The House Across The Lake by Riley Sager #BookReview

Recently widowed actress Casey Fletcher has escaped to her family’s lake house for peace and quiet. She’s been happily losing herself in her thoughts and several bottles of bourbon, until the glamorous couple across the lake catch her attention. They look so perfect – just like Casey and her husband used to be.
But is anyone what they seem?

Casey has a detective sat at her kitchen table.

She has a man bound and gagged upstairs.

Casey will uncover dark truths so life-changing that nothing will ever be the same again.

What did I just read? I can’t believe those twists! The House Across The Lake was solidly out of my comfort zone and while I knew in advance there was some magical realism involved I completely forgot about it while I was reading. It seemed a very straightforward story for a really long stretch but then suddenly bam, there’s one big twist to this story that literally changed everything and explained so many things that had happened!

The story is set around a lake with only 5 houses surrounding it. Casey is there to get her drinking under control which started after her husband died. I cringed a little when I thought this would be another alcoholic with memory loss and she didn’t get a lot of sympathy from me at first, especially when she has no intention at all to stop drinking. Alternating with her drinking and fraternising with the neighbours she’s also sort of spying on them. Well the house across the lake is one big glass dome and when the lights are on in the evening you get to see everything, and even better when you have binoculars :-). When her neighbour suddenly disappears she doesn’t believe she simply went back to the city and she’s intent to find out if her husband did something to her.

It’s so funny because I was looking for the ‘if he (the husband) didn’t do it, then who did’ answer and although I’m pretty good at this sort of thing, I still didn’t guess it right. It is completely unpredictable! Even though it’s not my usual type of novel and usually a mixed bag of success for me, it worked out amazingly this time and I was really hooked. Casey had turned me around completely and I became a fan of hers, rooting for her and feeling the compassion that I lacked at the beginning, her drinking finally given the place and understanding it was meant to have.

This was quite the rollercoaster read and the ending was like getting to this final looping where you can feel the excitement in your stomach (well I’m really just guessing here, I don’t actually do rollercoasters).

I expected such a simple story of a missing wife but I got so much more than I paid for (99p actually), it was definitely worth every penny! The House Across The Lake was creepy and suspenseful and the paranormal addition so well done that he even got me on his side. The year has started on a great note!

I bought an ecopy of this novel. This is my honest opinion.