The Lake House

The Lake House by Kate Morton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Past and present mingle and meet in two English houses. One, a huge and crumbling house on a lake, was where a baby boy disappeared during a gala Midsummer's Eve party in 1933. The other, a small home in Cornwall, is where a widower resides with the tangible and ineffable memories of his beloved wife.

Sadie Sparrow, a metropolitan detective, is visiting her grandfather, on leave from a case she took so personally that the violated protocol: the disappearance of a young mother, who abandoned her baby in a London flat. While taking a long run through a thick forest, she discovers Loeanneth in ruins, and decides to investigate. The locals have long memories and computer files that lead her to the lost baby's elderly sister in London, now a secretive and popular author of a long-running series of mysteries. She decides to allow Sadie to unlock the house, possibly to unlock the unsolved tragedy.

Both houses are presences, especially Loeanneth,which begins to reveal its secrets to the motivated detective and the reclusive writer. Letters, diaries, abandoned manuscripts, and the crumbling artifacts of passions spent lead Sadie deep into the secrets of a once-vibrant family, broken by wars and loss.

Except for the ending, which is a bit too tidy, this book is a splendid two-tiered tale, with homes that become characters in the spirit of Rebecca's Manderley and Howard's End.

4 1/2 stars.
I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley, and this is a fair review.


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