THE RESTING PLACE

SYNOPSIS

Deep rooted secrets.

A twisted family history.

And a house that will never let go.

Eleanor lives with prosopagnosia, the inability to recognize a familiar person's face. It causes stress. Acute anxiety.

It can make you question what you think you know.

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, the horror of having come so close to a murderer―and not knowing 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 chilling 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 uncovering the truth, they’ll wish they had never come to disturb what rests there.

Title: The resting place

Author: Camilla Sten

Publisher: Minotaur Books

Publication date: March 29, 2022

REVIEW

RATING: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

After “The lost village”, which I loved, Camilla Sten delivers another fantastic atmospheric tale that had me on its grip right from the start. 

When Eleanor walks into the scene of her grandmother Vivianne’s murder, she comes face to face with the murderer, but as she suffers prosopagnosia, face blindness, she cannot recognize the killer’s face. After a lawyer calls, Eleanor learns her grandma left her a mansion in the woods, and when she travels there with her boyfriend, her aunt and the lawyer, they will uncover all the house secrets that stayed buried for decades.

This was the second book I read in the last few months that deals with prosopagnosia. I find it a really intriguing condition and although it played a very important part in the resolution, it was not really developed throughout the story. 

Told in dual timelines, past and present, I thought both of them weaved seamlessly, the past offering little clues about the events unfolding in the present. Although the past timeline was told entirely through diary entries, I felt the characters from that line were better developed than those in the present. Suspense kept raising up in both lines as the story progressed and they converged in a totally unexpected way that although I managed to predict somehow, it still delivered a couple of surprises. 

One thing I really love about the author’s books is the sense of foreboding that permeates her stories. She manages to convey a really eerie and atmospheric feeling that works perfectly with her plots. 

I listened to the audiobook version and Angela Dawe did a fantastic job with it. She really brought all the different characters to life with small nuances that made every single character pretty recognizable.

With just two books published, Camilla Sten is quickly becoming an author to keep your eye on if you’re in the mood for some psychological suspense with a creepy element.