Kimberly Belle | STRANGER IN THE LAKE

Plot (via Goodreads):

When Charlotte married the wealthy widower Paul, it caused a ripple of gossip in their small lakeside town. They have a charmed life together, despite the cruel whispers about her humble past and his first marriage. But everything starts to unravel when she discovers a young woman’s body floating in the exact same spot where Paul’s first wife tragically drowned.

At first, it seems like a horrific coincidence, but the stranger in the lake is no stranger. Charlotte saw Paul talking to her the day before, even though Paul tells the police he’s never met the woman. His lie exposes cracks in their fragile new marriage, cracks Charlotte is determined to keep from breaking them in two.

As Charlotte uncovers dark mysteries about the man she married, she doesn’t know what to trust—her heart, which knows Paul to be a good man, or her growing suspicion that there’s something he’s hiding in the water.

Review:

Kimberly Belle is the kind of author who will completely captivate you with her novels right from the first chapter. Well, one thing I noticed with Stranger in the Lake is that Belle has also found her niche for compelling me using her setting. I swear, in this story the town was a character all in its own and the lake was the leading star. I immediately fell into the coziness of this setting; there's something about something dark and sinister outside of a big house as the snow falls in a book that is both comforting and eerie. Belle captured this brilliantly and had me covering up with a quilt and reading non-stop until I got to the disturbing and shocking finale of this novel.

I love Charlotte/Char/Charlie (depending on who you ask). This character was the perfect blend of naive and yet strong-willed and the exact character that you need to take you on a journey like this. As the secondary characters began to come into play, I noticed immediately how masterfully Belle is able to build characters that you're able to differentiate early on. Bonus points for Belle. The setting was perfect, the characters were great and then the big plot point of Charlotte finding the body was written so well it was like reading a Hitchcock movie.

This novel is so cinematic, which is what really made me enjoy it. The lighter happier moments are like a warm blanket and the eerie moments haunt you like nails on a chalkboard. There were so many pockets of rich, scary moments that I had to cherish them all, but the lighter moments were great for character development and the pacing was done in such a fantastic way. As the novel progressed and the reveals began to come, it was like a puzzle; each time a reveal came I was immediately thinking of my next question and before I could even process it, Belle was answering it. I loved all the twists and turns to this one as they were done realistically and I thought they perfectly avoided cliches. The ending was satisfying and didn't leave me wondering much, blending together the perfect storm of a novel in one beautiful package.

Special thanks to Park Row Books for this copy in exchange for my honest review.

Rating: 4/5