Lost Lake by Sarah Addison Allen

Title:  Lost Lake

Author: Sarah Addison Allen
Publisher:  Hodder & Stoughton (Feb. 13, 2014)

ISBN-10: 1444787098

Pages: 304 Kindle Edition
How I Read It: ARC copy

Genre: Magical Realism, Southern Fiction

My Rating: 5 Crowns

 

Synopsis:

It happens one morning - Kate finally wakes up from the slumber she's been in since her husband's death a year ago. Feeling a fresh sense of desire to take control of her and her young daughter's life, she decides to visit Suley, Georgia - home to Lost Lake. It's where Kate spent one of the happiest summers of her life as a child. She's not sure what she expects to find there, but it's not a rundown place full of ghosts and other curious oddities. Kate's Aunt Eby, Lost Lake's owner, wants to sell the old place and move on. Lost Lake's magic is gone. As Kate discovers that time has a way of standing still at Lost Lake, can she bring the cottages - as well as her heart and the hearts of all the guests - back to life? Because sometimes lost loves aren't really lost. They're just waiting for you to find them again.

My thoughts: 

Following on from her successive NYT bestsellers, comes yet another winner from this author. I have read all her books and loved each and every one of them.  They provide a perfect blend of nostalgia, incidents of regret from losses in the past whilst at the same time enlightening with new insight, wisdom, inspiration and always that touch of magic! 

You will enjoy the journey with Kate and her daughter Devin to Lost Lake “…with its lackadaisical proprietor, its mute French cook, and guests with marriage charms and plans for a farewell party….(Kate wanted to) enjoy their last best summer, which somehow felt like saying good-bye to a lot more than just the lake.” And indeed it is! The trip to the lake helps Kate awaken from her year of grief in losing her husband and being controlled by her mother-in-law ‘Cricket’ – “How had Kate let this happen? How had she gotten to the point where she was slowly turning over control to the one person who wanted to change her daughter from the glorious thing she was? The very thing Kate used to be, that she used to be so proud of being…There was no doubt about it. Kate wasn’t going to fall asleep again and miss another year. She was going to be here for every moment. For the first time since waking up, she knew that clearly, without fear.” 

And it’s not just the journey of Kate and her daughter. There is Eby the owner, who learns just what a community is and how “One set of hands isn’t enough to keep you from falling.” There is Lisette, whom Eby saved as a young girl so many years ago and who is still haunted by her past; Jack, who has come year after year and is in love with her; Selma with her marriage charms and power over men; and an array of other characters that resonate with the words of wisdom as Addison Allen once again delivers light where there was darkness. In the words of the indomitable Bulahdeen, “Magic is what we invent when we want something we think we can’t have."

This book holds a magic that will transport you to Lost Lake where you may indeed find yourself and learn that “you can’t change where you came from, but you can change where you go from here.”

 

Reviewed by Helen