Cover Image: The Resting Place

The Resting Place

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Member Reviews

This was an intriguing story and puzzle of is she actually seeing & hearing things or is it all just inside her head. Overall, a fun suspenseful read.

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3.5 rounded up to 4 stars. This book is a slow burn that keeps you guessing until the very end. I find prosopagnosia interesting, so I enjoy books that feature it. I enjoyed the dual timelines from past to present, and the locked door trope. I did find all of the V names confusing. Overall it was a bit slow at times but still enjoyable, and I'll definitely check out this author's previous translated book.

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Not my favorite. I’d absolutely recommend readers try THE LOST VILLAGE first. I found this to be very slow at times and was bored. I’m also not a huge fan of the facial blindness storyline.

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Eleanor has prosopagnosia, which means she cannot recognize people’s faces. This proves particularly troublesome when she comes face-to-face with her grandmother’s (murderer and cannot identify the killer. It turns out that her grandmother, Vivianne, has left a secret mansion in the forests of Sweden to her. Eleanor, her boyfriend Sebastian, her aunt Viktoria and the estate lawyer visit the house to catalogue the property. The visit turns into a nightmare when Eleanor begins seeing and hearing things that none of the other guests seem to be aware of. As Eleanor searches the house and property, she uncovers secrets and mysteries that have been hidden away for half a century.

This book was very well written and is a suspenseful page-turner. If you enjoy a good mystery and love creepy old houses (like I do), you’ll love this book.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

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Just found this book really strange.Very different then any books I have read before, I have never read a book that discusses blindness before..Thank you for giving me a chance.

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Just a word of thanks to both Netgalley, as well as Minotaur Books, for allowing me to have an advanced reading copy of The Resting Place in exchange for an honest review.

Camilla Sten’s newest thriller, The Resting Place, begins when our main character, Eleanor, visits her grandmother Vivianne, only to find her being murdered with a pair of scissors. Unfortunately, Eleanor is unable to recognize the killer due to her prosopagnosia - the inability to record and remember faces of people. And so begins another enjoyable thriller from Camilla Sten.

I enjoyed Sten’s last novel, The Lost Village, and The Resting Place did not disappoint either. As the novel progresses, we find that Eleanor is left with an inheritance of a large manor named Solhoga. Eleanor, her boyfriend Sebastian, and Eleanor’s aunt, Veronika, are all to meet a lawyer at Solhoga to inventory and divvy up the inheritance. As with any good thriller, not everyone is as they say they are. Eleanor believes she sees someone in the shadows, she hears things at the manor, etc. Ultimately, readers find there is someone also at the manor, and the excitement intensifies as there is also a snowstorm causing the power to go out, and not allowing the crew to leave the manor. Concurrently throughout the novel, readers go back to the 1960’s in which we read about a dark familial secret that ties in to why Eleanor’s grandmother was murdered.

The Resting Place was an enjoyable read, and reminded me quite a bit of A Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware (also an enjoyable thriller). Camilla Sten’s writing will keep you turning pages.

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The short chapters and switching POV made it hard to put this book down. It was a bit hard to follow at times because I would need to remind myself who was related to whom, but that may have just been me since their names were strange, being a translated book. Make sure you have plenty of time when you get to the end, so you can finish it all in one big chunk! My kids kept interrupting for dinner, and it was making me resentful of them! lol

