The Lost Village by Camilla Sten Translator: Alexandra Fleming
Narrator: Angela Dawe
Published by Macmillan Audio on March 23, 2021
Source: Purchased
Genres: Thriller
Length: 9 hrs 42 mins
Pages: 340
Format: Audiobook
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'The Blair Witch Project' meets 'Midsommar' in this brilliantly disturbing thriller from Camilla Sten, an electrifying new voice in suspense.
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?
The Lost Village is trying to be both a ghost story and a mystery, and it left me a disappointed overall.
Sixty years ago everyone in the village of Silvertjarn disappeared, leaving behind only a newborn baby and the body of a woman who was stoned to death in the square. Alice grew up with the story, her grandmother’s parents and sister disappeared that day. Alice is determined to make a documentary based on the events in the town, hoping to find some answers in the process. Alice is not very likable- I’m not sure any of the characters are actually- well maybe one, mostly because we know the least about him.
Things go badly for Alice and her friends/crew pretty quickly. We’ve got creepy abandoned houses, strange noises, “accidents.” The Lost Village really does provide great atmosphere. Something out there is scary, but we can’t see it clearly. Alice and her crew catch glimpses, but maybe it’s just imagination, maybe the sounds are just in their heads. The truth is revealed slowly, with chapters showing what took place in the late 1950’s leading up to whatever happened, interspersed with the present-day events.
I was let down by the big reveal, in part because I’m not really sure it makes sense, even given the rest of the book, and maybe because it’s so clean and while it costs our main characters something, there’s no ambiguity.
About Camilla Sten
Camilla Sten has been writing stories since she was a young girl and is famously one of the most important sounding boards for her crime-writing mother, Viveca Sten. In 2019, she stepped out of her mother’s shadow and published the now internationally acclaimed, hair-raising novel “The Lost Village.” Rights for “The Lost Village” have been sold to seventeen territories around the world including film and TV. The book was one of seven shortlisted for the best translated crime award on ThrillZone.nl and was on the Polish Goodreads shortlist for The 2019 Best Book Award in the horror category. An ever prolific author, Camilla is already working on her next psychologically intense suspense novel, all while travelling the world and putting the finishing touches on the first part of her dark and atmospheric YA series.