The Lost Village

I love a good story about someplace that's been abandoned. What happened? Where did everyone go? I want to know! So I jumped at the chance to read The Lost Village.

Everyone vanished from Silvertjarn, Sweden in 1959. When the police responded to an anonymous call, they found only a woman's corpse hanging in the center of the village and a baby left in the school. Houses looked as if residents had just stepped away for a moment, all at the same time.

Alice is working to get funding for her documentary project on Silvertjarn. She's assembled a crew, and they're going on location. She doesn't have much in the way of money, so the budget is tight and their time will be limited. But if she can make this project happen, it could be her big break. She also has a personal interest in the project, as her great-grandmother's family had lived there. Of the family, only her grandmother had gotten out.

The village is out in the middle of nowhere. No easy access to supplies or services. The crew figures to have some good uninterrupted time to investigate and document what they find. But almost off the bat, weird things start happening. Some abandoned places just feel empty, and some feel positively spine-tingling. For me, Silvertjarn fell firmly in the spine-tingling category. I would have packed up and hauled it out of there before I'd spent one night. Noises where there shouldn't be any. Items going missing or being damaged. And when one of the crew disappears after being injured, well, that just ramps up the creepy factor.

The story is told from Alice's point of view in the present time and from Elsa's point of view in 1959. Elsa was Alice's great-grandmother, and her story really ties events in the current time together. I liked Elsa best out of all the characters. She saw things going wrong and tried as best as she could to make a difference, to do the right thing. Alice, though, wasn't a very likable protagonist. She was so driven to make the project a success that it felt like she ignored the risks that were rapidly becoming apparent the longer they stayed.

So, creepy factor: excellent. And that's coming from someone who doesn't really like horror. Characters: it was hard to muster up concern for any of the modern-day folks. The final reveal: not really what I was expecting! Overall, I found it a worthwhile read.