THE LOST VILLAGE by Camilla Sten
Minotaur; 3/23/21
CBTB Rating: 5/5
The Verdict: slow-burning, dread-inducing suspense
Camilla Sten’s outstanding debut thriller THE LOST VILLAGE has all the ingredients of a CBTB favorite. This chilling, horror-tinged story takes place in Sweden, following a compelling female protagonist as she embarks on a (possibly misguided) mission that feels like perfect fodder for your next favorite horror movie. THE LOST VILLAGE has been compared to films including The Blair Witch Project and Midsommar—high praise, to be sure, and praise that I actually felt this book completely deserved. In THE LOST VILLAGE, a documentary filmmaker travels with her crew to an abandoned mining town to begin gathering information and footage for her newest project. But as the group settles in and begins exploring, a series of bizarre and increasingly sinister events call into question just how abandoned the town really is… and whether they are actually welcome there. Blending the subtle sensibility of Scandinavian crime fiction with a plot that blends psychological thrills and horror to pitch-perfect effect, THE LOST VILLAGE is a thoroughly engrossing, read-with-all-the-lights-on book. I was fortunate enough to read a review copy of this stellar suspense novel back in January, and it became my first 5/5 star review of the new year. For readers who love sinister suspense stories with cinematic settings, and thrillers that incorporate elements of horror, THE LOST VILLAGE is a book you won’t want to miss.
Plot Details:
Documentary filmmaker Alice Lindstedt has been obsessed with the vanishing residents of the old mining town, dubbed “The Lost Village,” since she was a little girl. In 1959, her grandmother’s entire family disappeared in this mysterious tragedy, and ever since, the unanswered questions surrounding the only two people who were left—a woman stoned to death in the town center and an abandoned newborn—have plagued her. She’s gathered a small crew of friends in the remote village to make a film about what really happened.
But there will be no turning back.
Not long after they’ve set up camp, mysterious things begin to happen. Equipment is destroyed. People go missing. As doubt breeds fear and their very minds begin to crack, one thing becomes startlingly clear to Alice:
They are not alone.
They’re looking for the truth…
But what if it finds them first?
Come find out.
In THE LOST VILLAGE, readers follow documentary filmmaker Alice, who is embarking on the production of a documentary that will explore a story she has been obsessed with for years. In the 1950’s, the population of the Swedish mining village Silvertjärn vanished without a trace. This story is bizarre, yes, but it’s more than that for Alice: it’s a missing piece of her own family history that she is determined to uncover. Alice’s grandmother grew up in this very same town, and her entire family vanished along with almost all of the town’s residents on that fateful day many years ago. The only two people left in the town after this disappearance? An infant, and the body of a woman found in the town center. There are so many unanswered questions surrounding the fate of Silvertjärn’s population—first and foremost, where exactly did the townspeople go when they vanished? And what explanation could there possibly be for the newborn baby and corpse that were left behind? Alice has gathered a crew, secured an investor for her documentary, and she and her team are traveling to the mining village for their first fact-finding mission when THE LOST VILLAGE begins. As the group settles in and begins exploring the town, a series of increasingly sinister events begin to plague them. Could the town not be quite as abandoned as they had first believed? Camilla Sten shrouds THE LOST VILLAGE in dread, drawing her protagonists and her readers ever closer to the truth at the heart of Silvertjärn’s history.
Abandoned towns have always held such a special place in my imagination, and I was utterly riveted by the way Camilla Sten develops her story’s setting in THE LOST VILLAGE. Following Alice and her team as they begin exploring the abandoned mining village in which our story takes place, readers are given a front-row seat to the dark and sinister discoveries that they begin to make. THE LOST VILLAGE is a slow-burning book, but one of the key elements that made it so engrossing for me was the way the author unfurls the town’s many secrets and dark, decaying corners bit by bit. You know those snapshot moments in horror movies that imprint themselves on your brain long after the film’s final credits have rolled? That’s how I felt about certain moments in THE LOST VILLAGE. Sten vividly describes the eerie silence of Silvertjärn; she invites readers to explore its abandoned buildings and homes, and makes readers witness to the way in which time seems to have stood still in this community. Imagine walking into a home that has been abandoned for over 50 years… and yet it looks almost like its owner just stepped out for a moment, and would be back any second. Coffee mugs left on counters, beds left unmade, curtains blowing in the breeze—it’s as if the residents of this village were there one moment, going about their daily lives, and gone the next. Camilla Sten expertly ratchets up the tension in THE LOST VILLAGE, doling out little hints in the book’s early pages of greater horrors to come. Complementing the increasing intensity of the book’s plot is the increasing intensity of the relationships between Alice and her crew members. While I wouldn’t necessarily call THE LOST VILLAGE a highly character-driven story, I nevertheless loved the way Sten crafts her characters and their relationships with one another. Within Sten’s central group of compelling characters, readers will explore friendships that have soured over the years, romantic entanglements, and many hidden secrets. There’s nothing like a life-or-death situation to intensify the way people react to one another, and Sten expertly raises the stakes for her characters bit by bit over the course of the story. Will they crack under this pressure? Or band together to survive the ordeal they’ve found themselves in? And what secrets might they learn about one another along the way? I was desperate to find out.
THE LOST VILLAGE primarily centers around protagonist Alice and her crew in the present day, but Camilla Sten also weaves into this book a past timeline that greatly enhanced my reading experience. In the past, readers get a firsthand glimpse into life in Silvertjärn in the days and weeks leading up to that fateful disappearance. If the story’s present-day timeline, with its cast of documentary filmmakers, is the piece of the book that earns its comparison to The Blair Witch Project, the story’s past timeline is where it earns its comparison to the brilliant movie Midsommar. In brief yet increasingly disturbing chapters, the narrator of this past timeline—a woman living in town who went on to become probably my favorite character out of this entire novel—recounts the increasingly strange and tense atmosphere in her community. Camilla Sten expertly weaves present and past together in THE LOST VILLAGE, using these dual timelines to slowly but surely give readers a complete understanding of the fates of our town’s residents. The more I learned about Silvertjärn’s past through its 1950’s timeline, the more I was able to witness echoes of this past reverberating through its present. I loved the way the author handled these dual timelines; they served to support one another and enhance the tense, increasingly scary atmosphere of this novel.
THE LOST VILLAGE might be set in Sweden, but this chilling thriller is a far cry from traditional Nordic Noir. (I mean absolutely no disrespect to traditional Scandinavian crime fiction—we know that’s my favorite crime fiction subgenre! This is simply a very different kind of book.) Though its subtler sensibility might be attributed to its Scandinavian roots, THE LOST VILLAGE is a psychological suspense novel through and through, and it’s one that brilliantly incorporates touches of vaguely supernatural thrills to enhance its spine-tingling atmosphere. Slow-burning yet gripping, subtle yet scary, THE LOST VILLAGE draws on elements of horror to craft an irresistibly creepy reading experience. Though I personally didn’t find THE LOST VILLAGE an ultra-scary read, it is absolutely a book that incorporates elements of horror and tragedy; this is a story with dark themes and events at its core. The scariest element of this book, to me, was the palpable sense of dread that author Camilla Sten conjures up. Readers will be on the edge of their seats to uncover the truth at the heart of the mining village, and to see if Alice and her team will manage to get out of this town with their lives.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. All opinions my own.
Book Details:
Publisher : Minotaur Books; 1st edition (March 23, 2021)
Language : English
Hardcover : 352 pages
ISBN-10 : 1250249252
ISBN-13 : 978-1250249258
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