An absolutely fantastic page-turner! I thought I knew the answer but turns out that was only the tip of the iceberg. Talk about a complicated family. I finished this book in two days and my heart was in my throat the entire time. This book is part haunted house, psychological thriller, and family history and those are the best kinds of books. I am looking forward to Camilla Sten’s next masterpiece.

Nope. I had too high of expectations I guess. Thanks for letting me give this book a try. And for the ecopy in exchange for an honest review.

This is a very atmospheric read. The kind of book that pairs perfectly with a thunder or snow storm. If you enjoy old abandoned houses, family drama and secrets, and multiple timelines this is a great book for you. The ending was a bit confusing as there is a lot going on with multiple characters, but overall it’s a great, well developed story to get lost in. I’m definitely interested in checking out more books by the author!

I enjoyed The Lost Village By Camilla Sten so I was eager to read her next book. Unfortunately, this one fell a little flat for me. It didn't have quite the same level of suspense/intrigue as the previous book. Also, it was difficult to keep all of the character's names straight, especially since most of the names started with a V, and some of the characters had several different names they used throughout the book. However, the chapters were short and it ended up being a fairly quick read. I would definitely read another book by this author--she's a good writer--I just didn't enjoy this one as much as I'd hoped.

Hmm, off to a slow start…but it did eventually pick up. Although the were some predictable things, I did not see the ending coming. I still have some unanswered questions but I guess I’ll never know. Overall a decent read. Thanks to NetGalley for a complimentary copy to review.

Camilla Sten has crafted another brilliant gothic thriller. The Resting Place is atmospheric, chilling, and incredibly compelling. A well crafted story that is smartly written, The Resting Place is a must read for thriller fans.
Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher for the opportunity to read and review this title. All opinions and mistakes are my own.

An interesting take on getting snowed in with no where to go and mysterious things happening around every turn. The set up of this story with the inheritance of an old manor and a missing groundkeeper upon arrival allowed for a great set up. I loved the flashbacks in time to when the manor was lived in and the family who lived there with their housekeeper, cook and groundskeeper. I do feel like there was a good amount of thrills throughout and I did not see the ending coming, but I feel like there was a lack of character connection to make me really feel anything and care what happened to anyone. Check out my review on youtube for more details. https://youtu.be/a0CWY2K9hiM

All I can say is WOW! I finished this book within 24 hours. So much suspense! 5 stars, will definitely be buying more copies as gifts!

As a devourer of psychological thrillers, this book did not disappoint! It does take a lot for me to rate a thriller 5 stars but this one did it! The creepy, eerie and mysterious plot twisted and turned with an amazing/descriptive writing style that had me hooked from the start! Highly recommend this one!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

After absolutely loving The Lost Village when I read it on Netgalley last year, The Resting Place turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. Eleanor, a young woman with face blindness, is set to inherent her grandmother’s country house after intruding on the scene of her grandmother’s murder. What ensues is 200+ pages of mysterious groundskeepers, haunted mansion, questionable lawyers, nobody is who they seem, subpar suspense. I found it to be dragging and was relieved when it was over.

Thank you so much @minotaur_books for my ARC & cool journal! Awesome book swag! I am a fan of the highly creative, imaginative Swedish writer, Camilla Sten after reading, The Lost Village earlier this year. Rights for "The Lost Village" have been sold to seventeen territories around the world including film and TV, which is so exciting!

The Resting Place was released on 3/29/22. This novel is set in Solhöga; an eerie, atmospheric old manor house in Sweden surrounded by woodland, around an hour drive from north of Stockholm. This setting is so up my alley, but I was so disappointed that I could not get into this storyline. Initially, I enjoyed the first few chapters, but never found the strong character development and experience of the narrator that I was searching for throughout the novel. The narrative includes elements of suspense, claustrophobic locked room vibes, and the supernatural. Short chapters, alternating between the past and present were a nice structure to the story. I was hoping for the narrative to engage more of my senses to create an immersive, captivating experience of The Resting Place; however, the narrative was not brought to life. As a reader, the one component missing from this book is that I was not able to foster a rare and special intimacy with the characters, which is what I adore about books. This author is no doubt a talented, incredible writer. Perhaps I should try this book again at a another time to gain a different perspective….

