Eleanor has prosopagnosia- the inability to recognize the face of someone you know.
When her cruel grandmother is murdered, she sees the killer. But the face mean nothing to her, as she cannot recognize them.
When she learns her grandmother has left her an estate in the woods, the secrets they find there may help to unravel the dark past

Although the plots are different, the structure of "The Resting Place" is similar to Sten's earlier book "The Lost Village" (2021) with strong visual images that suggest this also would make a good, scary movie. Told in the first person in the present and interspersed with a voice from the past as the secrets are revealed. Another well-done translation from the Swedish by Alexandra Fleming.

FIRST SENTENCE: "The light in the small room is cold, the stark, white glare of an eco-friendly bulb."

THE STORY: Eleanor saw her grandmother Vivianne's murderer. She thinks she should know who it was but she suffers from prosopagnosia or face blindness. Using unique facial features she can recognize people but it's easy enough to conceal one's identity. Fixating on the fear that the murderer could be anyone and anywhere, Eleanor is full of anxiety which is intensified when a lawyer calls to tell her that Vivianne has left her the large Victorian summer home that has been abandoned for years. Wanting to learn her family's secrets, Eleanor, her boyfriend Sebastian, her cousin Veronika, and the lawyer head to the remote location to begin an inventory of the house.

In the beginning when odd things happen, it is easy for them to be dismissed, but Eleanor suspects they are not alone. Is she right or still emotional since the death of her grandmother?

WHAT I THOUGHT: This is a "stay up late to finish" kind of story. The author has mastered the art of ending each chapter with a hook to make the reader turn just one more page. The creepy atmosphere keeps everything slightly off-kilter.The writing is fine and the characters are interesting, but the relationships and the true identities of the people are confusing. It wasn't until I was halfway through that I began to understand who was who; because although there aren't a lot of characters, the women all had two names with one starting with "V": Victoria, Vivianne, Veronika. The ending felt rushed and a bit contrived.

BOTTOM LINE: HIGHLYRECOMMENDED for suspense and thriller readers.

DISCLAIMER: Thank you to NetGalley / Minotaur St. Martin's Press, and the author for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

Eleanor is with her boyfriend Sebastian in the Swedish countryside to inventory her late grandmother’s estate. A grandmother who was abusive and cruel, In a home she didn’t know Vivianne had owned. With the lawyer and an estranged aunt to help, Eleanor soon uncovers more of a past she knew nothing about… and as violence unfolds around them, she realizes her grandmother’s murderer may be on the property with them! Full of twists and turns, I loved many of the elements of this story by Camilla Sten. If you are a fan of secret diaries and hidden pasts, you will enjoy The Resting Place. I received an ARC of this book, all opinions are my own..

Eleanor lives with prosopagnosia, the inability to recognize a familiar person's face. It causes stress. Acute anxiety.

It can make you question what you think you know.

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.

Then a lawyer calls. Vivianne has left her a house—a looming estate tucked away in the Swedish woods. The place her grandfather died, suddenly. A place that has housed a chilling past for over fifty years.

Eleanor. Her steadfast boyfriend, Sebastian. Her reckless aunt, Veronika. The lawyer. All will go to this house of secrets, looking for answers. But as they get closer to uncovering the truth, they’ll wish they had never come to disturb what rests there.

I really enjoyed reading "The Resting Place." Although the book started out a little bit slow, it did start to speed up and things got more and more interesting once the diary was found. I appreciated the views of two different storylines wrapping up into one in the end. I appreciated the explanation and coverage of prosopagnosia, as I had never heard of this before. The twist was incredible and really made sense with how rotten Vivianne was a person, knowing more of what she dealt with.

The Lost Village was one of my favourite books of 2020, and The Resting Place completely lived up to my expectations! It wasn't a formulaic thriller; it was fresh, exciting, and unexpected, with fabulously unreliable narration. I couldn't put it down! I cannot wait to see what Sten writes next, she is becoming a fast favourite for a satisfying, twisty, and un=put-downable read!

So much better than The Lost Village, in my opinion!!

