Not rating this since I DNFed it.
Which sucks cause, look at the cover, it’s gorgeous!

I gave this book 144 pages and even though it started out interesting there was nothing in those 144 pages that made me want to continue.

The main character was so annoying, she kept trying to “protect” her brother by holding him back even though he kept telling her he wanted to learn about his magic. I just couldn’t deal with her constantly telling him to stop or to not try something new because it’s dangerous blah blah blah like girl, you don’t even know what he can do, how do you know it’s dangerous???

Would be a 1.5-2 star if not for the second half of the book.

Not nearly enough character/relationship development in the first half; it feels like the second half was part of a completely different book, when you look at how the characters interact, the memories and attachments the MC mentions. I like a bit of inference when it comes to a story, but when I have to infer more than 80% of the interactions (read: dialogue, WEEKS of living together where we get one day for every 14 lived ((and one of the MCs sleeps for the majority of those days too?!)), backstory for any of the other characters other than one night of sharing the pivotal childhood event needed for the plot from each MC, etc) it makes me sad that I won't remember the other characters at all in a few months--and there were only 5 main ones in the whole book!!

Once we skip the whole up-in-the-air, infer all of this relationship-building stuff, the plot isn't half bad. I was worried it was going to be another Beauty and the Beast + Secret Garden retelling, but the other elements helped balance those themes out to make it more original and interesting.

I think it rubbed me the wrong way mostly because it has some of my least favorite tropes in it, namely "MC who protects the other MC blindly and with no thought/hesitation", "MC whose only personality traits are stubbornness, so-called selflessness (see above trope) and random passes at humor", "MC who reveals they have a secret power/strength we never really heard about before the mid-point of the book and they become integral to whatever force they're fighting (which ties into "MC who is an immediate master of their craft within 2 pages of revealing it)" and "Chosen One who refuses to let others help them in their Fight Against Evil because they're sacrificing themselves for the Greater Good and to protect their loved ones (although good on the author for letting the MC accept help at the final "battle" at least, it helped it not be annoying)."

Also wth was that ending?? I had to look up whether there was a sequel because...??? I do like cliffhangers but it wasn't even one of those "oh the reader can think of alternate endings because to pin just one down wouldn't be the best call (see Wilder Girls and Lady Chatterley's Lover)."

Anyways, I feel it would have been a better-put-together book after a few more passes to round out the first half and cut out some of the unnecessary monologues from the MC. Good ideas, eh execution.

I wasn't too big on this one. Like it wasn't a terrible read but it was just kind of lackluster imo. I liked some of the imagery and descriptive language. The prose was nice too and I liked the story line. But Idk it just fell short for me and maybe it's because I was expecting something creepier? Something more like Mexican Gothic or a read like that. I didn't hate any of the character but I didn't really feel drawn to any of them either. So I guess that's my take on Lakesedge. It was just alright.

Lakesedge is the first book in a duology about Violeta, who lives to protect her brother Arien and to hide his feared and reviled shadow magic. Rowan Sylvanan is the monster of Lakesedge, said to have drowned his entire family when he was a boy. When Rowan takes Arien with him to Lakesedge, Violeta refuses to let him go alone. She soon finds herself interested in both Lakesedge and the monster.

This story had a lot of promise, but honestly there just wasn't enough plot for me to really love it, and there was a lot of repetition of events, if I can even call them events. I love a slow-burn enemies-to-lovers but I still expect a solid plot alongside it. I feel like I could summarise the whole plot here in one paragraph and the romance was more glacial than slow burn, so that's not enough content for me personally. I haven't read the second book yet, but I suspect that the two books in the duology could probably have been combined into one standalone book more successfully. With less filler and more action, I would have liked this more.

I'm not a massive fan of present tense either, as anyone who's read my previous reviews will probably be aware of because present tense is everywhere in YA books these days so it feels like I'm always moaning about it. I can only really enjoy a book in present tense if the plot is just so good, exciting and fast paced that my brain is too busy processing everything to get hung up on how irritating I find the present tense. With the very slow, descriptive pace of this book, unfortunately my brain had plenty of time to get irritated by the present tense.

Violeta did have a bit of martyr syndrome which was slightly irritating too but I did enjoy her relationship with Rowan. I feel a bit bad about this rating because it wasn't a bad book, it was probably a 3.5 but I didn't feel like I wanted to rate it up to 4. As a comparison, I recently read the Shepherd King duology by Rachel Gillig which is also a gothic fantasy duology and I rated both books in that duology 5 stars because I thought there was the perfect balance of plot, romance and atmosphere that Lakesedge is missing.

3.8/5 a great cozy spooky fall read

3.75/5⭐

This was pretty good and entertaining!

3.5

I received Lakesedge in a subscription box and I'm happy I did otherwise I probably wouldn't have read it. And I would have missed out. Now I can't wait to read the second book in the series.

Detailed review coming soon to HerSerialLife.com

Solid 3.5 - 3.75. will check out book 2 when it is available at the library!