ReView: The Lost Village by Camilla Sten

At what point does a passion project become dangerous?

Camilla Sten’s The Lost Village is an ominous, nail-biting thriller asking how much we would risk to bring the truth to light.

Alice is a documentary filmmaker collecting footage of an old Swedish mining town whose entire population disappeared, in order to get financing for a documentary exploring the mystery. Alice’s grandmother was a part of this village, making this a personal passion project for her. Alongside her crew members (each with their own complicated connection to either Alice or the town itself), Alice sets out to explore the truth about her family’s past. But as unexplainable events start to transpire (including ominous figures, missing people and damaged equipment) both the project itself as well as the town of Silvertjarn turn out to be much more than they ever planned for.

Told through Alice’s voice as well as her grandmother, Elsa, their stories build to a shocking and insidious conclusion.

I enjoyed the character of Alice, who is a flawed, complicated person trying to come to terms with her own baggage while also trying to see her project throughl. I did appreciate the story’s handling of mental illness and the ramifications for both the mentally ill and those trying to support them. Through both Elsa and Alice’s stories, we witness the ways in which mental illness can be used as an excuse to judge what we simply don’t understand, and how it can shape our relationships.

The Lost Village is absolutely a slow burn, so you need to be patient with this one. In the end, it pays off. While this is considered a horror novel, I wouldn’t say it is horror in the typical sense. That being said, it capitalizes on a theme which does inspire a lot of horror, which is the fear of the unknown and what we use to try and control that fear (which can be truly terrifying).