moments necessary to make it a heart pounding mystery thriller. The characters were rich and well developed and the plot was swift and chilling. There were twists and turns and I found myself guessing often about the outcome. A Resting Place was saturated with hints and then revelations of long buried family secrets. The dynamics and long buried history and secrets of this troublesome family were centered around an eerie, rambling and isolated inherited estate. Angela Dawe performed this audiobook in a very convincing and wonderful way.

When Eleanor’s mother died from breast cancer, her maternal grandmother, Vivianne, brought her up. Her grandmother was not the most warm and loving figure young Eleanor had envisioned in her life. In contrast, Vivianne was demanding and controlling. As Eleanor approached adulthood, she finally escaped her grandmother’s smothering control. Of course Vivianne made stipulations about this arrangement. Eleanor was allowed to move out of her grandmother’s apartment as long as she came for dinner and called on the days her grandmother specified. On one of those expected family dinner nights, Eleanor arrived at her grandmother’s apartment only to be met by an unidentified person leaving her grandmother’s apartment in a hurry. Eleanor suffered from prosopagnosia since she was a young girl. She was not able to identify or recognize faces. Even though Eleanor looked directly at her grandmother’s killer she would never be able to identify the killer’s face. Eleanor very quickly realized that her grandmother had been brutally murdered with a pair of sharp scissors. Eleanor compensated for her disability by using voice recognition or by recognizing other distinguishing features about the person. Unfortunately, her grandmother’s killer never spoke and nothing about the killer was familiar to Eleanor. Although Eleanor and her grandmother had a very unconventional relationship, Eleanor was saddened by her grandmother’s death and realized how much she had loved her and would miss her. Eleanor became obsessed with fear and anxiety over what she had witnessed. She feared that the killer would return and she would be at a disadvantage because she would not be able to recognize the person as her grandmother’s murderer.

A few weeks after her grandmother’s murder, which the police ruled as a robbery, a lawyer contacted Eleanor and told her that her grandmother had left her an estate located in the Swedish woods. The lawyer advised Eleanor that before she decided whether she would keep the estate or sell it, they should pay a visit to the house and take inventory of all its belongings and determine their value. Eleanor never heard her grandmother talk about or mention anything about this house. She traveled to the house with her boyfriend of many years, Sebastian. Her estranged and sometimes unpleasant aunt Veronika and the lawyer met her and Sebastian there. The house had been abandoned for decades but appeared to have been well cared for by someone. Eleanor sensed something sinister and creepy as soon as she entered the house. It was in this house that her grandfather had died all those years ago. She felt a presence of someone watching them. Strange things began to happen. Things started to disappear. Were they all in danger? What secrets was the house hiding from Eleanor?

The Resting Place by Camilla Sten was told in alternating voices and time periods. The present day was told by Eleanor and the past was revealed through the pages of a diary that Eleanor discovered in the house. Eventually the past collided with the present. I did not see or guess the ending before it was revealed. I was captured by the occurrences and revelations that were presented in this audiobook. It was hard to turn off. I truly enjoyed listening to the audiobook of The Resting Place and highly recommend it.

Thank you to Macmillan Audio for allowing me to listen to this advanced copy of the audiobook of The Resting Place through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. Publication is expected to be on March 29,2022

THE RESTING PLACE by Camilla Sten translated by Alexandra Fleming is a five star thriller and my fave thriller of this year so far! I loved this book! It’s about a woman, Eleanor, who has prosopagnosia (face blindness) and comes face to face with her grandmother’s killer. Then Eleanor visits her grandmother’s old house in the Swedish woods and discovers the truth about her family.
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I loved so much in this book:
- unreliable narrator! Eleanor saw the killer’s face but she doesn’t know who it was! She begins to question who she can really trust
- chilly setting of this old house far away from any neighbours in the wintertime
- super moody and eerie vibes, so much suspense!
- alternating timelines that never got confusing
- surprising twists that I didn’t guess, some parts made me shout out loud
- Angela Dawe is an excellent narrator on the audiobook
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Thank you to Minotaur Books for my gifted finished hardcover copy and Macmillan Audio via NetGalley for my ALC!

A dark, intense atmospheric book that was translated to English! The MC has face blindness and she saw the killer leave the house with the knife that killed her grandmother, however she can’t identify the face.
One of my favorite tropes: The country estate that can be set up for a perfect combo of locked room mystery/haunted house/the black sheep and so many more.

I thought the narrator did a phenomenal job.

I read Camilla Sten's book Lost Village last year after it got so much hype and was honestly a little disappointed but I wanted to give another one of her books a try. I hadn't heard of this one but I liked this one a lot better. I think the translation was strong and the narrator did a really great job. While the story about a murder, family secrets and an old abandoned summer house was interesting, I did think that the story suffered from pacing issues. At one point I thought the story was getting ready to wrap up when I realized there was still 3 hours of audio left. I did like the format it was told in, with the two timelines told in alternating chapters and one was in diary format. For people who enjoy domestic thrillers I think that this would be one to pick up and after enjoying this one I think that I will read more of the author's work.

Let me start by saying I have seen some great reviews of this one, so I am definitely in the minority here but this just didn’t do much for me. I was expecting a dark, creepy atmospheric suspenseful thriller but instead it was a slow burn overly drawn out plot. The character names were similar Vivianne, Vendela, Veronika, Victoria (who also goes by Eleanor to make it extra confusing). There aren’t that many characters in the story, but unfortunately the ones who were there felt bland and underdeveloped. It is still really well written, but the plot and pacing just didn’t work for me. There was a surprise twist that I hadn’t expected but it didn’t have as much of an impact due to the characters involved.

I had both the audio and physical copy of this, but I had issues with the NetGalley app crashing and distorting the playback and read the majority of this using the physical book. I do think I’m the unpopular opinion on this, so I encourage you to check out some of the rave reviews and check this one out if it sounds interesting to you.

Thanks to MacMillan Audio and NetGalley for the ALC and Minotaur Books for the ARC. The Resting Place will be out on March 29.

I believe it’s true that secrets don’t die. They always rise up to the surface, sometimes literally, like in this case, where a diary hidden under the floorboards exposes lies and betrayal.

I thoroughly enjoyed both the audio and paper versions of Camilla Sten’s @wednesdaysten The Resting Place. There’s a spooky old house, a winter storm that makes escape impossible, and an unknown assailant. All the elements for #thrillerthursday 🏠 ❄️ 🩸

Thanks to my partners at @minotaur_books for my early copy and the super cute journal and to @macmillan.audio and @netgalley for my early audio version. The Resting Place will be out on Tuesday, but, if you’re looking for a weekend read, check out last year’s The Lost Village!

Link to 3/24./2022 Instagram post:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CbfyVhlr7hm/

~Super spooky ooky~ So good. First off, writing about a protagonist with prosopagnosia is SUCH an interesting concept. This author did that so well! Having a character who was unable to trust her interpretation of the environment because of prosopagnosia was a nice change of pace from the "unreliable narrator" device that is quite popular these days.

The main character, Eleanor, suffers from prosopagnosia and is especially haunted after witnessing the murder of her grandmother, Vivianne. Eleanor is endlessly tormented by the fact that she saw the killer but cannot identify this person due to her condition. Months after the murder, Eleanor is still struggling to cope. She receives a phone call from her grandmother's lawyer who tells her that she has inherited a secret country estate that her grandmother has never mentioned. While at the estate, she discovers a servant's diary hidden beneath the floorboards. From that point, the story begins to alternate between the past and present, slowly revealing all of the secrets of a very dark history.

Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for sharing a digital copy with me in exchange my honest opinions.