Slow crawl of a thriller, but stick with it.
The secrets of the dead never end with the dead, as this book so mysteriously exhibits.
Agendas, and people not being quite who they seem abound in this one.
3 stars because I feel like there was too much filler material that just didn't need to be included to have the same story. ⭐⭐⭐

In The Resting Place, Eleanor walks in on the scene of her grandmother's murder as the killer is leaving the apartment. Eleanor has face blindness and can't identify the murderer to the police. A few months later a lawyer notifies Eleanor that her grandmother left an estate to her, and Eleanor, her boyfriend, the lawyer, and her aunt go to the estate to evaluate it, but they are not alone.

The only reason I didn't finish The Resting Place in one night is that my Kindle ran out of charge when I was 80% through. After reading The Lost Village a few months ago, I've found Camilla Sten to be a reliable writer of thrillers. This was creepy, but not to the degree I had trouble falling asleep. I found the ending to this unpredictable, and I kept guessing who the mysterious figure was throughout the book. I enjoyed finding all my guesses were wrong. If you found The Lost Village too creepy or were turned off by the religious or abuse elements of that book, I would still recommend giving The Resting Place a chance. At its core, The Resting Place is a family drama told through a thriller. I didn't love the narrative technique of Eleanor reading the journal she found while certain chapters are from the journal, but it still was an interesting and enjoyable read.

St. Martin's Press/Minotaur Books I freaking love you! 😘
Thank you Publisher, NetGalley and Author for this readers ebook copy in return for an honest review!

When I was sent a widget for This Resting Place I might have screamed...... Maybe! 😉
I absolutely loved Sten's The Lost Village!
So to say I was thrilled is an understatement.

Such an addictive read! I was completely consumed in this story! The tension and suspense is phenomenal and intriguing. Not kidding when I say I opened my Kindle at 6pm yesterday and didn't stop reading till 3am this morning! Can you say devoted! LoL
A delicious, wild, unputdownable, perfectly sustained suspense book.
I thought this was incredibly atmospheric, and I could clearly picture the settings.
The characters were well drawn and amazing!
This is seriously like something in a horror movie! Amazing shit here!
Camilla Sten you are my absolute favorite author to date!

Thanks again NetGalley, Publisher and Author for the chance to read and review this amazing book!
I'll post to my Social media platforms closer to pub date!

This story is told through two timelines, one from the 1960's and the other from present day. In 1965 Anushka (Annika as she later becomes) works as a maid for her cousin, who is desperately trying to get pregnant. In present day Eleanor is going to a house with a group to take inventory on the house (the same one from 1965) to prepare it for sale. They decide to do this in winter, not long after they arrive a snow storm starts. That's when all the strange things start to happen, first the grounds keeper who is supposed to be there is no where to be found. Eleanor's aunt is attacked and hit on the head and almost freezes to death before being saved by Eleanor. A lawyer that had accompanied them also disappears after going to get another bottle of wine from the wine cellar. In 1965 we follow Anushka as she navigates her duties as a maid something she has not done previously. She is helped by another woman who has her child with her. The gentleman of the house, her cousin's husband, insists the child be kept out of sight. What happens in 1965 has a profound affect on the current day events, the author does a wonderful job of tying the two together. I highly enjoyed this book and recommend. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC

Camilla Sten is so good at weaving a blanket of foreboding into her novels. You feel it from the first page. In this one, she so perfectly laid the story together with narrative from the past and the present. It made everything fall into place and kept you from figuring out what was happening until the very end.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and Netgalley for the ARC. I voluntarily read and reviewed this title.

A beautifully written, spine chilling thriller. I didn’t want to put it down. This book was full of surprises. Absolutely fantastic read!

I first read Camilla Sten's The Lost Village and I loved it so when The Resting Place came out I picked it up instantly. I love that it features a woman with prosopagnosia as characters with disabilities are so under represented.

Once again Camilla Sten weaves a thriller that I was unable to put down from start to finish and stayed up way too late to finish. She is excellent at creating a story with "supernatural" elements that can be explained later on which I love and does a great job with the spooky atmosphere and character building.

I'd definitely read whatever else she writes.

Excellent example of a great thriller. The story telling by Camilla Sten is stellar in this unique tale about secrets kept by Eleanor's elegant grandmother. Those secrets hurt many people and the way this book unfolds makes it hard to stop reading. I thoroughly devoured it-I love the Scandinavian mysteries and this one does not disappoint. Highly recommend to anyone who likes a lot of twists of turns.

Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for the chance to read and review.

I loved The Lost Village by this author and was super excited to read her newest book.

And…I’m bummed because this one rates a ‘meh’ at best.

I did like Eleanor and her aunt. I was completely apathetic to Eleanor’s partner/boyfriend and could only hope as I was reading that he’d turn out to be some sort of secret psychopath so that he’d have some semblance of a personality.

The big mystery of the past wasn’t a mystery at all – it was painfully obvious what had happened and why. And the main character’s prosopagnosia was terribly underutilized.