We follow Eleanor who has inherited her grandmother secret estate after her murder. We travel to the estate and shortly start uncovering long buried family secrets. The atmosphere was absolutely top notch. We are confined to the estate for the entire story, both in the present and in the past via diary entries. The past entries span quite a length of time while the present timeline takes place over the course of a few days.

Eleanor is understandably paranoid after witnessing her grandmothers murder, so being in her head really ups the anxiety of the reader and the snow storms and inclement weather add to the feeling of dread.

I absolutely loved uncovering the family secrets and thought the author did a great job of revealing everything!!

ARC copy received via Netgalley from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

⭐⭐⭐.3.Stars

The “V” Characters:
Grandmother ~ Vivianne
Two Daughters ~ Vendela and Veronika
Granddaughter Victoria Eleanor

However, Victoria prefers to be called by her middle name Eleanor.

Eleanor suffers from ‘face blindness’ medical term is prosopagnosia. She cannot remember people’s face no matter how familiar; she will memorize some distinguishing feature so that there is something familiar.

She has lived with her Grandmother Vivianne ~ who much prefers to be called Vivianne than Grand Mother for sixteen years and really thinks of her as her mother. She often visits Vivianne sometimes for dinner sometimes just for a visit. When she arrives and knocks on the door, someone NOT her grandmother opens the door and rushes out past her. When she enters she finds she had been attacked and stabbed with scissors and is dying on the kitchen floor.
Although Eleanor saw the same she has no recognition and cannot identify the person.

Authorities believe it was a robbery gone wrong and have closed the case. Meanwhile, Eleanor finds out that her grandmother Vivianne has specified her in her will the owner of Solhoga her abandoned estate.

Story is told in two time periods by two narrators
Eleanor present day and
Agnuska back in 1960 ~ she was the maid at Solhoga, the abandoned estate.

This is my second Camilla Sten novel. I am on the fence with my rating ~ Her stories seem like something I would love but I am not there just yet ~ thus the reason for my 3.3 stars!

I have read several novels by Swedish authors and have to admit their mystery/thriller writing style is a bit of getting used to!
Note: I loved Jo Nesbo’s “The Snowman” as well as Camilla Lackberg’s “The Drowning”. However, I am one of the few mystery fans that didn’t love Stieg Larsson’s novels.
I Love Fredrick Backman and his great stories!

Want to thank NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press ~ Minotaur Books for this eGalley. This file has been made available to me before publication in an early form for an honest professional review.
Publishing Release Date scheduled for March 29, 2022.

What's in a name? An age-old question, perhaps, but no less impactful for the passage of time. The answer could be anything, if you were willing to go deep enough in an explanation. In Camilla Sten's The Resting Place, translated by Alexandra Fleming, the answer is power. Power, security, and secrets. So many of each, in fact, that in other hands they might have gotten lost in the weeds and forgotten along the way. In Sten's capable hands, we are given a constantly shifting, intricately crafted narrative that relies just as much on keeping its secrets as it does on revealing them.

I had the good fortune to review Sten's prior novel, The Lost Village, last year, so when I heard she was so soon after putting out another work I knew I would be in for a ride. What I didn't expect is that it would center around a protagonist with a seldom engaged with disability - prosopagnosia, the inability to recognize faces - who, after walking in on the horrific scene of her grandmother's murder and being left to deal with her estate, dedicates herself to discovering the identity of the killer while uncovering decades worth of secrets in her grandmother's Swedish summer house.

Face blindness as a plot device seems both wholly original and criminally underused in the horror genre. I am by no means calling for it to become anything close to a trope - men and authority figures in the genre already don't believe women when they do have names and faces to go by, and gaslighting women into madness is already enough of a trope of its own - but seeing it in the protagonist of a novel was a refreshingly original approach. So often the monsters are faceless and cast into anonymity by their own choice; what happens when the facelessness is accidental? Naturally, to us and to Eleanor, everyone becomes a suspect.

