“Spellbinding. Another outstanding novel by Kimberly Belle, masterfully written to lure you in and never let go.” — Samantha Downing, USA Today bestselling author of My Lovely Wife When Charlotte married the wealthy widower Paul, it caused a ripple of gossip in their small lakeside town. They have a charmed life together, despite the cruel whispers about her humble past and his first marriage. … marriage. But everything starts to unravel when she discovers a young woman’s body floating in the exact same spot where Paul’s first wife tragically drowned.
At first, it seems like a horrific coincidence, but the stranger in the lake is no stranger. Charlotte saw Paul talking to her the day before, even though Paul tells the police he’s never met the woman. His lie exposes cracks in their fragile new marriage, cracks Charlotte is determined to keep from breaking them in two.
As Charlotte uncovers dark mysteries about the man she married, she doesn’t know what to trust–her heart, which knows Paul to be a good man, or her growing suspicion that there’s something he’s hiding in the water.
Don’t miss Kimberly Belle’s newest novel, My Darling Husband!
Look for these other pulse-pounding thrillers by Kimberly Belle:
Three Days Missing
The Marriage Lie
Dear Wife
more
I really enjoy Kimberly Belle’s thrillers, and this was no exception. I read it in one long sitting.
Charlotte (Charlie) grew up poor in a trailer park with a drug addicted mother, and caring for her baby brother. However, all her dreams came true when she met Paul, a wealthy architect. Now married to Paul, she is living an idyllic life until one morning when she finds a body floating under their dock. This is the second woman to be found dead in the lake under their dock. The first woman was Paul’s first wife, Katherine.
Strangely, these aren’t the only 2 bodies that have been found in the lake. Another was Skeleton Bob, a local drug dealer found in his old Camaro at the bottom of the lake. Are these three bodies connected? If so, how?
Charlotte’s husband begins acting very erratically, and now Charlotte doesn’t know whether or not she can believe him.
Adding to her suspicions is the way Paul’s friends are behaving- Batty Jax and Lake Hunter Micah. Sam, Charlie’s old friend, is cold towards her, telling Charlie she shouldn’t have married Paul. Diana, Paul’s mother, has never truly warmed to Charlie.
Charlie turns to her brother, Chet, for help – but he hasn’t told her the whole truth either.
As Charlotte tries to discover the truth, she learns more than she expected, turning her world upside down and putting herself in great danger.
The novel keeps the tension level high, and keeps you guessing, but I definitely had my suspicions of who committed the murders. It turns out I did guess correctly, but I didn’t guess the reason. So the reason behind the motive for the murders was definitely a surprise!
I am looking forward to the next Kimberly Belle novel.
#StrangerInTheLake #Kimberly Belle
What happens when the girl from the wrong side of the tracks falls in love and marries the man from the right side of the tracks in a small town? He comes with secrets and a dead ex-wife, she comes from a horrible background and the whole town is watching and talking. Enter a pretty stranger that is going to blow the top off of a cold case. Not the one you might think.
I’m a huge Kimberly Belle fan. Love her writing, plot twists, story lines. This wasn’t my favorite though. But, it was an enjoyable thriller and held my attention. I did find this read more straight forward, figuring out the ‘Who Done Its’ pretty early. The descriptive scenery is top notch…beautiful and scary at the same time. The relationships described between friends and family members is excellent. I thought the character development was excellent, revealing to us a little at a time, the true nature of the characters.
Thanks to Ms Belle, Harlequin, and NetGalley for this ARC. Opinion is mine alone.
Favorite Quotes:
People say I married Paul for the money, but that’s just not true. I married him because I love him, and I love him for all the things he provides. A mortgage-free roof over my head and a belly stuffed with nutritious, organic food… And really, when you think about it, isn’t security just another word for love?
Annalee loves drama, and she loves when others share in hers.
Even if she had Paul when she was a teenager, even if she slept hanging upside down by her ankles every night, there’s no way someone her age— I’ve done the math, and the woman is well into her fifties— looks that good, not without a little help. But either her surgeon is really, really good, or somewhere along the line, Diana Keller made a deal with the devil.
As far as I’m concerned, this part of my life is like Vegas: what happened here stays here, hanging from velvet hangers upstairs in the closet.
Money can’t buy happiness or bravery. It can’t save a marriage or bring a drug dealer back from the dead. But in these United States of America, especially here in the South, it can keep a white man out of prison.
