The Lost Lake by Sarah Addison Allen will take you back to the waters of your favourite childhood holiday.
Kate has been asleep for a year. Her husband died and she has been going through the motions, letting her mother in law make all the decisions and simply not living at all. On the day they are about to move house to go and live with their mother in law who has sold their home and expects them to move in with her she wakes up. She thinks no one was aware that she had been asleep all this time. But her daughter Devin knows.
Kate’s mother in Law Cricket won’t let Devin wear the clothes she wants to. Devin likes to wear anything and everything she chooses. Often all at once. Fairy wings, a pink bicycle helmet and her wellies. When Kate finds a letter that she has never seen before from her great aunt Eby asking her to return to Lost Lake she makes a spur of the moment decision to drive down there to find out if the place is still there. Here Kate and Devin can be truly themselves.
Lost Lake is a destination for holiday makers which has 13 lake side cabins. Where once it had been full of guests in Kate’s youth it is now falling apart and almost empty. Kate’s great aunt Eby is about to sell the place. She has called the regulars down for one last summer. The people who love it best are here to say their farewells. When Kate and her daughter unexpectedly turn up it’s a great surprise.
At first Kate can remember little about the place, only feelings of happiness. She hasn’t been back since she was a child where she spent one summer. The longer she spends there the more she remembers about the place and the people that changed her life that summer. It’s time to stay a while for one last best summer.
The regulars at the lake soon win become like old friends as you read. The older generation who have spent every summer there for years and who came all this way for one last trip. Eby’s best friend whose ghosts haunt the kitchen and who makes the most mouth watering food. Handyman Wes soon wins over Devin and her Mum as Devin sets out on her mission to help the alligator that she insists she can see in the lake. This alligator talks and needs her assistance with something very important. Every last guest has a story intricately woven into the main tale.
This book is such a joy to read. Allen has a magical writing style. I wanted so much to go to Lost Lake and I felt every bit of pull towards it that the characters do. She has captured something truly special. The feeling of returning to your best summer and all the things you left behind in that place. It’s truly remarkable and very clever writing. She understands people and it comes through expertly in her work. I thoroughly recommend both this book and this author. Let her take you somewhere special.
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