{"id":352,"date":"2017-05-06T07:27:24","date_gmt":"2017-05-06T07:27:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/2017\/05\/06\/httptheblurb-com-aureviewsthe-lake-house-by-kate-morton-book-review\/"},"modified":"2017-05-06T07:27:24","modified_gmt":"2017-05-06T07:27:24","slug":"httptheblurb-com-aureviewsthe-lake-house-by-kate-morton-book-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/httptheblurb-com-aureviewsthe-lake-house-by-kate-morton-book-review\/","title":{"rendered":"The Lake House by Kate Morton – book review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Lake-House\"Kate Morton is one of my favourite mainstream Australian writers; the type of books she writes \u2013 gothic-style mystery with old houses and buried secrets \u2013 are my favourite. There\u2019s something incredibly romantic about big old houses, once-beautiful but now tangled old gardens, yellowing letters, haunting secrets, ghostly apparitions \u2026 they put me in a reader\u2019s swoon every time. The Lake House<\/em> has all those elements and more, and when I finished reading, I sighed with contentment.<\/p>\n

Skillful interweaving\u00a0of dual narratives, time periods and plot lines reveals\u00a0a moody and mysterious story which has the disappearance of toddler at its heart. The mystery begins in 1933 when Theo Edevane is found to be missing after an\u00a0exclusive Midsummer Eve party at the Edevane\u2019s Cornwall home,\u00a0Loeanneth (Cornish for The Lake House).\u00a0The police investigation proves fruitless; Theo is not to be found. No one knows if he is dead or alive, but the Edevanes and their contemporaries all have their ideas. Eventually, the Edevanes abandon\u00a0Loeanneth for London and the case of Theo turns cold.<\/p>\n

The summer had ripened and rotted so that autumn when it fell was thick and sullen \u2026 Even Mother, usually loath to leave the country, had seemed glad to escape the cold, stultifying sadness of the Lake House (p282-283)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Seventy years later, police officer Sadie Sparrow stumbles upon Loeanneth; the house is\u00a0\u2018as thoroughly forgotten as the garden\u2019 that\u00a0surrounds it: \u2018Tiles were missing from the roof, some of them shattered where they\u2019d fallen, and one of the windowpanes on the top floor was broken \u2026 The house before her was deserted. It was hard to put into words, but there was a look about it, an aura it gave off\u2019 (p39-40). Sadie, who\u2019s on enforced leave because of a troubling case involving an abandoned child and missing mother, hears about Theo Edevane\u2019s disappearance and decides to do some digging. Her search leads to Alice Edevane, Theo\u2019s older sister and acclaimed detective novel\u00a0writer, who isn\u2019t sure she wants the family\u2019s secrets resurrected.<\/p>\n

The Lake House<\/em> is a polished and multi-layered read from a writer at the top of her craft. It retains elements\u00a0fans have grown to love in Morton\u2019s books:\u00a0atmospheric,\u00a0gothic mystery;\u00a0house-as-character \u2013\u00a0\u2018The building had taken on a sullen cast, like a spoiled child who enjoyed being the centre of attention and now wasn\u2019t happy being enjoyed\u2019 (p44). However, Morton ups the ante with by bringing in a detective (a nice link to the popularity of detective stories at the time of Theo\u2019s disappearance): \u2018\u2026 she knew, in that twist-of-the-gut way a police officer had better hope she developed, that something terrible had happened in that house\u2019 (p44).<\/p>\n

Morton twines together familiar themes of love, abandonment,\u00a0mother-child separation and relationships, and murky pasts; twists are added through explorations of\u00a0post-traumatic stress disorder and guilt. The result is a completely engrossing and dynamic read that\u2019s hard to set aside once readers are sucked in. I\u00a0do love a book that makes you think: \u2018Maybe so and so did it \u2026 no, that would be too obvious \u2026 what if \u2026\u2019 Ultimately, I did pick the twist, but the story was so richly and beautifully told it didn\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n

Enthralling, haunting and utterly absorbing, The Lake House<\/em> sucked me into the world of Loeanneth and had me wanting to stay longer. It\u2019s another keeper from Kate Morton\u00a0\u2013\u00a0if you haven\u2019t discovered her yet, wait no more.<\/p>\n

Available from good bookstores. My copy was courtesy of Allen & Unwin<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Author: Kate\u00a0Morton
\nPublisher: Allen & Unwin
\nRRP $32.99
\n<\/strong><\/h6>\n

Monique Mulligan<\/strong>
\nFor more of Monique Mulligan’s writing on books, check out Write Note Reviews<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kate Morton is one of my favourite mainstream Australian writers; the type of books she writes \u2013 gothic-style mystery with old houses and buried secrets \u2013 are my favourite. 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That book featured everything a reader might want from this style of tale \u2013 asylums, strange villagers, a dark manor house, whispers of witchcraft and of course the titular Companions \u2013 wooden effigies that seemed to move on their\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Shape-of-Darkness.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":137385,"url":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/the-lamplighters-emma-stonex-book-review\/","url_meta":{"origin":352,"position":4},"title":"The Lamplighters (Emma Stonex) – book review","author":"Robert Goodman","date":"April 27, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Emma Stonex\u2019s debut novel The Lamplighters is based loosely on the true story of the disappearance of three lighthouse keepers from a remote lighthouse in 1900. Stonex relocates the event to a more recent time and a slightly different location but maintains the mystery and the mythology that surrounds those\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Lamplighters.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":149644,"url":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/tom-lake-ann-patchett-book-review\/","url_meta":{"origin":352,"position":5},"title":"Tom Lake (Ann Patchett) – book review","author":"Robert Goodman","date":"September 13, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"In her last few books, award winning author Ann Patchett has increasingly focussed on the domestic. From 2016\u2019s Commonwealth which centred on a group of cousins growing up to 2019\u2019s The Dutch House which focussed on siblings coming to terms with their family\u2019s past. Her latest novel, Tom Lake, treads\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Tom-Lake.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}