My Review:
This cleverly penned mystery kept my attention rapt and my curiosity sharply honed. This was my first experience with the wily Kimberly Belle and it greedily whetted my appetite for more. Her writing was easy to follow, expertly paced, colorfully descriptive, wittily amusing, and engagingly phrased. I was quickly lured into Ms. Belle’s intriguing yet somewhat smoky vortex where I couldn’t quite grasp who was trustworthy as this was such a slippery bunch. The ones I thought wouldn’t be actually were, and the ones I had higher aspirations for were rather tepid after all. I had hoped for a different ending as I always crave a romantic HEA, but I can accept the one written just as well.
This is the third book I have read by Kimberly Belle; I loved her last one “Dear Wife”. It pains me to admit that I had a difficult time getting into this one as the narrative in the beginning was drawn out with the main female protagonist Charlie (aka Charlotte) spending an inordinate amount of time just waiting in her house trying to figure out what was going on with her husband Paul and his friends. Once the story started moving, it got better although I figured out what who the murderer was about halfway through, and accurately anticipated some of the plot twists.
I would have loved to see the characters more developed. The whole story of the friendship among Paul, Jax, and Micah, in my opinion, needed to have been developed more in the flashbacks. And Sam was, regretfully, really underutilized.
It isn’t a bad book; it just left me wanting more from it. Her last book, “Dear Wife”, set a really high bar.
Stranger in the Lake is an atmospheric mystery set in the picturesque little town of Lake Crosby, North Carolina, part of the Appalachian mountains. Author Kimberly Belle says she set it on a lake because there is “something about a big body of water — the dark swirling currents, the beautiful but remote setting. . . . It’s the perfect place to set a suspenseful story because you just know something bad is going to happen there.” Indeed, a lot of bad things happen in Lake Crosby, where mansions set on the lake stand in contrast to the other part of town in which Belle’s protagonist, Charlotte, and her younger brother, Chet, were raised by a neglectful, drug-addicted mother in a rundown trailer park. Belle explores what happens when a woman marries a man whose wealth and social status greatly exceed her own. And when he is suspected of murder, and evidence increasingly points to his guilt, what role does her improved lifestyle and fear of losing it impact her and her willingness to stand by her husband.
As the story opens, Charlotte Keller has just discovered she is pregnant and is contemplating how to tell her husband, Paul, a successful architect eleven years her senior. She is confident Paul’s mother and other locals will be convinced that she cleverly planned the pregnancy in order to trap Paul and cement her place in his wealthy and powerful family. Charlotte and Paul have only been married a year or so, after having met when he patronized the convenience store where she worked. Many people in the little town still believe that Paul had something to do with the death of his first wife, Katherine, four years ago. They lived in the showplace home on the lake that Charlotte now shares with him. Katherine, a former competitive swimmer, drowned in the lake during a routine morning swim.
The morning after Charlotte goes to Paul’s office to pick him up and finds him chatting with a young woman she has never seen before, Charlotte discovers that woman’s body under the boat dock that fronts their lakeside home. The night before, Charlotte and Paul celebrated her pregnancy and when Charlotte work up a little after 6:00 a.m., Paul was already gone, presumably for his morning run. When Paul finally returns, Charlotte has alerted the authorities, including their next door neighbor, Micah, Paul’s lifelong friend and son of the police chief. Micah is a well-known diver who specializes in underwater investigations and evidence recovery. Charlotte is shocked when Paul denies ever having seen the deceased woman before. And from there, the mysteries within mysteries that Belle weaves into her tautly-constructed tale are revealed at an unrelenting pace.
Charlotte also saw Jax the previous day when she went to meet Paul. Jax, like Micah, is one of Paul’s oldest friends. But many years ago, he dropped out of society and began living deep in the woods. He is well-known to Lake Crosby residents, most of whom write him off as mentally disturbed. But he told Charlotte he needed to speak with Paul, who takes off into the woods to find him, leaving Charlotte alone and wondering why she endorsed Paul’s lie. Like him, she told the police she did not recognize the dead woman. Charlotte is unnerved by her own dishonesty and contemplates confessing the truth to Sam Kinkaid, the police officer who used to be her good friend. He warned Charlotte not to marry Paul. Charlotte wonders what Paul would do if she recanted. Would he stand by her? Or abandon her and their unborn child?
Charlotte loves Paul, believes that he loves her, and wants her marriage to survive. However, there are so many unanswered questions that she simply cannot ignore. Despite the way in which she grew up — largely responsible for raising Chet because her mother left them physically and emotionally alone — Charlotte has a strong sense of right and wrong, and now she has her own baby to consider and provide for. She loathes the idea of being a single mother, forced to support herself and her child working a dead-end job, living back on the other side of Lake Crosby’s literal and figurative tracks. But she cannot continue her life with Paul until she knows the truth, in part because she perceives that she might be in danger.
