Stillhouse Lake is a well written suspense. The plot drew me in immediately and kept me guessing with many twists and turns. This one kept me on the edge of my seat. If you enjoy good suspense this is the book for you.

I've read a few from the author before but none quite as intense as this. Though I guessed at who-dunnit from the start, my guess kept changing, though I should have stuck to my instincts (like some of the characters did). With one twist and turn after another, this book is impossible to put down but completely worth the sleep-deprivation. I will definitely be following this series.

I was drawn to the book by the cover which looked mysterious and made me want more. The description made it sound great. Im so glad to say I was not disappointed. It was a fantastic read right from the word go. It was fast paced and very enjoyable. Twists and turns all long the way and the author was always one step ahead of me. Would highly recommend this book.

I decided to read this book on impulse. It wasn’t on my TBR but I saw a raving review by Yvonne and knew that I had to check it out. Luckily, my NetGalley request was quickly approved. This book has one of the best prologues that I have ever read. It was so intense that I just had to know how the story would go. Needless to say, the book maintained the same pace throughout.

I really like the setting of the book. Stillhouse Lake is the kind of setting that feels like a character in itself. There is the lake and as always, still waters hold secrets. I just knew that something would happen there. The characters added to the intrigue of the town. I don’t want to reveal much about the plot so I won’t say much about the characters. However, let me just mention that they were well-crafted. In addition, the author portrayed them in a manner that made it hard to pick out the villain(s).

The mystery in the book heightened after the discovery of a body in the lake. I just kept watching and waiting for something bad to happen. I was nervous and my mind was running wild trying to guess the killer. I mean, Gwen’s ex is in jail so who did it? At some point, everyone including the kids, the sheriffs, neighbors, and random strangers online seemed like suspects. The odd thing about this book is that I actually accurately guessed the identity of the villain(s) at some point. However, the author convinced me that I was wrong. She cleverly twisted the plot such that I started suspecting other people so I was still shocked by the reveal. I didn’t expect it when it happened and seriously thought it was perfect.

Now the ending. Good Lord! The final lines of this book had me hooked. I quickly turned the page to see if there is more but there wasn’t. I was haunted by that ending especially since it took a while before I found out that this is actually the first book in a series. I am so excited because I have only read one psychological thriller and this one is off to a great start. I hope the second book will be out soon. I recommend this one to all fans of psychological thrillers.

I literally suspected everyone except the actual killer!! I'm such a genius, man.

This was a really well-written, taut and tense thriller, with lots of unexpected twists and turns along the way, and practically none of the people around Gwen are as they seem. Poor Gwen, hasn't she suffered enough?!
I thought it was a bit slow in the middle, but it regained its pace again and overall my attention was utterly captured.

The tension in the last 20% was fantastic, there was just bombshell after bombshell being dropped and then that shocking news at the end!!! It was a cliffhanger, but in the best possible way; the main storyline had been resolved, but then there was something new introduced at the very end, so I felt satisfied with the ending but also really excited for the sequel. Apparently it comes out in December, and I'm going to need a time-machine.

I was overjoyed when I got the ARC of this. This isn't the first book I read by Rachel Caine. 5 years ago, I discovered The Morganville Vampires series, and that got me hooked on Caine's style of writing. Her characters are realistic, and the storylines have always kept me interested. Stillhouse Lake is a great thriller, and does not disappoint.

Gina will never forget what happened in the garage. We are thrown straight into the story after a car is found driven into the front of her house and garage. Gina and her kids change where they live and their identities multiple times. I was hooked from the first line until the last. The book is full of action, as well as suspense and I really felt for Gina and her kids as they dealt with the aftermath of The Event as it is known amongst them years after it happened. Rachel Caine shows really well what it's like when a family who are seemingly close is shattered by a person who was meant to love them. I had the sense that we cannot always fully "know" people, even though we think we do.

