I will admit right off the bat that I am a huge fan of Camilla Sten’s writing. Her debut novel, last year’s The Lost Village may have been my favourite book of 2021. This year’s follow up The Resting Place hits the very same sweet spot in psychological suspense and is another outstanding novel (that my friends are going to get sick of hearing me talk about!)
Eleanor was raised by her grandmother after her mother passed away when Eleanor was a young girl. Her grandmother, however, was not the warm and loving stereotypical “grandmother” image we often see portrayed in media and now that Eleanor is an adult, she has reached a negotiation with her grandmother where she is now required to have one phone call and one dinner per week with her. Obviously not the standard grandmother/granddaughter relationship, to say the least.
On one evening where she is expected at dinner, Eleanor walks in on her grandmother’s murder. With a medical condition that leaves Eleanor unable to recognize faces, she does not have the ability to help police catch the killer and this causes her great anxiety. After months have passed, Eleanor has sought treatment for her anxiety and is in a little bit better place when she is contacted by an attorney and finds that she needs to inventory an estate that her grandmother left her – one that she had not even known existed.
Upon arriving at the estate, located in the remote, snowy Swedish woods, dark secrets from the past slowly start to be revealed, but often leave even more questions. The more answers they seek, however, the more danger they seem to find themselves in.
A tale of buried family secrets and a twisted history hidden from one generation to the next, The Resting Place is a must-read for fans of Simone St. James, her dual timelines and her talent for balancing reality and the supernatural as well as fans of Ruth Ware’s The Death of Mrs. Westaway and its mysterious, isolated houses and inheritances.
Sten does a masterful job of putting the reader deep into the isolated snowy landscape, on edge about what might be just around the corner, never knowing whether the danger we feel is real or imagined. While the majority of the story is told from Eleanor’s point of view, the reader is able to feel both Eleanor’s anxiety as well as the frustrations and disbelief of the others present at the estate with her.
Dual timelines are tied together perfectly as this tale of mystery and family tragedy unfolds at just the right pace for any fan of psychological suspense.
The Resting Place is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
A spine-chilling, propulsive psychological suspense from international sensation Camilla Sten.
The medical term is prosopagnosia. The average person calls it face blindness—the inability to recognize a familiar person’s face, even the faces of those closest to you.
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, her anxiety mounts. The dark feelings of having brushed by a killer, yet not know who could do this—or 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 dark 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 bringing the truth to light, they’ll wish they had never come to disturb what rests there.
A heart-thumping, relentless thriller that will shake you to your core, The Resting Place is an unforgettable novel of horror and suspense.