Belle relates Charlotte’s internal struggle via a compelling first-person narrative detailing her doubts and the clues she follows in her quest for answers. Paul has not been entirely forthcoming with her about everything. In fact, he has lied to her about several things. Charlotte wonders what else he has lied about and how those lied bode for their future together, as well as their unborn child’s future. Could Paul have been lying all the times he insisted that he loved Katherine and did not harm her?
Belle injects a third-person narrative describing events that transpired in June 1999. Jax was mourning his mother, who died from ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease), and trying to stay away from his once-happy home and family. His sister, Pamela, became obsessed with the healing power of prayer but, as predicted, it didn’t work and his mother’s life was not spared. Paul and Micah convince Jax that if they can’t find a party in town that night, they will make their own. But what really happened that evening? In subsequent flashbacks, Belle gradually reveals the whole story and why the three men remain bound to each other. Those revelations enable Belle’s readers to journey with Charlotte to the whole, shocking truth.
Along the way, Charlotte proves to be an empathetic and savvy character. Belle ramps up the tension until the secrets that Paul, Jax, and Micah have been keeping for more than two decades are revealed. But then Belle cleverly wrings even more intrigue out of her multi-layered and slyly nuanced thriller.
Stranger in the Lake is replete with characters whose lives are intricately and inextricably connected by secrets that, were it not for one random occurrence, would have remained buried forever. It’s a smartly-told, engrossing story featuring a protagonist who rises above the circumstances of her birth and childhood. At the outset, to the residents of Lake Crosby, she appears to have done so by marrying a rich man. But by the end of the story, Belle demonstrates that she has actually done so through her own integrity, ingenuity, resilience, and determination. Charlotte fearlessly seeks the truth, no matter the toll on her marriage.
Stranger in the Lake further cements Belle as a master storyteller who consistently delivers gripping, entertaining thrillers featuring strong female protagonists.
Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader’s Copy of the book.
“Everything’s fine.” Of all my lies, this one’s the most absurd. ~Charlotte
Stranger In The Lake is one of the most binge-worthy books I’ve read this year. And it has been quite a year on books. On the whole, it’s one of the smartest character-driven suspense books I’ve ever read. As my first by Kimberly Belle, I’m now ready to hole up for weeks reading everything else by her.
Our main character, Charlotte, turns out to be the most sensible and smartest narrators. I absolutely loved being in her head and she reasons out her observations, emotions, and the facts. She’s a bit flawed, but as she recognizes a glaring truth about herself and the relationship she has with her husband, she shows us a genuine altruistic quality. Once known as Charlie she grew up on the wrong side of the “hill”. But when we meet her she’s made it to the other side and happily married to local real-estate mogul Paul Keller. The story unfolds over the course of a week and the pace is perfect. At the center of the mystery are three men, Paul, Micah, and Jax, who long ago made choices that are very bad, deadly even. After all, there’s a stranger in the lake.
Everyone is guarded, but none more than Paul. Charlotte quickly catches on that she’s not getting the whole story from him, possible from any of them, and she is wise enough to see her situation through a new lens: “We see what we want to see, and we disregard the rest. I know this better than anyone.”
She does have great support in brother Chet, and also a one time friend Sam. He clearly has ulterior motives but what they are are slowly exposed. Misgivings are bolstered by a crazy interesting cast operating under false assumptions and blatant lies. The story is set in the present, but we learn so much about these characters in flashbacks and reflections. No one seems to be on the up and up here.
I really enjoyed this read. The story made my mind spin as I kept guessing and second-guessing what was really going on in this small town. Ultimately, I never saw THAT end coming. 5 Stars and recommendation!
This is a classic whodunnit – there are the suspects, the motives, and clues easy enough but written so well! It’s fast paced, a bit predictable but with a lot of twists, a quick & an entertaining read!
STRANGER IN THE LAKE is my first read by Kimberly Belle and whoa… what a ride. This one was so full of secrets and twists I found myself coming back to it every second I could, trying to unravel the secrets and figure out how another woman ended up drowned under Paul’s dock. Charlotte was both worldly and naïve and I found myself rooting for her, if not necessarily for her relationship with Paul.
Belle brought well-developed characters into a story that had me hanging onto my seat. There were plenty of surprises in this one, including the ending. This was my first novel by Belle, and I keep wondering what took me so long to discover her writing!
