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The Lake House

The Lake House 2

by Kate Morton
Paperback
Publication Date: 01/11/2015
4/5 Rating 2 Reviews

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Featured in our Best Books of 2015

A missing child June 1933, and the Edevane family's country house, Loeanneth, is polished and gleaming, ready for the much-anticipated Midsummer Eve party. Alice Edevane, sixteen years old and a budding writer, is especially excited. Not only has she worked out the perfect twist for her novel, she's also fallen helplessly in love with someone she shouldn't have. But by the time midnight strikes and fireworks light up the night skies, the Edevane family will have suffered a loss so great that they leave Loeanneth forever.

An abandoned house Seventy years later, after a particularly troubling case, Sadie Sparrow is sent on an enforced break from her job with the Metropolitan Police. She retreats to her beloved grandfather's cottage in Cornwall but soon finds herself at a loose end. Until one day, Sadie stumbles upon an abandoned house surrounded by overgrown gardens and dense woods, and learns the story of a baby boy who disappeared without a trace.
 
An unsolved mystery Meanwhile, in the attic writing room of her elegant Hampstead home, the formidable Alice Edevane, now an old lady, leads a life as neatly plotted as the bestselling detective novels she writes. Until a young police detective starts asking questions about her family's past, seeking to resurrect the complex tangle of secrets Alice has spent her life trying to escape

ISBN:
9781742376516
9781742376516
Category:
Fiction
Format:
Paperback
Publication Date:
01-11-2015
Publisher:
ALLEN & UNWIN
Edition:
1st Edition
Pages:
608
Dimensions (mm):
234x153x45mm
Weight:
0.77kg
Kate Morton

Kate Morton grew up in the mountains of south-east Queensland. She has degrees in dramatic art and English literature, specialising in nineteenth- century tragedy and contemporary gothic novels.

Kate Morton's books have sold over 11 million copies worldwide. The Shifting Fog, published internationally as The House at Riverton, The Forgotten Garden, The Distant Hours, The Secret Keeper and The Lake House have all been number one bestsellers around the world.

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2 Reviews

“We are all victims of our human experience, apt to view the present through the lens of our own past”

The Lake House is the fifth novel by Australian author, Kate Morton. DC Sadie Sparrow has had to take leave from the job she loves. She got so deeply involved in a case, following instinct over evidence, that she secretly did something that would get her suspended if her boss knew. A month in Cornwall with her widower grandfather, Bertie, and she’s itching to get back to London, where the real action is. But then one day, while running through the woods with the dogs, she stumbles upon an abandoned house by the lake. Bertie’s neighbour mentions that this was the site of the tragic disappearance of 11 month old Theo Edevane, a mystery still unsolved after seventy years: Sadie is hooked.

When successful mystery writer A.C. Edevane receives a letter from the young police constable enquiring about her family’s past, she fears that the secret she has kept for seventy years is about to be revealed. Alice is sure that when she was sixteen, consumed with fervour for both her writing and a certain unsuitable person, her foolish actions leading up to the Midsummer’s Eve party were instrumental in the kidnapping of her baby brother.

Morton sets her novel over two time periods. The events that led up to, and followed on from, the tragedy in the early to mid-twentieth century are narrated by many of the key players: young Alice, her mother, her father, her grandmother, a gardener, a close family friend and even baby Theo; what occurs in 2003 is told by Sadie, Alice and her assistant, Peter. And while the time periods are clearly indicated at the start of the chapters, the style of prose, the descriptions and dialogue also reflect this.

Morton gives the reader an expertly crafted mystery. At first she has the reader wondering about Alice’s role in Theo’s disappearance, then, with each new revelation, has the reader discarding one theory concerning Theo’s fate and postulating another. There are miscommunications, misunderstandings, secrets and misplaced guilt. And while the main mystery involves baby Theo, there are at least three other mysteries to distract the reader. There are twists and red herrings and surprises, and the ending holds a delicious irony. And all this is done with characters that are interesting and beautiful prose that evokes the wonderful setting.

“Those afternoons in the library, breathing the stale sun-warmed dust of a thousand stories (accented by the collective mildew of a hundred years of rising damp), had been enchanted. …. Peter was beset with an almost bodily sense of being back there. His limbs twitched with the memory of being nine years old and lanky as a foal. His mood lifted as he remembered how large, how filled with possibilities, and yet, at once, how safe and navigable the world had seemed when he was shut within those four walls”. A brilliant read.
With thanks to TheReadingRoom and Allen&Unwin for this copy to read and review.

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This is my first Kate Morton novel, though as I'm already a fan of historical fiction I have to admit I was expecting big things and definitely was not disappointed.

Morton has a true gift with words which she has demonstrated in not only the lyrical ease with which she pulls you into her story and the vivid setting, but the many complexities of the plot itself. The very first pages are cloaked in mystery, which only intensifies as everything progresses. Family dramas with deep-seated secrets unearthed are always fascinating, especially when they transcend time in this case.

There is a skilful weaving of the past and the present in this book which I really found myself drawn to, as I loved getting to know this great house in the 1930’s and its inhabitants, as well as Sadie Sparrow’s present-day quest for the truth. There is no shortage of paths to take when trying to peel back the layers of this family’s past, and in the end it was a real thrill to see how every character had their place and it all came together. Though in the middle it did lag a bit in pace, towards the end things really picked up for a climactic reveal.

The perspective of three women: Alice, Sadie and Eleanor, each with their own ties to the house and what happened there, offers us readers a glimpse into each of their lives and motivations, and hence an opportunity to view the book as a whole from different lenses. This is a story richly developed and brilliantly executed. I’ll definitely be interested in reading more from this author in future!

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