Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Good in good dust jacket. This is a used book in good condition and may show some signs of use or wear. This is a used book in good condition and may show some signs of use or wear.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Library book-good condition Somewhat damaged. May have bumped corner, torn or missing dust cover, folded pages, light dust soil, remainder mark, price sticker, other damage, or be bent. 99% of orders arrive in 4-10 days.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Book is in good condition. Minimal signs of wear. It May have markings or highlights but kept to only a few pages. May not come with supplemental materials if applicable.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
This item is in overall good condition. Covers and dust jackets are intact but may have minor wear including slight curls or bends to corners as well as cosmetic blemishes including stickers. Pages are intact but may have minor highlighting/ writing. Binding is intact; however, spine may have slight wear overall. Digital codes may not be included and have not been tested to be redeemable and/or active. Minor shelf wear overall. Please note that all items are donated goods and are in used condition. Orders shipped Monday through Friday! Your purchase helps put people to work and learn life skills to reach their full potential. Orders shipped Monday through Friday. Your purchase helps put people to work and learn life skills to reach their full potential. Thank you!
I received an e-Galley ARC of The Lost Village, authored by Camilla Sten, translated by Alexandra Fleming, from Minotaur Books and NetGalley. Below is my honest review, freely given, I am thankful for the opportunity.
I rated this novel 3 stars. The premise is one I find well suited for horror, there are historical examples to look to and draw from, and even now I enjoy learning about real world mysteries such as missing communities or peoples.
Silvertj�¤rn was a town of growing secrets, the most pressing we are introduced to in the opening chapter, setting the tone for the book with a delicious chill of horror. The next gives us the present day characters traveling to the town. This almost alternating pattern will continue throughout the book, which I liked. Often the crew would pass a theory around or mention something from a letter, and the following chapter would reveal how close to the truth they were or expand on the moment written about; giving voice to the original townspeople directly added a nice separation of time and culture.
The characters were of complex personalities, refreshingly muddled as humans truly are; no brightly shining knights or achingly pure heroines, though Mattias does have a harsher judgement from me (I am not a fan of him). What occurred is slowly built for the reader in the glimpses of the past; in the present nerves are frayed ever thin as an imagined or unknown presence is felt circling the crew.
The latter half fell apart for me. Not in that it was unbelievable, but to me there were indications the story could lean into a supernatural aspect or a subtle blend of supernatural and realism; in backing away or refusing to commit, I felt it left some threads dangling.
KindigBlog
Mar 28, 2021
Great concept but poorly plotted
As I have mentioned in my reviews before I love the idea of Urbexing (although probably a little too timid and law-conscious to do it myself!) Therefore, the setting and idea behind The Lost Village really appealed to me. A mysterious village in the middle of nowhere which has been untouched for 60 years after its inhabitants disappeared without a trace is so intriguing and made for an interesting backdrop for this book.
Alice is determined to find out what happened and so assembles a rag-tag team of freelance movie makers to shoot a promo for their documentary with a 5 day recce. I would have liked a little more emphasis on the film making side of the story although I understand it is used as an excuse by our characters to do some sleuthing, but it felt very underplayed. When the main photographer is out of action none of the others seem to know how to hold a camera and there is surprise expressed at one point that the cameras can shoot film which seems very odd as the idea was to make a video trailer!
The plot has the slow suspenseful build of an almost paranormal horror but I didn't feel that it went far enough with the horror elements. I would have liked a few more unexplained moments before the large plot points that dominated the latter half of the book. I really enjoyed the split between 'Then' and 'Now' as we slowly saw the past storyline unfold to show us what had happened to the village in the moments leading up to the community's disappearance. I did feel like a lot of it just played out exactly how we had been led to imagine it happened by the characters in the 'Now' timeline though (the reveal about the new pastor's previous life for example, was played a little too early.)
What really let this book down for me unfortunately was the ending which throws up way more questions than it answered and also showcased some very large plot holes! I won't say any spoilers but I'm not sure how something can be a 60-year-old mystery when there's a very large part of the village which isn't explored due to very flimsy reasoning! The epilogue tried to explain some of the practicalities of the main reveal but this felt a little contrived and there are some real logistics at play which are not explained. Although the 'Then' timeline gets wrapped up nicely I would have liked another epilogue to cover what happened to Alice and her film afterwards especially as we have invested so much time in getting to know her and her demons throughout. Speaking of demons, there is also a very poor depiction of mental health in this book and a character goes through a completely unrealistic transformation at one point which I think was unnecessary and was in poor taste.
Overall, I really wanted to love The Lost Village and I think the concept is brilliant, however it was let down by some poor plotting and underplayed horror elements which could have gone a lot further to make a more sinister read. Thank you to NetGalley, St Martin's Press and Minotaur Books for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