Thanks to the Publisher and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this novel. All opinions are my own.
#StrangerintheLake #KimberlyBelle #ParkRow
Kimberly Belle is an author that has been on my radar for quite some time. I’ve read and loved one of her books, The Marriage Lie, and have the rest of her books on my to-read list, but just have not gotten around to them. After reading this latest one, I am definitely going to be getting to them sooner rather than later.
Right from the start, I found myself pulled into this book. I loved that every time I thought I had this one figured out, a new twist would come out and I was left scratching my head trying to fit the pieces together yet again. And it was completely atmospheric, with the lake almost another character itself.
This story is not just about who killed the mystery woman, but also about secrets and the lengths people will go to keep them buried. It is filled with such deeply flawed characters, many of whom are not quite the most likeable, but you can’t help but want to find out just what they are hiding, because you know they are not quite are true as they are wanting you to think they are.
I found myself glued to these pages, not sure who I could trust, but desperate to find out just what was going on here. I liked that the further into the book I got, the more sinister it became…it really is the perfect summer thriller to add to your summer reading list!
3.5 stars
Stranger in the Lake is one of those suspenseful stories with just enough twists to keep me guessing. Charlotte is an interesting character, and there were times my heart went out to her, but there were others when I felt like I didn’t know enough about her. Even by the end, I felt like we needed more depth with Charlotte. I suppose that technically, this is a psychological thriller, but the pacing was a little too slow for my tastes. It’s not so slow that I was bored – not by any means. It’s just slower than I prefer in a psychological thriller. One area that I felt like Kimberly Belle really excelled on was the atmosphere. She certainly knows her stuff when setting a scene and giving the reader a feel for the atmosphere of the setting. All in all, the book in well written and it is an entertaining mystery.
A new husband, Paul, a dead body in the lake, and Paul leaving on a hiking trip?
What should Charlotte think about all of this especially since she saw her husband talking to the dead woman yesterday, and he denies he knows her? And to top it all off, Paul tells her to lie to the police about where he went.
The body is in the same place that Paul’s first wife was found four years ago.
Every time their neighbor, Micah, stops by Charlotte gets nervous because he is part of the police force. She is worried and angry at Paul because she might mess up and say something she shouldn’t. Why did he leave and make her deal with all of this alone?
There was a lot of gripping tension for Charlotte and for me as I read. I would have been pretty nervous about the lies, and I wondered why Paul asked her to lie if he had nothing to hide. What did Charlotte get herself into by marrying Paul?
The apprehension mounts as you turn the pages and find out the secrets everyone has been keeping for years in this town.
STRANGER IN THE LAKE is about more than the stranger in the lake. It is about the lengths people go to in order to keep themselves out of trouble.
Hang on to your hats – Ms. Belle has done it again!!
You won’t be able to put down this twisty, surprise-filled, keeping-you-guessing-until-the-end book.
ENJOY!! 5/5
This book was given to me by the publisher via NETGALLEY in exchange for an honest review.
Carefully plotted and intricately woven this tale of long-buried secrets was a definite page-turner. Everybody loves a good Cinderella story, and the author wisely uses both Charlie’s background and current situation to explore how the grass isn’t always greener…and to be careful what you wish for because it’s not always the right thing. The overall plot was extremely well thought out, as was the mystery/investigation. Mostly I liked how the author spaced the clues and pertinent plot points evenly throughout the book. It’s tense, intelligent, and realistic. For a full review, please visit Fireflies and Free Kicks. Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin for a digital ARC of the book.
“Every generation is a new life. A new chance to get things right. Now it’s your turn.”
Yes I love this book, it took me a long time to finish, it is a bit dragging at the beginning for me, it’s on the slow-paced side, but because I admire the heroine so much and feel her struggles from the very first chapter and with all the lies and secrets that keep happening, I keep turning page after page, and as the veiled of secrets slowly unveil and reveal the ugly truths, I became really scared for her, I’m afraid that she won’t get her happy ending or she might end up getting hurt.
This is the book that the suspense is slowly building, it takes sometimes to really adjust to the pace and begin really enjoying it, each chapter brings another secret or another truth and the back and forth from the past to the present intensifies everything, question after question, truth after truth keep coming.
There’s dilemma, doubts, twists, everything that playing with my head and so much that I can learn from the beautiful words inside this book and therefore I like it a lot and if you’re looking for mystery thriller read, I think you must read this book.