I was surprised by the *who* of everything, but it wasn’t a shock – more like an “oh”.

Looking forward to reading the author again in the future, but this one just wasn’t for me.

*ARC via Publisher

⭐⭐⭐

Following in Camilla Sten's pattern of slow-creeping thrillers, The Resting Place certainly brought the air of someone watching you from all angles in the dark. A duel-POV, we follow both Eleanor; a woman with face-blindness who witnessed the brutal murder of her grandmother, and Anushka; a housekeeper from the 1960s who once lived within the same walls.

This was done in Sten's classic fashion and did not disappoint on that front. Her novels are wonderfully bizarre and full of twists. The atmosphere is so chilling no matter whose story you're reading from, but I found myself particularly interested in Anushka, the poor Polish girl navigating the savagery of her mistress and the strange kindness of the same woman's husband. She was determined to survive, determined to make something of herself despite all of the cruelty shown to her. It is not a happy story, but it was one I enjoyed following.

Eleanor, however, falls into another favored trope of Sten's that I have never been a fan of. Her face-blindness already makes her anxious and unsure of herself, but she is often looked on with pity, even by her own fiance, when her fears and suspicions surface in any capacity —even if they are well-founded. I wish Sten would focus less on the "woman has mental affliction and is considered crazed and unreliable by those around her" trope just to bring a different flavor to her main characters.

The side characters, next to these two women, were almost quiet in the background, but that did the thriller aspect justice by deflecting our attention and leaving us grasping for threads towards the end. Overall, I enjoyed this novel. Catch it next March in 2022!

(My thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for gifting me with this ARC in exchange for my honest review.)

Camilla Sten’s debut was excellent. Pure excellence, a how to instant genre classic of an exciting and terrifying thriller. Naturally I was psyched to read her follow up. And I did. And this review is a chronicle of that disappointment.
It’s possible that coming out of the gate as strongly as Sten did, she simply set the bar too high for her subsequent efforts. It’s possible this and not its predecessor is the one off for an obviously talented author. But at any rate, this is a prime example of a sophomore slump and it’s just freaking sad.
There’s none of Sten’s debut’s originality, none of its elan, none of its dynamism. What you get instead is a strictly by numbers genre story, an all in the family thriller set in a remote Swedish location for atmosphere and so geographically contained that it’s practically a locked estate mystery.
It’s an estate the story’s protagonist, Eleanor, inherits from her recently murdered grandmother, a difficult, mercurial and imperious woman with some secrets in her closet. Eleanor promptly grabs her boyfriend and sets off to uncloset some of those secrets on location, along with her aunt and the estate lawyer. Once they get there, they notice that the longserving caretaker is missing and that is only the beginning of their difficulties. Some secrets don’t want to be known and some aren’t worth the effort to uncover.
Granted, this estate, this family, has more secrets than most and darker ones at that, but the unearthing of them is so slow and what’s found is so clichéd that it seldom seems worth the effort.
For this novel Sten took a minute by minute approach some thriller authors do, meaning the bulk of the narrative is dedicated to chronicling every minute moment and every momentous minute of the live of its characters and that’s fine to bulk up the word count, but doesn’t do much for the suspense building. In fact, the plot is so precisely so meticulously stretched out, you can see the seams straining to contain it.
Because of course if the story hurried up, there wouldn’t be much of it. There aren’t even that many characters and the ones you have aren’t there aren’t even that likeable or interesting. The only interesting thing about Eleanor is her prosopagnosia (and how contrived it that), meaning that while she saw who offed her granny, she can’t tell who it was.
Much like most thrillers of this kind, the narrative is split between the past and the present, with the past being an upstairs/downstairs melodrama and the present being…well, underwhelming. The weather locks the characters inside and there might be a killer lurking on the premises. Boohoo. Actually the entire production is melodramatic and underwhelming, especially considering that the author has already blatantly demonstrated she can do so much more.
The writing is still good, you can’t get rid of that easily, Sten can write, but the plotting is subpar at best and pacing leaves much to be desired. There is a prerequisite ending plot twist and (kudos to Sten here) it isn’t a predictable one, but it’s also just another example of the questionable character psychology employed in this novel, from development to motivations.
Overall, this was a disappointment. Sadly so. I would have read whatever Sten wrote based on the strength of her debut, this novel had very much the opposite effect. It isn’t terrible, mind you, it really isn’t. It’s just so blah, so slow, so average. I’m a huge genre fans, I love Scandinoir too, but there was just nothing here to wow the reader. And really, it’s Sten’s own fault, for being so good to begin with. Presumably her next book will be the one to tell which of these two was a typical Sten. Thanks Netgalley.

I liked this book, but not nearly as much as I liked this author’s previous book (the Lost Village), which I LOVED. Perhaps that made my expectations too high. The primary story centers on Eleanor, who travels to a remote mansion that she inherited after the brutal death of her grandmother. The secondary story focused on Anushka, living in that same house decades ago. I liked Anushka’s story better, though Eleanor’s story was creepier.

