An Amazon Charts and USA Today bestseller.Gina Royal is the definition of average—a shy Midwestern housewife with a happy marriage and two adorable children. But when a car accident reveals her husband’s secret life as a serial killer, she must remake herself as Gwen Proctor—the ultimate warrior mom.With her ex now in prison, Gwen has finally found refuge in a new home on remote Stillhouse Lake. … home on remote Stillhouse Lake. Though still the target of stalkers and Internet trolls who think she had something to do with her husband’s crimes, Gwen dares to think her kids can finally grow up in peace.
But just when she’s starting to feel at ease in her new identity, a body turns up in the lake—and threatening letters start arriving from an all-too-familiar address. Gwen Proctor must keep friends close and enemies at bay to avoid being exposed—or watch her kids fall victim to a killer who takes pleasure in tormenting her. One thing is certain: she’s learned how to fight evil. And she’ll never stop.
more
This is my first Rachel Caine, and now I definitely will move on to read her other novels.
While parts were totally implausible (such as Mel’s workshop), I enjoyed this suspenseful thriller. TW: some fairly gruesome murder scenes.
This is the story of a wife/mother who goes on the run when she discovers she’s been married to a serial killer for 9 years.
I especially liked the transformation of Gina (a shy bit of a doormat) into Gwen (a tough take-charge fighter).
Well written, look forward to reading more in series.
Audiobook: Narrator – Emily Sutton-Smith
This was an incredible narration that swept me up into the story to the point that I forgot I was listening to a narrator. I felt as though I were living Gina’s experiences through every word. Totally engulfing performance!
This was one dark, twisted read that for me was more about the main character and how she was surviving than it was about what had happened or what might happen next. In my history of listening to audiobooks, I found this to be one of the most difficult books to stop listening to.
I was immediately going into the next audio when I learned that there are several books involved in telling this story and I’m not prepared to dedicate that amount of time to it. I’m stopping at this one.
After Gina Royal stumbles upon her husbands deadly secret she changes her name. Gina has gone into hiding with her 2 kids and is now Gwen Proctor. A girl was found dead in the lake and the police question Gina/Gwen and her daughter. This book is mostly about the miserable things that happened after her ex-husband got caught and charged as a serial murderer. I liked this book, I’ve often wondered what happens to the family members of the murderer. I can imagine that the family gets unfairly accused of what the murderer did. This was actually my first book by Rachel Caine, i know now that i have to finish this series. I’ve been expanding the authors i’ve been reading and Rachel Caine is a new addition to my list of liked authors.
I am in love with this series, and this book was perfection for me. Great, intense pacing and characters I can relate to. The writing is tight and smooth and keeps me turning the page.
Not a dull moment! Looking forward to the next one.
Terrific character development. I loved the female protagonist. PLENTY of thrills and spills. Already ha e Book 2 in this series. Well done, Rachel !!
Edge of your seat story!
THIS REVIEW IS FOR BOTH THE AUDIOBOOK AND EBOOK VERSIONS
I really enjoyed this book, great characters and plot it completely surprised me. Good action, emotional at times and so very twisted. The narrator did a wonderful job and I recommend this book.
While I’d read some of Rachel Caine’s urban fantasy books, I hadn’t read any of her thrillers. However, when I received an ARC of book 5 in the Stillhouse Lake series, I decided to go back and read this series from the beginning, and boy, am I glad I did.
Gwen Proctor is determined not to become collateral damage. A suburban mom of two kids, she hadn’t the faintest idea her husband Melvin Royal was a brutal serial killer, torturing and murdering young women in their garage. When Melvin’s gruesome handiwork is exposed by the random accident of a drunk driver running into the garage, Gwen’s world is turned upside down. Finally acquitted of involvement, she’s just desperate to protect her kids from those who would like to see anything to do with Melvin Royal utterly destroyed. Going through eight identities in just a few years, she is finally trying to settle down to something approaching normality in the tiny Tennessee community of Stillhouse Lake… when the first body turns up, floating in the lake.
This is such a good story. Gwen’s a fighter, a survivor; you can feel her empathy for the victims and the horror their families have endured, and you’re willing her on in her determination to protect Lanny and Connor, her kids.
There’s some interesting subtextual commentary here about internet trolls and the people who will say and do anything as long as they believe themselves to be protected by the anonymity of the keyboard. Perhaps those reading the story might think twice before they jump to judgement or to make that harsh comment about someone they don’t even know. At least one character here does change their mind after coming to know Gwen (I won’t spoiler who, but it’s someone who had good cause to want justice and even revenge) but the reality is, you shouldn’t have to get to know someone personally to believe in their innocence – especially when they’ve been acquitted. Gwen’s reality of constant vigilance, of the Sicko Patrol where she has no choice but to immerse herself in the vitriol-laden, conspiracy-theory-rife depths of the internet in order to determine whether there is clear and present danger to herself and her children on a daily basis – is a sobering reminder that any of us might be only one degree of separation away from such a fate ourselves. Contaminated by association, there’s no end in sight for Gwen and her kids. Only, somehow, carrying on and making lives for themselves despite it.