OMG this is the best Kimberly Belle book ever. That ending brought me to my knees. This book has raw emotions. Be warned, it’s a must to have tissues while reading this great thriller. Kimberly Belle really outdid herself with this book. You can literally feel the emotion she put into this book. The heart and soul of this novel. Great job Ms Belle.
A few of my very favorite quotes from this book: And really, when you think about it, isn’t security just another word for love?
But for once, for however long the moment lasted, Jax didn’t feel so alone.
She didn’t look sad or disappointed. She just looked… accustomed.
Every person has a single defining moment. A moment that veer their life in a new direction, that changes them at a cellular level and makes them question everything they thought they knew, that colors every thought and decision afterward.
Then I will say, listen: no one ever taught my mother to love her babies, but somehow you taught me. You are the reason I am not like her, just like you will never be me. Every generation is a new life. A new chance to get things right.
Charlotte/Charlie married into wealth. She came from the poor side of the lake and was not truly welcome on the rich side. She loved Paul. She would do almost anything for him. He was her life and she wanted to make sure he knew she did not marry him for his money, home, wealth, but for love and love alone. Charlotte was a good wife and will be a great mother too. She does all she can to help Paul when things go crazy in their world. When a body shows up under his dock four years after his own wife was found in the same place. She vows to stick by him. Can anything change her mind? What will she do when things come to light about a years old death. When things start going south very quickly. When she catches Paul in lies and her mind starts to question whether she knows him at all. Is Paul capable of the things the police say he is? Would he truly be capable of murder?
Paul loves Charlotte. He wants to give her the kind of life she deserves. I believe he loves her with all his heart. I believe he loved his first wife just as much and maybe even more. But will he risk it all to keep things quiet. To keep certain things from coming to the surface? What will he do? Who will he choose? His wife or best friend? The truth or lies? And just who is the stranger in the lake really? Was she there to cause upheaval in people’s lives or was it just to get to the truth of what happened all those years ago?
This book takes you on many twists and turns. It has many highs and lows. Many curves. It’s beautiful written and the characters are so well and richly developed. The scenery is gorgeous and so realistic. You will feel the cold of the snow falling. Of the freezing water. You will feel the pull between a conscience and a heart. When you start out with a lie, a lie is all you will have left in the end. You will find yourself asking what would you have done in these friends places. Could you have made these choices. As a son, daughter, mother, wife, husband and child, all need protection but at what cost? This book takes you on a ride you will not soon forget. I felt like I was riding in the vehicles with these people on these icy roads. Down the steep hills and even going through the water. In the woods dark and alone. The emotion of this book pulled me in and would not let go. And that ending. It truly made me cry so hard. I felt such emotion for Charlotte. She’s one of the good ones. She really does deserve the best.
Thank you to #NetGalley, #KimberlyBelle, #ParkRowPublishers for the ARC of this wonderful book. These are my own feelings about this book.
A big fat 5 stars and the highest possible recommendation for everyone.
Kimberly Belle has once again delivered! Stranger in the Lake was a good book with a different flavor from her other books. I couldn’t wait to dig in. They are all so delicious and slide right down leaving you wanting another one.
The suspense in this book is a very gradual climb. I liked that. I liked her characters and could never figure out who the culprit was. I went back and forth and all over the place and didn’t know who did it until it was revealed. Of course, if the author doesn’t come right out and tell me at the very beginning, I never figure them out. Does that mean my mind isn’t devious?
If you haven’t read a Kimberly Belle book, you really need to. You won’t be disappointed. She always delivers a great read. Her book are entertaining and will keep you in your seat reading long after bedtime.
I received a copy of this book from the author for a fair and honest review.
Charlotte and Paul Keller are newlyweds and Charlotte as just found out that she is pregnant. They are both thrilled. Paul lost is first wife 4 years ago when she drowned off the dock in their back yard. Paul owns Keller Architecture and builds million dollar homes in the area. They live on Lake Crosby, North Carolina. Charlotte grew up with dysfunctional parents leaving her in charge of her little brother, Chet. She worked hard at jobs to provide a little food for the two of them to eat. Paul, on the other hand, grew up in the wealthy Keller family. When Paul’s first wife died, many people wondered if it was murder, and he has had to live with those suspicions. So, it is shocking when one morning while Paul is taking a run that Charlotte went to retrieve her cell phone she had left on the boat the previous day. That’s when she spotted a woman’s body floating in the lake.
The story is about Paul and his friends when they were teenagers and something they did. There is guilt and fear as this awful secret is revealed. Will they finally pay for their part in this?