Don’t let my humble opinion deter you from reading this book. It is getting glowing reviews. See below:

Most Anticipated by Bustle * Goodreads * Mystery Tribune * Crime Reads Best International Books of March

"Engrossing, character-rich, powerful. Sten is on a roll."—Publishers Weekly(starred review)

The Resting Place is not what you think. There is no pause, no respite, and is not a long nor meandering sort of read. It’s a hit the ground running thriller with a great twist of an end that’s taking full advantage of its locked room trope. While the protagonist’s facial recognition disability could have been better utilized as a plot device and to give more sympathy to her unreliability, the story’s backstory plot was well done. Camilla Sten once again creates Nordic dread in a desolate landscape very well here.

I enjoyed this, and it had some good twists and turns, but it didn’t quite match up to the author's previous release, The Lost Village.

The Resting Place by Camilla Sten is a thriller with a very atmospheric setting. When Eleanor's grandmother dies, she leaves behind an old house; and Eleanor goes to check out the house with her husband and the estate lawyer. But, weird things start happening at this secluded estate, and then they get stuck there due to a snowstorm. Who is causing these strange things to happen? This story also has excerpts from an old journal, left behind at the house. The way that all these things line up was fascinating to me. There were a few things that didn't work well in this story, but I still really enjoyed this book. Thanks to NetGalley for the free digital review copy. All opinions are my own.

The Resting Place is a good psychological thriller with some decent twists and turns, but where it really delivers is on the atmosphere. This was my second read from Camilla Sten and I really enjoy her work. Her writing is very atmospheric and the creepy, isolated house in winter trope was totally nailed for me. The intrigue was well done and the overall feel was very haunting, mildly claustrophobic, and edgy.

I loved the dual timeline and was close on figuring out the twists, but not quite. Still...I found the read gripping and I loved the way things fell into place. This was my second thriller read using the prosopasgnosia trope (face blindness), so the ingenuity of that was a little lost on me, but it will be great for some readers as it isn't a frequently used plot device.

For those looking for a wintery, gothic feel with a creepy estate/house vibe, this will be an excellent, quick-paced read. Camilla Sten can write a chilly scene and set quite the edgy tone.

* Disclaimer: I received a copy of this novel from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. *

I read her lasted work 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘙𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘗𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘦 a couple weeks ago and really enjoyed it! I was in a bit of a reading slump and also traveling so only read a few pages a day but the story was intriguing enough for me to want to finish it as soon as I was able to. Sten is so great when it comes to atmospheric, isolated/locked room thrillers! ⁣
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⁣Our main protagonist, Eleanor, has face blindness aka prosopagnosia, and therefore cannot remember/identify her grandmother Vivienne’s murderer. This haunts her throughout the story as she, her partner, aunt, and an estate lawyer spend the weekend at her grandmother’s grand house in the Swedish woods - a house Eleanor had no idea existed despite the fact that she was raised by Vivienne. The group soon finds themselves stuck inside the estate due to a bad winter storm with a missing groundskeeper, a historical mystery, and a possible killer. ⁣
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⁣I really enjoyed how spooky the house seemed and the idea of not knowing if there were ghosts or possibly a secret person hiding in the walls. Like Eleanor, the reader doesn’t know how to trust, and at one point I was convinced it was a CERTAIN person because of the stereotype of those who are closest to you can’t be trusted lol. ⁣
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⁣I did enjoy 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘓𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘝𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘢𝘨𝘦 a bit more because it was spookier and the backstory was more emotional. And I was left with questions with one of the twists in 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘙𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘗𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘦. But overall it was entertaining and the perfect read for the cold weather. ⁣
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⁣If you like wintery thrillers and locked-door mysteries then definitely give this a read!

Thank you, NetGalley, for letting me read this. This was good. All of the twists made it even better. The dual timeline was easy to follow and keep up with as you read. This was another good one by Camilla Sten.