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I received an arc for honest review from the publisher. Thank you Minotaur Books!
I was definitely excited to read this one. I read Camilla Sten's first book, The Lost Village, and really enjoyed the creepy atmosphere it delivered. The Resting Place is another book with a great, creepy atmosphere. I really love Sten's settings.
The Resting Place is a manor house, in the middle of the forest, where dark secrets have been hidden.
I really enjoyed it. It was a quick read. It had pretty short chapters, so it was easy to want to read a lot of it in one sitting. It alternated between the present day and diary entries from a previous resident.
I was definitely intrigued finding out the story of what had happened in this place, with this family. I thought it did a great job of slowly revealing things. It could be a little confusing in that there were multiple characters who had more than one name. It was a thing I had to keep track of in my head.
Our main character also has Prosopagnosia, face blindness. This mostly comes into play when her grandmother gets murdered at the beginning of the book and she's not able to recognize the killer. I liked the way the disorder was explained. It was like she couldn't put the pieces of the face together into a recognizable way. She would look for specific things to recognize people, like eyebrows or hairstyles. The Prosopagnosia was important, but kind of a background element at the same time. Something that Eleanor just had to learn to live with.
This had a tense feel to it that I enjoyed. Our characters are stuck at this house, with frigid temperatures and snow.
There were parts of the ending that were interesting. The ultimate who-done-it was a little lackluster. Just more of a why? Why go to all this unnecessary trouble. Through the diary entries, the readers discover the secrets of the manor, but I don't think the main characters ever really do. I also would have liked a little more about what happened after, especially with Eleanor and her boyfriend, they didn't seem to be the most in love through most of the book. Are she and her aunt closer now? What happened with the other guy? Also, why was Vivianne so mean?
I definitely enjoyed it. I'll read more stuff by Camilla Sten in the future, when she comes out with her next book.


BOOKCITEMENT LEVEL 4/5
Love the Creepy Setting

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Camilla Sten does it again!! Knocked it right out the park with The Resting Place. A claustrophobic thriller theme book that had me fully mesmerized!! Dual time lines, dysfunctional family, lots of twist making it it the perfect late night read to keep you fully creeped out and wanting to sleep with the lights on.

A huge thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an e-arc, a physical copy and an ALC. And yes, I utilized and enjoyed all three!! The narration while reading along with the physical book is always my favorite way to read and to devour these type of thrilling books. Then reading late into the night on my kindle kept me extra on edge & terrified! These opinions are my own. I HIGHLY recommend this one!! Go in blind and enjoy the ride!!

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Thanks to NetGalley and all for an ARC copy in return for an honest review.
I really enjoyed the writing style and the plots of both timelines. However, I just had a hard time getting pulled into the book and didn't really feel the suspense building. Didn't dislike it but probably not one I'll be recommending.

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I truly enjoyed this book and I flew through it in less than 2 days. Although I liked The Lost Village more, this is a perfect locked room mystery and a very different kind of story while revolving around the same themes. This, at it core is a family drama but I’d also say that it’s a chiller (spooky thriller). I definitely recommend reading this book on a cold winter night so that you can truly feel the snowed in atmosphere.

***From this point on my review contains spoilers***
Okay, I loved this story and I never suspected that the psychiatrist was also the little girl from the diary and I definitely never suspected her as the culprit. The story flowed perfectly between the present and the found diary, which is and always will be one of my favourite tropes. While some of the twists were easy to see coming, like the cousins switching places, I never would have guessed how this came to be. Overall I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a good mystery.

The one thing I disliked the most was Elanors loyalty to Sebastian. He sucked!! Why does she want to work it out with that asshat?

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This book had a lot of great twists and turns! I liked that Eleanor's condition wasn't harped on, that it was woven into the story in a natural way, so that readers really get the idea of what it's like to live with prosopagnosia. Her constant frustration and confusion about her grandmother's death, coupled with how helpless she feels in the beginning, are real and relatable.

The author does an excellent job of throwing in enough red herrings to make readers question different people at different points of time. Is Veronika really just riled with grief, or does she have an ulterior motive? Does Sebastian really want what's best for Eleanor, or is he somehow connected to her past? Why does the lawyer keep acting the way he does?

Because the mystery centers on four characters, and Eleanor is the protagonist, it's not hard to figure out who's responsible for the mysterious events at the house. However, the way Camilla Sten brings these things together is surprising and refreshing. Also, the characters act in realistic ways, unlike characters in so many other murder mysteries.