OK. I have read several of Ms. Belle’s books and loved them all. However, I just couldn’t get the spooky vibe here and didn’t click with the characters. In addition, I still don’t get how many people were involved in the bad thing that night. It just doesn’t add up. Charlotte was OK but I feel as though she has a superior attitude toward the other characters which doesn’t make sense especially due to her upbringing. However, you can bet that I will be first in line to read more by this author because she does have the talent to write a magnificent thriller.
Copy provided by NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.
When Charlotte finds a dead woman floating under her new husband Paul’s dock, it’s horrible. It’s even worse because this mirrors the death of Pauls first wife whose drowned body was found in the same place years earlier. Paul was never charged with his first wife’s death, but some people still believe he got away with murder. Paul tells the police the current woman is a stranger, but Charlotte saw Paul with her the day before. With the police investigation swirling around their family, Charlotte dives into investigating herself hoping to protect them and prove the gossips wrong.
Stranger in the Lake is suspenseful and emotional, with compelling characters. Recommended for fans of suspense and mystery. 4.5 Stars
Content Warnings: SPOILERS abelist language, suicidal thoughts END SPOILERS
Thank you to the publisher and Edelweiss for the ARC. The opinions in this review are honest and my own.
I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Magnificently written book, as all Belle’s books are. The scenes are superbly described and the characters are well rounded. This book contains twists and turns you never see coming. Great book of suspense! Highly recommend. Enjoy!
I really enjoyed this suspenseful and totally captivating book that looks at life from the side of the very poor and the very rich. Charlotte and Chet were raised in a trailer park by their drug addicted mother. Charlie was always responsible for Chet since she was in elementary school and gets a job at a convenience store in order to support herself. There she meets very wealthy architect and widower Paul. They fall instantly in love and get married, despite the fact that Charlie is warned that Paul’s first wife died under very mysterious circumstances. Then, one day when Charlie rushes out to their boat to look for her missing cell phone, she discovers a dead body under the pier. Too eerie and coincidental since Paul’s first wife was discovered in like manner. The whole story is creepy good, with Charlie determined to find the truth, but also kind of hesitant because she really does love Paul. The characterization is spot on with characters like Paul’s mom Diana coming across as a real witch with the letter B and Batty Jax, a boyhood friend of Paul’s as someone who has serious psychological issues. I couldn’t read this book fast enough, with all of its complicated twists and turns and false leads. I thoroughly enjoyed it, even though I did figure out the ending (or at least most of it), I enjoyed seeing how it would play out in the author’s mind. Fans of mystery, suspense, fiction, thrillers and drama will really enjoy this book. What a great movie this one would make!
Disclaimer
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255, “Guides Concerning the Use of Testimonials and Endorsements in Advertising.”
Linda’s Book Obsession Reviews “Stranger in the Lake” by Kimberly Belle, Park Row, June 9, 2020
OMG! Kimberly Belle, author of “Stranger in the Lake” has written a chilling thrilling, edgy, suspenseful, riveting, and page-turning novel. The genres for this novel are Mystery and Suspense, Thriller, Psychological Thriller, and Fiction. The timeline for this story is set in the present and goes to the past when it pertains to the characters or events. The story takes place in a small town by a lake. The author describes her dramatic cast of characters as complex, complicated, quirky, dysfunctional, and suspect. In this story, there are deep dark secrets, betrayals, lies, threats, gaslighting, danger, and murder.
Kimberly Belle vividly sets and describes her characters, scenery, and plot. The author makes a case by setting the huge glass-walled house by the slippery, dark lake. There are two ways to get to town, by boat, or a car. The town is very small, and the neighborhood seems to gossip a lot. Charlotte and her brother come from the other poor side of town. Charlotte is married to Paul a very wealthy man and was a widower. Paul’s wife had been an expert swimmer, but drowned in the lake, by the house that Charlotte and Paul live in. The cause of death was ruled an accident, but the town still talks.
Charlotte is headed to town and has to use the boat. She notices a body in the lake water by her house. Her husband Paul is doing his running, so she goes to get her neighbor and call 911. Once the body of the woman is pulled from the lake, most of the Police force determines that the dead woman is a stranger to the town. As Paul and his friends agree the woman is a stranger, Charlotte realizes that she thinks she had seen this woman talking to Paul the day before. Charlotte is also warned by one of Paul’s quirky friends to watch her back.
This is an edgy, intense, psychological thriller, that I would highly recommend for readers who enjoy a story with twists and turns and surprises.