The Lake House

Every novel that I have read by Kate Morton makes me yearn to be a better writer and has me wishing that I could be even half the story teller that she is. The Lake House is no exception. From the moment I opened the book and read the first page, I was hooked, and every time I thought I’d sussed the mystery out, it led to nowhere, leaving me to puzzle some more.

I love the way Kate Morton weaves the past and the present into the story so effortlessly and here I sit and sigh, resenting her skill and yet longing for more.

Cornwall – 1933 - A family estate and a missing child. The police, the questions, the secrets and the loss of innocence for Alice Edevane aged sixteen years.

It was a day of celebration and fun, with the fireworks being its grand finale. By morning, their lives would never be the same. An era had ended not with a whimper but with a resounding bang. Theo the youngest child, the revered son in a house full of daughters had vanished into thin air. The secure life of the Edevane family lay in tatters, irreparable. Their house stood shuttered and closed. To return was unthinkable.

Seventy years later, on an enforced stress leave detective Sadie Sparrow, visits her grandfather in Cornwall. Out walking, she comes across the rambling and abandoned Edevane estate. Sadie finds it lure irresistible. She delves into the history of the property, and her enquiries lead her to the now elderly Alice Edevane.

Perhaps it is her awareness of her own mortality or perhaps she sees something of herself in the youthful fervour of Sadie Sparrow. Alice has, after all, spent her entire adult life as a successful mystery writer. Whatever the prompt, Alice decides to open her mind’s vault and to share the shocking secrets long ago locked within the recesses of her heart and mind.

Find a comfy spot to curl up and prepare to be whisked into another Kate Morton masterpiece.