2.75 Stars

I'm currently too frustrated with this book to write down my full thoughts. But I'll be back!

At Lakesedge, a monster lurks. At least, that's been the story. After drowning his family, Rowan Sylvanan is left without much else, except the evil persona the town has come to know of him. Abused at home, Violeta takes the chance to leave when Rowan shows up to take her brother for some ritual shrouded in secret and death. But Lakesedge is much more than Violeta could have ever known. As she falls for Rowan, Violeta discovers more about the mysterious estate and the monster.

When I found out about this one, it was of high interest for me. I loved the suggestion of a Jane Eyre influence and was curious to see how a paranormal element might fold into that kind of story. I was eager to dip into a dramatic and rich romance, and Lakesedge seemed like it would be just that. Unfortunately, I was let down on pretty much every front.

Lakesedge is, more or less, a gothic novel. There's an element of mystery -- though one solved too soon for my tastes. There's a gloomy house with a moody inhabitant and faithful servants -- though the atmosphere seems to come more from outside the house than from within. There's emotional distress, with what modern readers would probably identify as trauma, PTSD, and similar mental ailments -- but it is maybe too recognizable as psychology to make its context feel like a gothic novel.

Frankly, to put it briefly, I was totally bored by Lakesedge. While I expected a slow-mover (though not too slow, once I got the book in my hands and found the page count to be smaller than I expected), it generally felt like nothing much happened scene to scene. I might have expected those scenes instead to be full of great sensory detail to help build the atmosphere, both literal and figurative, of the book, but I didn't really feel I got that, either. I was reading words, but they were amounting -- as far as I could tell -- to pretty much nothing. The plot of a curse came in here and there, though I generally found it too vague to make following along of much use. Violeta and Rowan's romance was similarly stunted. A slow burn that wasn't even burning, it seemed more like a cold wick that got a spark, died out, and then humbly reignited with an understated flame, though not a flame I had confidence would burn on past the end pages.

Characters felt similarly vague and underdeveloped for me. This presented in two different ways: either I didn't get a good handle on a given character or a character leaned too heavily on tropes and had no discerning personality that I could find. Either way, it made for flat characters that I couldn't get my hooks into to root for, which further dampened the plot and its (nonexistent) tension.

I wanted Lakesedge to be what I thought it had promised to be, but found it to be massively disappointing. Skippable.

(more like 3.5 stars)

I really enjoyed this book, until the ending. Now, that's not to say the ending was bad, but it made the book feel unfinished, like there should've been another paragraph or chapter. I loved the Gothic vibes, the love interest/s, Leta, but the ending definitely let it down. Lakesedge is definitely worth a read, mind, it's perfect for spooky season, and I'll definitely read the next one!

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Overall Review (no spoilers)

I really enjoyed this book, and I didn’t think I would. The best way to describe it is magical, gothic, murder, fantasy, romance book. It had the classic trope of a main character obsessed with the idea of sacrificing others, which is a little played out. However, I found myself invested heavily in this book and really enjoyed it. It’s got a Hades and Persephone, beauty and the beast vibe going. I already bought the sequel to read.

Plot Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4/5)

Spice Rating:

I just didn’t love it, but also felt that I had read too much to DNF. I just personally wasn’t a fan of the writing. 2.5/5 ⭐️’s