THE RESTING PLACE by Camilla Sten
Translated into English by Alexandr Fleming
Narrated on audio by: Angela Dawe ( 8 hrs 52 min)
Publication: 3/29/22 by St Matin’s Press / Minotaur Books


Camilla Sten, best known for the international bestseller “ The Lost Village “ returns to the English bookshelfs with this propulsive psychological suspense yarn that defies unspooling until the last page. She serves up a stew of murder, laced with family secrets, a brooding isolated estate, and trapped by a blinding blizzard, while a murderer lurks and hunts.
The tale is woven in the tapestry of three perspective. Eleanor in the present, as well as her cranky and contentious grandmother, Vivianne, and the found diary of Anushka (providing insights into the many secrets of her grandmother) ….Vivianne’s cousin from Poland turned into the maid. Eleanor has long suffered from social anxiety due to her rare condition of prosopagnosia. Her “face blindness” has left her dependent on secondary cues to recognize people …. their hair color and style, clothing, voice and gait. She has been raised by her cantankerous , controlling , and sometimes cruel, grandmother since early childhood, due to her mother’s death from cancer. She reluctantly visits her every Sunday for dinner. She is little prepared, when a faceless person, rushes past her , as she enters her grandmother’s home, to discover her dying from a slashed throat. Being unable to assist the police, her anxiety, grief and depression escalate forcing her into further therapy. A lawyer contacts her with the knowledge that she has inherited the country estate of Solhoga - buried deep in the woods of the Swedish countryside. Apparently this is the site where her grandfather Evert killed himself. The site was willed to Vivianne, but has not been visited in decades, and is being overseen by the caretaker, Mats Bengtsson. Eleanor had no knowledge of its existence. The lawyer insists an inventory of the assets must be obtained. Eleanor, with her boyfriend, Sebastian, her quarrelsome aunt Veronika , and the lawyer, Rickard, journey to the isolated Solhoga, as a winter storm is brewing.
Camilla Sten proves to be a masterful storyteller as she weaves the twisted narrative, with multiple characters and their secrets, in the face of the brooding atmospheric estate, as cell service is lost with the building intensity of the blizzard overwhelming them.
The caretaker is nowhere to be found. Eleanor feels she is being watched and sees glimpses of a person in the gloom of night. Veronika is attacked and bludgeoned on the head. The blizzard has blocked all roads out of the estate. Rickard went to fetch another bottle of wine, from the underground cellar, and has never returned. While playing dress-up with her boyfriend, she finds in the fold of a dress, a photograph. She earlier found Anushka’s diary. It shows the images of what she surmises to be Anushka, the cook, and her daughter …. one of many bread crumbs of clues possibly leading to the true reason why Vivianne was murdered. Past and present are intricately woven together, as secrets are revealed. The chilling feeling of building tension and intrigue inexorably escalates to a denouement that no reader will anticipate. Nothing is as it seems.
Personally I switched back and forth between my kindle and the audio, narrated by Angela Dawe. Her excellent voice and inflections, provided insight into the many nuanced characters that came alive in the “theatre of my mind”. Thanks to NetGalley and St Martin’s Press / Minotaur Books who provided an Uncorrected Proof and Audio Recording in exchange for an honest review.

A psychological thriller that had me guessing. Eleanor walks in on the murder of her grandmother Vivianne and comes face to face with her murderer, however it doesn’t matter. Eleanor has face blindness. She cannot recognize the murderer, or anyone else in her life.
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She is left the old house, that is a house of secrets. One thing is for sure something are better left laid to rest.
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Thank you @minotaurbooks and @netgalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

My Review: ⭐️⭐️⭐⭐/ 5 stars

Eleanor walks into a gruesome scene, face to face, with her grandmother’s killer, but due to her prosopagnosia (facial blindness), she is unable to identify who the culprit is. After her grandmother’s death, she finds out that she is left with a secret estate in the Swedish woods - which her grandmother never spoke about, presumably because her grandfather died there suddenly. Eleanor, her boyfriend Sebastian, Rickard (the estate lawyer), and her aunt Veronika all head to the estate to inventory the property, but also to hopefully dig into the secrets of the house/family. Once they are there, they soon realise they might not be alone and there might be more to the story of why her grandfather died there (and why her grandmother was murdered so violently).

The first few chapters grip you almost immediately and sustains you all the way through. I love short chapters in thrillers! I really enjoyed the Lost Village, so I knew there was probably going to be a twist at the end, and I was right. I did not expect that ending at all. There were parts that lagged in the middle, other than that, a solid thriller through and through.

Thanks to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.