It is a credit to Sten's ability that the suspense of each reveal in the novel is kept tight to the chest, but perhaps more important even than that continually building sense of dread is the construction of Eleanor herself as a strong character not in spite of but rather alongside her prosopagnosia. She is constantly placed in situations where her anxiety should take the forefront, and yet she trusts herself enough to know and use the tools she has at her disposal to assuage her own fear, even when those around her try to cast doubt on her assertions as a way to settle their own nerves. She allows herself moments of vulnerability but refuses to be continually treated like some breakable object because of her disability. Naturally, I adore her all the more for it.

The Resting Place is, at its heart, somewhere between a ghost story (of sorts), a murder mystery, and a labyrinthine family history. While we're never spinning enough around the narratives turns to get fully lost, they are paced well enough to put us in just as precarious a position for trust as Eleanor herself. It's never so much that Eleanor is an unreliable narrator - the novel alternates between her in the present and a young woman named Anushka in the 1960s - but that the narrative path and the intricately crafted characters come together to create an atmosphere of constant unease.

As we wander the halls of the deceased Vivianne's summer home, the very air of the place takes on a sense of smothering secrecy, not to mention the mysteriously papered over doorway…and whether she wants to or not, Eleanor is compelled to bring those secrets to light. The Resting Place propels readers along in a cleverly convoluted mystery that asks and offers an answer to how much we can truly trust what we see, even when we do remember it. And how much truth is in one person's memory?

The Resting Place will be released on March 29, 2022 from Minotaur Press, an imprint of St. Martin's Publishing Group.

I would like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

I love the Lost Village, and I loved The Resting Place!
At first, it seemed to move a little slow and in the usual "girl inherits haunted house" format, but it amped up quickly and I was not disappointed. I read it quickly, enjoyed the plot and character development.
Great mystery read!

Not only was I initially intrigued by the cover and the brief blurb, but I was also curious about the kind of book an internationally admired author would write. I have to admit, I am now hooked and can't wait to read more by this author.
Camilla Sten really knows how to carefully put together all the details that made this story so atmospheric and stuffed the scenes with less than perfect characters leading slowly to more and more suspenseful scenes. From the first pages I could sense a feeling that things were going to go from bad to worse.

I also liked that the conclusion fit with the rest of the story. I definitely think this book deserves 5 stars.

The Resting Place by Camilla Sten
Expected Pub Date: 3/29/22

This story was full of mystery. It has extremely short chapters and because of that, I was able to breeze right through it. The prosopagnosia plot has been used more and more lately it seems. I don't always vibe with them, but I enjoyed this one.

It's a wintry atmospheric story which was nice to read over the winter. It's a shame this doesn't come out until early springtime. I know not all readers are seasonal, but I am.

One thing I wasn't a huge fan of was the names that the author chose for the characters. Man, I had an awful time keeping track because we have 3 very crucial ones...Victoria, Vivianne, and Veronika. Victoria goes by Eleanor but every so often she is referenced as Victoria.
It was a struggle for me to get in line from the very start. I had to jot down and refer back to them. My book was also filled with tabs! I have never been more thankful that this book was sent to me with a notebook! It helped a great deal.

I did call the ending early and the "who dun it" (which I'm very proud of!) but that didn't take anything away from how I felt when everything wrapped up. All in all, I liked it.

Many thanks to @minotaur_books & @netgalley for the ARC/eARC!

Eleanor was raised by her grandmother Vivienne, a cold dominating woman, following her mother's loss. An awkward child Eleanor suffers from face blindness making social interactions difficult. One Sunday she arrives for their regular lunch date and encounters Vivienne's killer. With the reading of the will she discovers a country estate previously unknown to her. She, her supportive boyfriend, and her aunt Veronika arrive to help the lawyer take stock. During the night a blizzard strands them and ominous events and sightings begin. Eleanor is convinced they are not alone . The author's prose builds a tense atmosphere of foreboding turning this literary trope into an immersive story. Eleanor is a very unusual protagonist and I was frantic to discover the answers right beside her.. This solid Scandinavian noir thriller is infused with family secrets, loss and betrayal as the sins of the past taint the future. I immediately searched out the author's first book and . will be recommending this book to friends and family.