Thanks to Rachel Caine and her publisher for my ARC of this book Vía NetGalley. Glad to find out that there's a sequel and am looking forward to reading it.
In writing Stillhouse Lake, Rachel Caine has shown her talent in a different genre (thriller) than what I was used to with the YA/ Paranormal Morganville Vampires series, but Stillhouse Lake impressed me and she remains one of my favorite authors.

It's full of twists and turns that keep you guessing, and if you love Rachel Caine's other books, give this a try-I recommend it!

I think this is definitely a case of 'it's me not you' with this book. I just couldn't seem to get into it at all. I think I might just have to admit that I'm not a fan of mystery/thrillers.

An accident that drives a drunks car into their garage unravels a dark secret that Melvin Royal has been hiding from his family....Four years on, and still haunted by the past, the reborn Gwen Proctor is still trying to move on from the past and create a new life for herself and her children. And after multiple late night flits and moves from town to town, she feels she's finally able to settle at Stillhouse Lake. Until a dead girl turns up in the lake.

The opening chapter of this was great. It was like a sucker punch to the stomach and drew me into the story immediately, but after that the pacing was really slow. I know that it's the nature of thrillers to set the scene and build up the tension, but this seemed to take a while to get going. Because of this, by the time the action kicked in, I was a little bored. I also couldn't find Gwen a likeable character, and I couldn't really muster any real sympathy for her - even though I know I was suppose to. I think this is more due to the fact that she spends a lot of her time running away from her major issues, and I felt she never really confronted Melvin, even though she repeated insisted that she'd 'changed' and was 'stronger'. Newsflash, she wasn't.

In contrast, I liked the relationship between Gwen and her kids, and the complex nature of PTSD that is demonstrated in the family of killers. It's a side not really seen in thriller novels, and I'd like to see this developed further in future novels - especially in relation to Connor and Lenny, and how it's going to effect their behaviour in the future.

I also liked the modern nature of this book. It spoke a lot about the internet, and the easy access people have these days to a vast amount of information. It was also interesting to see how the nature of internet trolls could, and does, develop into something more sinister. I found this quite unique.

I know that so many people are going to really enjoy this novel, and as stated I think this is more down to personal preference than anything else. It's a solid mystery/thriller, and I may be tempted to pick up the sequel to see how Gwen and the kids get on.

Crazy stuff! Great story that you don't want to put down. Loved it!

Gwen Proctor just wants to live a safe, quiet life with her kids.

Except that Gwen Proctor used to be Gina Royal, wife to notorious serial killer Melvin Royal. Gwen and her kids have moved cities and changed names at least nine times already, and somehow the internet trolls and vigilantes keep getting closer.

The latest versions of their life is currently being lived along the shores of Stillhouse Lake, and things are shaping up to finally be normal. Gwen has met the nice, normal Sam Cade. Her kids are finally making friends.

Then the bodies begin showing up in the lake, killed and dumped in a manner chillingly similar to how her ex-husband liked to kill and dump the remains of his victims.

Definitely a departure from the YA novel we'd last seen (The Great Library series), Stillhouse Lake is solidly an adult thriller. It's the start of a new series, and one I'll definitely be following. It's got twists you don't see coming right away, and solid characters you form an immediate liking to. Haunted Gwen and her stoic kids are dynamic and interesting, and Stillhouse Lake will keep you up all night until the last page. It certainly did for me.

Gina Royal leads a comfortable life with her husband Melvin and two kids. But it is all shattered one day when a drunk driver accidentally crashes into a neighbor’s garage and Melvin’s secret life as serial killer is discovered. Even though Gina is proved innocent of his crimes not everybody believes it especially the internet trolls who have labeled her Melvin’s little helper. Running for her and her kid’s life Gina finally becomes Gwen Proctor and settles down in a small town near Stillhouse Lake. But the peace does not last long as she starts receiving threatening letters and then bodies start turning up in the lake near her house killed exactly in the same way as Melvin killed his victims . Can Gwen ever escape the nightmare and keep her children and herself safe?