There are some threads that don’t get tied off here, and it does end on something of a cliffhanger, but it’s just such a fantastic read. I didn’t hesitate before diving straight into Book 2.
It will keep you guessing. I love a good thriller. I had no idea this was a series. Now, to continue…
A shocker when you find out your husband is a serial killer! Another shocker when the police things you helped him! Your life is totally turned upside down!
I’ve been a long term fan of Rachel Caine. Whatever genre she wrote in, I was there, she’s that fab. The Stillhouse Lake series is great. The premise is as fresh as it is horrifying. Love her stuff! 🙂
OMG!!! If I could give 4.5stars, I would. I even stayed up late on a work night just to finish it because there was no way in #%!! I would have been able to sleep until I knew how it ended. I can’t wait to read the next one. The only thing I didn’t like was the question of what may have happened to Lanny. That really wasn’t necessary.
Stillhouse Lake Kindle Edition
by Rachel Caine
I borrowed this book via the Kindle Unlimited program. I am choosing to leave a fair and honest review.
As she showed with her groundbreaking Weather Warden series, Ms. Caine creates another world filled with complex and wounded characters. At the front is Gina Royal, the wife of a serial killer who is forced to go on the run with her two children. The story picks up 4 years later when Gina is Gwen. Constantly on the look out for those chasing her – the Internet trolls and sociopaths who crawl in the darkest part of 8Chan and the various sociopaths who slither through the virtual world, she is forced to move often, sliding through new identities and beginning again.
Gina/Gwen is a wonderful character. Her stress and hyper-vigilance are obvious. We can see it in the way she is constantly moving, listening, preparing. She also has a sly sense of humor. Beyond that, she is an older character, she has two children and has had to teach herself new skills. There are genuine emotions from the fear and frustration that causes her to snap at her children to the complicated loathing she has for her now serial killing ex-husband
G/G also has all the narration duty. Speaking in first person, present tense creates a level of tension. That tension is slowly ratcheted up as Gwen has to learn to live again.
Around her, there are a number of men who either don’t believe she innocent or are a suspect as well. This causes a number of false turns and red-herrings.
Ms Caine is a precious resource for amazing characters and a extremely tight plot that left not only gasping at every new revelation but also kept me up at night. And that ending? A true nail-biter.
I highly recommend this. I’m off to get the next book.
5 stars out of 5
https://www.amazon.com/Stillhouse-Lake-Rachel-Caine-ebook/dp/B01MFGX5GI
Would give 3.5 stars if I could. Was entertaining but unrealistic. (She never went into the garage? Really?) I got tired of heroine saying she’d do anything for her kids. (We get it already!)
Less than believable story, cliff hanger, and never ending discussion of emotional angst—After nine years of marriage a woman learns that her husband is a serial killer and has been slaughtering women in the attached garage of their home. She and her two children had no clue.— Really? She and the kids never went in the garage for nine years? If you buy that, you will probably buy the rest of the story. She is implicated in the murders, but is eventually exonerated. Now she is on the run from vigilantes who hold her responsible for her husband’s grotesque murders. Her “15 minutes of fame” lasts a whole lot longer than most. With the help of one of her supposedly reformed cyber stalkers (which she has never met), she drags her poor kids from town to town changing all their identities every few months for the next four years to escape the relentless vigilante trolls. She has guns stashed everywhere and she trusts no one (except for the reformed cyber stalker—you can insert another “Really?” here). Her kids are trained to always keep a low profile, never to form attachments and to suspect everyone. They are ready to pick up and flee at a moments notice. That is the setup for the storyline. This author then spends the first half of the book on describing the emotional angst and paranoia the main character experiences regarding the possibility of the trolls/stalkers finding and wrecking havoc on her and her children’s lives. It is all in a first person narrative form so the reader is subjected to an endless and repetitious stream of consciousness. After the first twenty pages of descriptions of her all consuming paranoia it just becomes tiresome and boring. In the second half of the book her serial killer ex-husband reenters the story and the storyline begins to pick up speed. But just as the reader thinks things are about to resolve, the author delivers a very unsatisfactory and disappointing “cliff-hanger” ending. There should have been at least some reward at the end for plowing through all the unbelievable craziness in the first half of the book. I really did not like the mother in this story and felt she was turning her kids into paranoid loners. Her constant justifications that she was protecting her children were not enough to give plausibility to the story in my opinion. I have no plans on reading the next book in the series just to find out how this story ends.
Gwen and her children have been on the run from stalkers and victims families sense she was acquitted for being an accomplice to her ex husband’s crimes. He is a convicted serial killer who was caught because a drink driver drive into his garage and a dead woman was found hanging in it. They land in Stillhouse Lake and just when things start to feel normal and safe a dead woman is found that matches her ex husband’s emo so she is put at the top of person of interest list.
Too predictable.
Hated this book. Needless graphically violent descriptions.