REVIEW: The Lake House by Kate Morton
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.
Seventy years later 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. (Via Goodreads)
Review
The Lake House is a fair entry on Kate Morton's long list of historical and historically-influenced fiction novels but for me, it is certainly not one of her best. This book hits all the bullet points of the classic Kate Morton novel. Vintage setting? Check. An old mystery and/or death? Check. A child at the center of the crime or story? Check. An old house at the center of everything? Check.
Don’t get me wrong, I like a successful formula as much as the next gal but this one just felt stale. Although this is far from the longest of Morton's books this one has certainly felt the longest to me. I found myself checking how much time was left on this book far more often than I normally do which is not exactly a great thing when thinking about your impressions of a book. The thing is that even though I did feel very impatient throughout the listen I never turned it off, I was still interested enough to finish it and in my case listen to it twice.
If I were to pinpoint the one thing that makes me rank this book below the other Kate Morton novels I've listened to is the focus on Sadie and her storyline. Whenever the focus shifted more to Sadie was when I felt myself losing interest. Sadie is the obligatory Morton modern-day protagonist who steers the retelling of the past events. The issue with Sadie is that her individual story and history didn’t seem to connect with the historical story (always the real draw). It wasn’t very compelling and unlike Elodie in The Clockmaker's Daughter or Cassandra in The Forgotten Garden I just never cared about her or her issues.
The Lake House is not a bad listen, it is just a rather mediocre one compared to the other Morton novels. With the runtime for the audiobook at about 21.5 hours, I can't really recommend it to most people as there are many other better books that require a lot less of a time commitment.
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