I’m always fascinated by rare diseases. This is a thriller. The main character has prosopagnosia aka face blindness. This is an interesting read but I noticed myself skimming paragraphs. Her grandmother is murdered and she ends up face to face with the murderer… see the problem? Crazy right! There’s some twists, it’s creepy, fast moving, an easy and enjoyable read.

A dark, stormy and claustrophobic atmosphere storyline that takes place in a haunted house. I did have issues with the characters names. I hate when my reading continues to slow down because I have to think about who we’re talking about because the names are too similar. Im also not a fan of the prosopagnosia storyline. I did enjoy the alternating timelines and trying to figure out who murdered the main characters grandmother. I’m at a 3.5 rounded up to 4.

This is the second book I've read recently with a prominent character having prosopagnosia, or face blindness, and while it was something I had never heard of until recently, I'm wondering if it's going to become a trend in mystery/thriller books.

In The Resting Place, we meet Eleanor while in an interrogation room after finding her grandmother dead and coming face to face with the killer. Since she suffers from face blindness, she's unable to describe who the person was. Five months later, she receives word that she's been left a house in her grandmother's estate deep in the Swedish woods, where she arrives with her boyfriend, her aunt, and a lawyer to inventory the house.

I would say it started out pretty creepy and very haunted house-esque, but by about the middle of the book I started to get a bit bored. It wasn't that it wasn't good; I was just expecting more, well creepiness and horror that comes with a creepy old mansion.

It does have a good twist, although, I think for many you'll see it coming. Overall, it was good. I don't think it was nearly as good as The Lost Village, but a good read nonetheless.

Thank you to Minotaur Books and NetGalley for the digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.

3.5/5 stars

Rating: 3/5 stars.

“The Resting Place” by Camilla Sten is a mystery thriller centered around the main character’s prosopagnosia and inability to recognize faces. I loved “The Lost Village” and had high hopes for this novel, which kind of fell flat. I feel like the author could have really manipulated the protagonist’s prosopagnosia in a number of chilling ways, but missed almost every opportunity to do so. The story really lulled in places, partly due to the unlikeability of the personalities. While this was not a favourite of mine, I am looking forward to reading more translations of the author’s work into English.

*I received a complimentary copy of this book on NetGalley and have provided an honest review.*

4.5 stars rounded up to 5!

This one took me longer to get through as I took a little break during to focus on some other reads and thought I just wasn’t feeling it so much, but picked it back up today and finished the last 65% in one sitting! Part two had me completely sucked it and I needed answers to the endless dark and twisty family drama. Imagine having seen the person who murdered your grandmother, but due to a condition causing face blindness, you are unable to identify who it was that you saw? Ummm WHAT?!

I personally have not read any of Camilla Sten’s books after hearing lots of negative feedback about The Lost Villiage, but I’m thinking I may need to give that one a try now as well!

Eleanor has prosopagnosia. Otherwise known as face blindness. She doesn’t recognize faces like other people do. She is on her way into her grandmother’s apartment when someone comes sprinting out. Her grandma is laying dead on the floor and Eleanor has no way of identifying the murderer she saw.

Later on it’s brought to Eleanor’s attention that her grandmother owned a mansion that she wasn’t even aware of. When she goes to visit with her husband, aunt, and lawyer she begins to discover secrets from her grandmothers past.

Overall this was an okay read for me. Nothing ground breaking, but it held my attention and I was curious to see what was going to happen. I had no idea what the family secrets that unraveled were going to be and enjoyed that aspect of it. However, I didn’t think think the face blindness was used enough- it felt like an afterthought that was added in (and for anyone else knowing they have read this trope before but forgetting where it’s Rock Paper Scissors). Also, the chapters in this book are extremely short and for majority of the book I felt like they were that short to distract from the fact not much was happening.

I’m looking forward to seeing what others think of this book.

Super good fast paced thriller with wintery vibes! I loved this story of a woman visiting her late grandmother's secret estate while untangling what happened in her family's past. I would highly recommend this thriller with a touch of horror!