There was a good deal of action, as strange things started happening almost as soon as Eleanor and her party arrived. The author does a good job of creating a creepy atmosphere and making it easy for the reader to visualize.

The ending definitely packed some surprises, and the convergence of the 2 stories was well done, even more so with the added variable of Eleanor’s “face blindness” condition, which leaves her confused about things that she sees.

Overall, though I liked the previous book more, I enjoyed this book and would recommend it to those who like mysteries. It fits better in the mystery genre than it does in the horror genre (in my opinion). I am excited to read more books by this author. Thanks to Netgalley for providing me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Eleanor has a problem. She walked into her grandmother Vivanne's apartment just as her grandmother's murderer was walking out, which should mean she can identify the person responsible for her Vivianne's death. However, Eleanor has prosopagnosia, which means she cannot remember faces. She has to look for other markers like hairstyles and voices to recall who is who.

Eleanor travels to a country house left to her by her grandmother, who raised her after her mother's death. Eleanor never even knew the house existed until she learned of her inheritance because Vivianne never spoke of it. Traveling with Eleanor is her boyfriend Sebastian, her aunt Veronika, and the lawyer who contacted her and suggested they needed to inventory the contents before deciding what to do with the house. Almost as soon as the party arrives, strange things start happening. Is there a supernatural force at work, or is there someone else there with them who wishes them harm? Interspersed with the chapters about Eleanor and her traveling group are chapters about the country house during Vivianne's younger years.

Once the action in this book gets started, it doesn't stop. It's a roller coaster ride of a mystery/thriller and will keep you up at night until you get to the end. I did find myself frustrated occasionally at all the times the characters made choices that put them into danger even after the strange events started happening.

At the heart of this book is a mystery and the chapters about the country house's history took a strange turn about halfway through. I can usually guess the big secret and in this case I thought I knew but I really didn't, so I give the author a lot of credit for getting one over on me.

A scary read! It is about one characters face blindness. Which is a new concept to me. It is definitely a psychological thriller.
Need to read!

I received an advanced reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review

I loved this one. Very fast paced, had me turning pages as I tore through it – I had to see how it would end. The characters were well rounded and the narrative felt believable. Gave me chills. Solid five

I liked Sten's earlier book about a town that disappeared, so I was looking forward to reading this, and I was not disappointed. This is a great gothic tale, full of mysteries and murder and dark twists. I really enjoyed it and think it will be a hit with anyone who likes the gothic, Shirley Jackson's work, Kate Mortons novels, and Scandinavian mysteries.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers, St Martins Press and Minotaur books for the arc of this spine tingling, gripping novel set in a haunted manor.
Loved the setting of this book, snowy, isolated, country manor/estate.
Loved the authors writing style, this was my first read and I was blown away. It kept me guessing as to what chilling thing was going to happen next.
Main character, Eleanor, suffered from face blindness, or prosopagnosia, which was something I was unfamiliar with and really liked how it was incorporated into this story. I would have enjoyed this book more had this been discussed throughout the whole book, and not just in the beginning.
Big twist in the end which still has me thinking about it………
Will definitely read more by Camilla Steen!

I was most definitely tethered to my reading chair with this thriller. It was well written with twists and unexpected turns. I would have liked clarity on two scenarios but will refrain from identifying them, so as to not contain spoilers. Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for this ARC. #TheRestingPlaceBook # StMartin’sPress #Netgalley @stmartinspress @netgalley @bookstagram.

Addictive, thrilling, chilling, edge-of-your-seat reading all packed into this pulse-pounding, amazing novel!

I loved Camilla Sten's previous novel, The Lost Village, so was of course thrilled to hear about her latest novel, The Resting Place!

This novel is written over various timelines - the present, 5 hours later, 5 hours + 5 minutes earlier... and it all adds to the suspense of the novel, leaving you wanting to know what happening, what is going to happen now, and builds the mystery for you. I loved that about this book. I also loved how the novel was written in short chapters, which I really like.

The story follows a woman by the name of Eleanor - she is being interviewed by the police at the police station. Something had happened when she arrived at her grandmother's house (whom she calls Vivianne), which she is being questioned on now. Suffering from prosopagnosia, Eleanor has face blindness. Unless she can identify you by various facial characteristics, or other marker she associates you with to be able to tell you apart from others, she cannot tell one person apart from another person.

I loved the writing of this novel and how it had me hooked to see what would happen next. There were many twists and turns in the book to keep you entertained and hooked on the book, and a big shocking twist at the end that I did NOT see coming, it blew me away.

Some parts of the novel were written by a character by the name of Anushka, back in 1965. Who is Anushka, and what does she have to do with Vivianne and Eleanor. All will be revealed in good time.

A definite must-read that I highly recommend. You will love this book!

I didn't like this as much as the Lost Village but it was still a really enjoyable read! The author is so good at creating spooky atmospheres!