The Lake House by Kate Morton
Atria Books, October 2015
606 pages
Source- Kindle Library Loan
Burton Book Review Rating: 5 stars
One of People magazine's Best Books of Fall—"Morton's moody, suspenseful latest is the perfect page-turner for a chilly night."
From the New York Times and internationally bestselling author of The Secret Keeper and The Distant Hours, an intricately plotted, spellbinding new novel of heartstopping suspense and uncovered secrets.
Living on her family's idyllic lakeside estate in Cornwall, England, Alice Edevane is a bright, inquisitive, innocent, and precociously talented sixteen-year-old who loves to write stories. But the mysteries she pens are no match for the one her family is about to endure...
One midsummer's eve, after a beautiful party drawing hundreds of guests to the estate has ended, the Edevanes discover that their youngest child, eleven-month-old Theo, has vanished without a trace. What follows is a tragedy that tears the family apart in ways they never imagined.
Decades later, Alice is living in London, having enjoyed a long successful career as an author. Theo's case has never been solved, though Alice still harbors a suspicion as to the culprit. Miles away, Sadie Sparrow, a young detective in the London police force, is staying at her grandfather's house in Cornwall. While out walking one day, she stumbles upon the old estate—now crumbling and covered with vines, clearly abandoned long ago. Her curiosity is sparked, setting off a series of events that will bring her and Alice together and reveal shocking truths about a past long gone...yet more present than ever.
A lush, atmospheric tale of intertwined destinies, this latest novel from a masterful storyteller is an enthralling, thoroughly satisfying read.
This is Morton's fifth novel and I have most- if not all- of her other novels. Time is not my friend however and so this newest release of hers is actually the first one I have read. It was slow going at my first try; it could have been personal pressures etc. but I wondered if I was going to be able to finish this digital library loan before it expired. Then I realized it was six hundred pages and I really worried! Soon though, I was able to dig in, and get completely absorbed in the story of a young girl whose family is perfect on the outside and yet things are never what they seem.
It is one of those stories that flip through different generations back and forth with different characters, which gets a little confusing to explain, but it was very well done this time as we are trying to solve little mysteries along the way of what happened way back when on a glorious family estate in Cornwall.
Little clues are given along the way and you really think it's going this way, but in the end I can definitely say I did not see that coming. It was a feel-good happy ending that made me teary. If you like Susanna Kearsley, you will love this one. It's a chunky one and it was just awesome for when you can settle in and sink your teeth into a great story that has suspense, romance, mystery and drama all rolled up into a pretty engrossing package. Definitely pushing the back-list closer to my will-read-this-lifetime-so-help-me-God pile.
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