The Lost Village, a review by Tanya and Cat

The Lost Village
Camilla Sten

352 pages
Published March 23, 2021 by Minotaur Books, St. Martin’s Press

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Book Summary: 

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?

Cat’s Review:

💙💙💙💙

The Lost Village is one of those novels that sucked me in right from the start. I mean, it’s literally pitched as being a blend between The Blair Witch Project and Midsommer, how could I not dive right into this beauty?

The novel takes place in two separate points in time, the past, and the present. While the present time dominates the narrative, it’s the past that sets the tone. Literally, as the case may be. I’ll admit that I was more than a little bit obsessed with finding out what was happening.

Camilla Sten really nailed the whole creepy vibe, at least in my book. The whole time I was reading I was pretty much at the edge of my seat. All because I kept expecting the worst to happen! It made for a bit of a daunting read, but one I enjoyed nonetheless.

One thing I especially appreciated about The Lost Village is the opportunity for conversation it brings with it. Camilla Sten brought up some brilliant points about biases, mental health, and the way society tends to perceive it.

Tanya’s Review:

🏠🏠🏠🏠

The premise of the story was enough to have me on edge before even picking up the book. I’m constantly looking for that insanely creepy read. The creepy meter was off the chart for about 80% of this book – it was so good!

Honestly, when I first started reading it, I was so scared after the first few chapters that I had to put the book aside for a few days until my Husband came back home from his business trip. I did not want to read this book until I had someone else around!

The pace of the book was great. The characters and their back stories were interesting. Some of the events were mentally disturbing and I felt saddened with the arc’s of a few characters. I sort-of/generally figured out what happened to the town prior to the end of the book, but that was in part to a lucky guess and a loose thread that I pulled on towards the beginning of the book.

I’d love to hear from others if they guessed the ending. I wasn’t thrilled with the last 5% of the book, it felt a little bit of a let down to me, but the entire book was so good that I can accept the ending as is. It did drop this down to a 4.5 star for me. But it is an absolute must-read for those fans of thriller/lite horror reads.

Thank you to #StMartinsPress and #NetGalley for making this book available for review. All opinions expressed are our own.

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