The People of the Lake is a fascinating mix of several genres. I started it thinking the book was a psychological thriller with some very spooky elements, but the second part and the ending were more in the fantasy realm.

Clara Morris, a sixteen year girl from Manhattan, decides to spend her summer holidays in a remote town of Redmarch Lake her father moved to after the divorce. The build up of tension in this book is spectacular. We know something is wrong with this town long before Clara sets her foot in it. I loved the descriptions of the unnervingly still lake and the surrounding woods. Add unfriendly town residents who very quickly show Clara that outsiders are not welcome in Redmarch Lake. Clara is a typical teenager. She loves her parents and would love to be able to communicate with them, but in the heat of the moment she just says things which are more snarky than she intends them to be. It doesn't help that her father is a silent type who gives a lot of warnings about not going alone to the woods, but doesn't find it easy to explain why. Similarly, he doesn't want to talk about the divorce, or, even more importantly for Clara, he doesn't even mention Zoe, Clara's twin sister who drowned saving Clara's life when they were eight years old. Clara befriends Neil, the only person in the town who is willing to talk to her in a welcoming way. Neil invites her to a party in the woods, but unfortunately, the following morning he is found dead under suspicious circumstances. When Clara finds a note written in the secret language she and Zoe invented, she knows she needs to investigate and break the wall of superstitious silence the town folk seem to have surrounded themselves with.












The protagonist of the book Clara Morris is brave and tenacious. I liked the way she never gave up on reaching out to Ashley, Neilìs ex-girlfriend, who blamed Clara for upsetting the town's delicate balance and causing Neil's death. Clara's grief over her lost twin sister, who used to be her whole world, is probably one of the most fascinating aspects of the novel. There is a love interest as well, as you would expect in a YA novel, but I didn't find his character as well-developed as that of Zoe, Clara's deceased sister, who appears to be loyal and mischievious at the same time.

The People of the Lake was a perfect October read for me, as the book relies a lot on the reader to fill the gaps and imagine spooky, scary things happening in this little isolated town and come up with one's own theories of what is and has been happening there for centuries. The historical excerpts are short and relevant and represent 'close escapes' different outsiders had with the town and its dark secret.

There was one major twist that I didn't see coming and this is where the book started picking pace, perhaps a bit too much. I did enjoy the build-up of characters, atmosphere and tension in the first half of the book, while the second part and the ending, although original, appeared a bit rushed. The fantasy world the author created could have been expanded and described in more detail.

Overall, it was an entertaining debut novel and I would definitely like to read more books by this author.

Thank you to Edelweiss and the Sky Pony publisher for the ARC provided in exchange for an honest opinion

From the book blurb:
When seventeen-year-old Tati sends a saliva sample to a DNA ancestry testing site her results come back inconclusive. What’s wrong with her DNA? And what does it have to do with her unexplained seizures and the beckoning tunnel she sees during them?

What Tati discovers is more than she could have ever imagined possible. Parallel universes exist and her abnormal DNA compels and condemns Tati and her other selves—shy Ana—privileged Tatyana—and on-the-run Tanya, to a lifetime of ricocheting between their parallel lives in the multiverse.

With knowledge of their existence a deadly threat in every universe, the only chance all four have to survive is to work together to take down the scientist responsible: their father.


My thoughts:
The premise of Ricochet by Kathryn Berla was so intriguing that I didn't hesitate, grabbed the book and started reading straightaway.
There are four points of view, so it took me a bit of time to get used to the four narrators: Tati, Ana, Tanya, and Tatiana. The author clearly put a lot of effort into differentiating their worlds and their voices. In fact, I quickly found myself relating more to one of them than to the others! Two of the protagonists live in the US, having been adopted by American parents, although they do know that their origin is Russian. Overall, their life circumstances are fairly similar and you can concentrate on how the differences came about. The other two are much more connected to Russia. So you can say that the task of following the 4 different stories was slightly reduced by this coupling.
I love the idea of multiverse  and how it was developed in this book. The story also touched on teenager-parent relationships, first love, trust issues, friends. At some point the pace became really fast and the story started bearing similarity to an action thriller with lots of chases and narrow escapes. This was the bit where I got confused and started wishing for fewer characters. I'm still not sure about the ending- I think it should have been told from the point of view of another protagonist, the one who was the most attached to the girls' father. The way it was it felt less emotional, almost detached.
The cover is really beautiful and deserves a special mention. Overall, a quick read with varied characters and a lot of action.
Thank you to NetGalley and Flux for the review copy provided in exchange for an honest opinion.