The revelation of the murderer was definitely a surprise, and Camilla Sten does a great job of tying everything together in the end. Anyone who likes a good old-fashioned murder mystery set in a new locale will definitely like this one.

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The premise is definitely interesting with a medical condition that I’ve definitely never come across before and should guarantee a ratcheted up level of tensions.

Sadly, this felt like it moved too slowly and the various family members and characters and the time shifts made this feel muddled. I was hoping I would be on the edge of my seat and this would feel like a twisted version of clue, but I couldn’t stay engaged. I found my mind wandering several times and our MC felt very…scattered. Not in an unreliable way, or even just someone full of anxiety, but just written in a way that she couldn’t decide what she wanted to be or how she felt. She teeters between extremes and at moments comes across so juvenile that I really struggled with her.

Ultimately I would recommend The Lost Village over this one, but I’m still eager to read more from this creative author.

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Checked alot of things off that I love :
Family drama
Group of friends gather together
In the middle of nowhere
Trapped
Dark secrets
Creepy ,
Told in 2 different perspectives
Once you start it you can't put it down, started it yesterday and finished it the same day .

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I've had this for ages but after being really disappointed by Alice Feeney's Rock Paper Scissors and its use of prosopagnosia, I kept putting this off. But wow was that a mistake.

Camilla Sten's ability to build atmosphere is incredible and I loved the use of the isolation trope here. Some of the logic of the plot did kind of fall off for me, but I zoomed through this anyway because I was so invested. I think I preferred The Lost Village slightly more than this one, but I am still looking forward to reading future works by this author!

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This was a pretty good story. What I liked: well-developed characters, interesting location, plot deliciously twisted. What I didn’t like: story was a bit long, repetitive dialogue, ending fell flat. SPOILER: I was surprised that there wasn’t more discussion at the end about the switch of characters and ensuing deceptive lifestyle.

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I really, really wanted to love this book, but ultimately it wasn’t for me. I previously read the author’s first book, The Lost Village, after having it preordered for months. The first section of the book was gripping, but the end contained implausible action piled up on implausible action, culminating in a cranky ridiculous ending. Unfortunately, The Resting Place was more of the same. It had a great concept but couldn’t quite pull together a coherent and believable ending. If you’re looking for a quick, entertaining read, pick it up, but leave your critical thinking skills at the door.

Thanks to the publisher and to NetGalley for an early copy of this book.

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After reading The Lost Village, I was definitely looking forward to Sten's next book. The story does a great job of creating a creepy, tense tone and I listened to this all at once because I needed to know exactly what was going on here. The plot is split between past and present which helped break the book up, though I liked Eleanor's present more.

There are several moving pieces in this and I had a good time trying to figure out what was going on. There were a couple things I guessed, but still a few surprises to keep me entertained. I liked that the characters were flawed and not always likeable. It felt more realistic and even though Eleanor sometimes frustrated me, I was rooting for her to find out what was going on in that creepy house and make it out alive.

This is well paced and never boring and the audiobook has a great narrator to draw you in. I can't wait for the next hit from Sten!

I voluntarily read and reviewed this book. All opinions are my own. Thank you to Minotaur Books and NetGalley for the copy.

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This one was an odd one for me because while I absolutely enjoyed it, there were elements that I think could have been done better. The suspense was fantastic but I didn’t feel a connection to Solhoga which should have been this hulking, terrifying mansion of almost haunted house vibes.

There were enough twists to keep me guessing which is why I definitely enjoyed it. The narrative was at times tricky to follow with multiple perspectives and timelines, but overall an enjoyable suspense novel.

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The Resting Face follows traumatized Eleanor, who witnessed her grandmother's murder, but cannot identify the culprit as she has face blindness. If you enjoy dysfunctional families with secrets, old scary houses with a creepy groundkeeper, and swirl in some psychological thrills - this book is for you. Enjoy!

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