Lake Child by Isabel Ashdown
Genre: Psychological thriller, Scandi-noir
Read: 26th September 2019
Purchase: Amazon
(release date: 19th September 2019)
★★★★ 4 stars
Imagine waking up in a dark unfamiliar room that is bolted from the outside, covered in scars and with no memory of what happened and how you got there?
That is the nightmare Eva Olsen faces made even worse upon discovering that it's her own parents that have locked her in the attic with no contact with the outside world. They say it's for her own protection after she was involved in a car accident in which she was very seriously injured and the driver who, having escaped, remains unknown. It appears she had been kidnapped from a local bar although no one knows by whom or who she may have left with.
The accident has left Eva without her most recent memories - from that night or those leading up to it - but not everything is as it seems. Why have her best friends, Rosa and Lars, not been to visit her? Why has no one but the police been allowed to see her? The questions they ask just seem to confuse Eva even more as she desperately tries to recapture and retain the memories that linger on the periphery of her mind. But as secrets from the night in question start to surface, Eva also begins to question her parents' motives. Nothing they have told her seems to be the truth, and she begins to wonder can she really trust them?
One night, Eva convinces her parents to go into town for some annual celebrations and she uses this time to make her escape. Armed with just a knife she deftly removed from the tray on which they brought her meals and kept hidden until the time was right, Eva set to work on the door hinges. Once the door fell away, she couldn't believe that she was finally free and she quickly packed a bag from her own untouched bedroom before making her way down the stairs. But she hears the sound of the TV which is never left on. Of course they wouldn't leave her on her own, unguarded. So Eva begins to quietly make her way out when she hears another sound. The piercing cries of the fox in her dreams. Eva is confused...and then she hears the sound again...but it's not a fox. How could they keep this from her? Where does this leave Eva now? For she knows now, she cannot escape.
Suddenly the story shifts and takes us to London where a grandmother is being interviewed for the writing of her memoirs about the disappearance of her granddaughter almost two decades ago. And there are even more secrets surrounding that story as well as bit by bit we are given tiny morsels to try and piece together. How was the disappearance of baby Lorna Gregory in England connected to Eva's accident and subsequent amnesia in the snowy forests of Norway? I thought I had it all figured out until a final twist threw a whole new perspective on everything we thought we knew.
Told primarily from Eva's POV, with the England connection told through a series of interviews, this complex story was cleverly written...despite moving at a glacial speed for the first 30%. I admit, there were times I'd wondered whether to continue as it was incredibly slow and very confusing and repetitive in the first quarter or so...and for me, a book shouldn't take that long to engage the reader. I really was very close to giving up on it. BUT then it picked up...and when it did pick up it really picked up. And then I couldn't put it down.
As secrets begin to unfold, LAKE CHILD takes us on a journey through Eva's confused and convoluted memories surrounding her accident and her family. Dark and atmospheric, the chilly Norwegian landscape only adds to the mystery and intrigue as Eva clings to the shreds of memories, fighting to remember what really happened that night. And whether she can truly trust her parents.
As I fought my way through the first 30% of this book, I really didn't think I would enjoy the rest of it...but I did. Suddenly, everything began to fall into place and secrets unraveled and the truth was finally revealed.
LAKE CHILD is a dark and incredibly atmospheric thriller that is so intense and even suffocating. I had that claustrophobic feeling witnessing Eva's confusion and the incarceration in her parents' attic. Nothing made sense...until it did. The entire tale had a kind of complex ingenuity to it wrapped up in that atmospheric Scandi-noir.
While the first part is thoroughly confusing, repetitive and moves at a glacial speed, I would urge you not to give up! It does begin to make sense, albeit further on than I would normally like, but it is worth it in the end. While I wouldn't say it was gripping from the start, LAKE CHILD is shrouded in mystery, intrigue and dark secrets that make this an intense and compelling thriller that is both dark and atmospheric.
My only complaint is the amount of time it took to engage me as a reader, with the first half being far too slow and confusing with too much repetition. I've said before that it shouldn't take 30% of the novel before it starts to get interesting. Normally I would have given up long before if not for someone else assuring me it would all begin to make sense soon. I'm glad I stuck it out, as not many would.
Having said that, LAKE CHILD ended up being a clever, complex, twisted thriller that I thoroughly enjoyed by the end. And that cover - WOW! That alone was atmospheric in both colour and detail.
I would like to thank #IsabelAshdown, #NetGalley and #OrionPublishingGroup for an ARC of #LakeChild in exchange for an honest review.
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