Let me start by saying that going in this book I did realize it was part of a series. The suspense was good and the characters well developed. The author did a good job of expressing the fear Gwen lives with and how far a mother will go to protect her kids. I just wish the book did not end in a cliffhanger as I will have to wait for the next book in the series to see where the story goes.

Many thanks to Thomas & Mercer & NetGalley for an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest and fair review.

This and more reviews at https://chloesbooksblog.wordpress.com/

Rachel Caine does thriller-suspense! And she’s a natural at it, if Stillhouse Lake is any indication. Before picking this one up on a whim, I’d only read her books in the YA fantasy series The Great Library and was curious to see how she would tackle a different genre. Now though, I can safely say that my esteem has only grown for her talent and versatility as a writer.

The story follows Gina Royal, a woman who has had her life turned upside down. Before that fateful day when everything changed, she was just your average Midwestern housewife with a loving husband and two great kids, blissfully unaware of anything wrong with her life. Then, a drunk driver accidentally slams his car into the side of the Royals’ house, exposing the dark secret that has been kept hidden for years within its walls. As it turns out, Gina’s husband has been concealing his double life as a serial killer, and she is as shocked to discover it as anyone else. Not surprisingly, the public found that difficult to believe and thus she tried as his accomplice, and only after years of trials did she manage to convince the court of her innocence.

However, by then the damage has been done. Most of the country believes her guilty, claiming that no one could have lived in that house for years with a murderer, not knowing what was going on right underneath her roof. Gina knows she had been naïve, giving her husband all the space and privacy he’d asked for, never questioning anything he did. But even though he is now in prison, her nightmare is far from over. The constant harassment and death threats from doxxers and internet trolls have led her to fear for her life and those of her children, leading them to take on new identities and stay on the move. Gina is now Gwen Proctor, and she is a new woman—tough and independent, but also anxious and paranoid, unwilling to let her guard down even for a second. That is, until the family arrives at Stillhouse Lake, a small rural community in Tennessee where Gwen dares to imagine that her family might have finally found some semblance of peace and stability. But then that fleeting moment of happiness is shattered by a gruesome discovery in the lake, a dead body that shows signs of being tortured and killed in the same manner of her ex-husband’s victims. Suddenly, Gwen finds herself under suspicion again—only this time, she may be a target too.

While Stillhouse Lake may lack the complexity of some of the more high-profile books in its genre, it’s nonetheless one of the more enjoyable and addictive mystery-thrillers I’ve ever read. It all started with the intro, which was an insanely nerve-wracking and tense few pages, especially if you were like me and didn’t read the publisher’s description too closely before I started the book. My heart felt like it was being squeezed in a vise as I watched the events unfold, not having a clue what the hell was going on but at the same time being cognizant enough of the situation to know nothing good could come out of it for Gina/Gwen and her family. From then on, the story takes off—perhaps not like a rocket, but definitely more like a powerful steam locomotive that gradually builds up speed before hurtling off towards its mysterious and unforeseeable destination.

Gwen is also a character you can sympathize with, if not relate to (because let’s face it, her situation is pretty unique). We know she is innocent because we get to be in her head—but imagine looking at her story from an outsider’s point-of-view, and it easy to see why she has been driven to her wit’s end by fear and paranoia. So much of her actions may seem extreme or unnecessary, but again, we’re privy to the truth while the rest of the world believes her to be a monster complicit in her ex-husband’s horrific crimes. Also, anyone who has spent enough time on the internet knows how vile people can be when acting under conditions of anonymity, as well as how far some are willing to go when they think their actions are justified. It was easy to feel for Gwen, not only because she’s a mother who wants the best for her children, but also because she’s living with a tremendous amount of guilt. She might not have known what her husband was up to all those years living with him in their old house, but the realization of how naïve and complaisant she was in the face of his manipulative charms is going to haunt her forever.

