Publisher's Weekly Review
Eleanor, the heroine of this engrossing, character-rich psychological thriller from Swedish author Sten (The Lost Village), has prosopagnosia, or face blindness, which prevents her from recognizing the person she witnesses murder her grandmother, Vivianne. Months later, still undergoing therapy for trauma caused by the experience, Eleanor learns she has inherited Solhöga, her grandmother's manor house located in isolated Swedish woodlands, and she--along with her long-standing boyfriend, Sebastian; a hostile aunt, Veronika; and the estate's lawyer, Rickard--gather at Solhöga to sort out the details. Almost immediately, increasingly ominous incidents begin to occur: the groundskeeper who was supposed to meet them is missing, Eleanor sees a mysterious figure lurking on the grounds after dark, and unexplained accidents take place. It soon becomes clear that what's going on is tied to Vivianne's hidden past. Suspense builds steadily as a body is discovered, Rickard is seriously assaulted, and a winter storm traps the party with no hope of getting away. The powerful conclusion is satisfying for both Eleanor and the reader. Sten is on a roll. Agent: Anna Frankl, Nordin Agency (Sweden). (Mar.)
Kirkus Review
After writing about an investigation into a town that was mysteriously depopulated 60 years ago (The Lost Village, 2021), Swedish author Sten returns for another surgical excavation of the past, this time of her troubled heroine's family. Victoria Eleanor Fälth has always had a complicated relationship with the grandmother who raised her after her mother died, but none of that friction has prepared her to find Vivianne Fälth dying and the person who cut her throat escaping. Since Eleanor, as everyone but Vivianne calls her, has prosopagnosia, a condition that makes her unable to recognize faces, she's the world's worst eyewitness, and the police quickly abandon the possibility of getting any useful information out of her. Meantime, her grandmother's hold over her life persists with the news that she's left Eleanor Solhöga, a country estate Eleanor never knew she'd owned. Invited to inspect the place, Eleanor brings her live-in partner, Sebastian, and probate lawyer Rickard Snäll to help with its inventory. Soon after they arrive, they're unexpectedly joined by Eleanor's dislikable aunt, Veronika, but not by Mats Bengtsson, the groundskeeper, who's gone mysteriously missing. Cut off from the rest of the world by the isolated location and an obligatory blizzard, the visitors lose their cellphone service, then their access to the road back to the outside world, then the electricity that's kept them warm. All the while, Eleanor, who's found a diary kept half a century earlier by Vivianne's Polish-born servant, Anushka, tries to figure out what buried secrets could have led to her grandmother's murder. The pace, at first maddeningly deliberate, gradually accelerates, unleashing a whirlwind of revelations that will leave some readers still shaking their heads in bewilderment after the fade-out. Deep-laid, tightly wound, and very, very cold. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Eleanor walks in on her grandmother's murder and watches as the perpetrator calmly leaves the apartment. Clearly they know Eleanor has prosopagnosia, commonly known as face blindness, because they have no worries of being identified. From this violent and unsettling opening, Sten (The Lost Village, 2021) relentlessly builds the tension and suspense. Eleanor's unhappy family is anything but typical and buried in secrets. When she inherits a country estate, Eleanor, along with her boyfriend, her estranged aunt, and a lawyer head to the remote location during a winter storm to check it out. Eleanor immediately begins to make discoveries that do not make rational sense. And where is the caretaker? Told in dual time lines in the present through Eleanor's unreliable but sympathetic eyes and in the past through the diary entries of a former domestic worker, the plot and unease exponentially thicken, adding a deep layer of intensely sinister fear and mortal danger with every turn of the page. A great choice for fans of terrifying psychological suspense driven by family secrets as, seen in titles by Sarah Pinborough and Jennifer McMahon.
Library Journal Review
Here's more from the author of the nerve-scraping debut The Lost Village, a LibraryReads pick that sold to 17 countries. Eleanor walks in on her grandmother's murder but won't be able to identify who did it; she suffers from prosopagnosia, the inability to recognize faces. Obviously, she's worried about what she doesn't know --the assailant could be sitting right next to her--and her fears intensify when she inherits a house from her grandmother. It's chilly, remote, and the place her grandfather died unexpectedly. With a 150,000-copy first printing.
