Daughters of the Lake by Wendy Webb is a moody gothic suspense novel that will keep you hooked by the folklore.
Recovering from the shambles of her divorce Kate Granger retreats to her parent’s home on Lake Superior. Instead of the relaxing, recuperative environment she was expecting, her break from the stress of her life is destroyed when she discovers the corpses of a dead women and infant on the beach. The grisly discovery however is only the beginning, as Kate realises that she recognises the women… from her dreams. With the police unable to identify the woman or any motivation for her death, suspicion turn to Kate who they suspect killed her husbands mistress in a rage of jealousy.
Desperate to prove her innocence Kate must turn to a 100 year old mystery and her vivid, haunting dreams to uncover the truth.
This is such a hard book to review because I don’t want to give away the supernatural elements of the book which the whole premise of the book is built on. So beyond the main, present day timeline that Kate inhabits we are also shown pieces of 1889 and the early life of Addie Cassatt and Jess Stewart. To solve the mystery Kate needs to understand Addie and why she is special.
Read Daughters of the Lake is you enjoy books with:
- Different timelines
- Folklore and myths
- Supernatural mysteries
- Romance
Excerpt from Daughters of the Lake by Wendy Webb
But for now, on that foggy day, young Jess Stewart stood on the shore, watching as this strange animal opened its mouth and sang. Something made Jess turn around just then, and that’s when he saw the dogs. Polar and Lucy, the Cassatts’ two Alaskan malamutes. They were staring out into the water, watching something. It was Addie, but he didn’t know her name then. What he saw was a baby floating in the shallow water between two big rocks. When he turned back around, the strange animal was gone. The singing was silent. All that remained was a baby floating in the water.
Jess called for his parents, knowing this was much more than a five-year-old should handle alone. “Mama! Papa! Come quick!”
Phil Stewart poked his head out of the back door. Unlike that daft Marcus, he was home that day, like any sensible fisherman would be. “Jess! Get back inside the house!” his father called.
“But there’s a baby . . .”
“Get in here, I said!”
Jess heard the door slam shut. Of course they didn’t believe him about the baby. Parents never believed children when they had something important to say. So he scrambled back up the hill to the house to try again.
“There is a baby in the lake.” He began crying with the urgency of it all. That got his parents’ attention, just as he knew it would.
“What do you mean, dear? What kind of baby?” His mother, Jennie, put down her needlepoint and looked her son in the eye.
“A human baby,” Jess cried, gesturing wildly toward the lakeshore. “You need to come right now.”
Jennie and Phil exchanged concerned glances. A human baby?
