The Lost Village by Camilla Sten

 

The plot:  Documentary filmmaker Alice Lindstedt has heard stories about the small Swedish mining town of Silvertjarn her whole life. It's where her grandmother grew up. It's also the town from which 900 people disappeared in 1959, including her grandmother's parents and younger sister, Aina. No one's ever solved the mystery of Silvertjarn. But Alice is determined to try. She's got some help in her film crew Emmy, Robert, Max and Tone, who has her own connection to Silvertjarn. Alice also has all of her grandmother's sister's letters from that time period. She hopes to find more clues to what happened in the abandoned village. But she is not prepared for what awaits her and her crew in Silvertjarn. None of them are.

My thoughts:  There's a lot to like about this novel. The mystery surrounding the inhabitants of Silvertjarn is both eerie and interesting, as is the remote setting itself. And Sten ably intersperses Alice's narrative in the present with short scenes from her great-grandmother's POV in the past. I liked the way the two narratives added layers and suspense to the mystery. But I felt like it took forever for Alice and the others to explore the more interesting parts of the abandoned village, and Alice's drama with Emmy, her former college friend, got old fast. But when things start to go wrong for the crew, the pacing does pick up. Overall, this one reads well, and I appreciated how the mystery gets wrapped up at the end. Is it all believable? No. but I thought it was entertaining. 

Happy Reading!