Having only read the author’s fantasy work before this, I found Stillhouse Lake to be very different but no less engrossing and addictive. Nail-bitingly intense and unsettling, the story managed to lure0 me in before swiftly sinking its hooks into my mind, consuming my attention. I was a little surprised to learn there will be a sequel, which I gathered simply based on how the book ended (with an edge-of-your-seat climax that led to a satisfying closure, while still leaving things open enough for more to come). Still, it’s news that fills me with excitement. Needless to say, I’ll be continuing with the series, and I can’t wait to read on and find out what happens next.

What did I do this weekend? Read this book. Once I picked it up I couldn't put it down. This was my first Rachel Caine book and if they are all this good it definitely won't be my last.

Gina Royal is living a happy and content life in the midwest with her husband Mel and 2 children Lily and Brady. Her world is turned upside down when Mel is accused and ultimately convicted of being a serial killer. She and her children are threatened, harassed, and stalked by people who think she is also a murderer and an accomplice. They are forced to keep changing their identities and moving every time they are discovered. Their 8th move takes them to a remote Tennessee town on Stillhouse Lake. Their names are now Gwen, Connor, and Atlanta and this move might be their last. They finally feel safe and are beginning to trust people and make new friends when a body is discovered in the lake. A body that has similar markings of how Mel killed his victims. Gwen doesn't want people to know about their past but she has no choice and she realizes that she is a person of interest in the case.

This was such a page turner! I was able to predict a couple of twists but it didn't ruin it for me, I was hooked the entire time. Such a suspenseful thriller that did not disappoint!

You have been married for years and think you have a normal family life, with two kids and a husband in a small town. Then, in a flash, everything changes because you find out that your husband is a serial killer and you and your children have to hide from sickos who think that you knew all along what he was doing. This is the scenario of STILLHOUSE LAKE and it is a book with so many twists and gotcha moments that you need a strong heart to read it. Gina Royal has changed identities repeatedly in her attempt to leave behind stalkers who would harm her and her innocent children, teen Lanny and ten-year old Conner. She has now settled into what seems an ideal location and has bought a house at Sillhouse Lake.. All is quiet, and Gina, who is now using the name Gwen and is still honing her shooting skills at the local range, is allowing herself to become friendly with a local neighbor. Then things begin to fall apart. She is getting threats from none other than her incarcerated husband Melvin. How is that possible? And how can she stop it? And bodies begin surfacing from the lake, just like the ones that Melvin had killed. Gwen is suspected., but before she can gather her children and run to another location, all hell breaks loose and her children are endangered. No place is safe for a family of a serial murderer! And just when you think that Gwen is going to be able to save the day, well...you just won't believe who the real bad guy is and what the ending is. This book is a heart-stopping thriller all the way to end and you won't be able to put it down until you finish it! A really great read! Highly recommend!

I have loved everything I've read by Rachel Caine, and I can't figure out why I haven't read more. I'll have to. Soon. I just need to clear my calendar and read nothing but Rachel Caine (and Seanan McGuire) for a couple of months.

You know all those tired words and phrases that are typically found in reviews of thriller-type books, like "gripping" and "edge of my seat" and "wow"? They all come into play here. I mean, I don't know. Looked at objectively and coolly and at a distance from the action, maybe this isn't a perfect book. But in the midst of the flow of words, with the action (to mix metaphors) galloping along through unknown and dangerous wilds, the finer points of Literature didn't mean a thing. I'm going with my gut – my poor, roiling, anxious gut.

The story begins with a woman's discovery that the husband she loves, the father of her children, the other half of her rather complacent American Dream life … is a serial killer. And – not that there's a good brand of serial killer, but – his crimes are shockingly horrific in ways that I'll be haunted by at random unexpected moments for a while to come. <i>And</i>, since his … "workshop" has been in the garage attached to their house, police and, worse, popular opinion is that she must have been aware of what he was doing in there – in fact, she must have been complicit. She helped. She must have. How could a woman live mere feet from that (insert less-cliched version of "chamber of horrors" here), sleep next to that man for the whole of their marriage and eat dinner and raise kids and make love and discuss bills with him without knowing what he really was?

But she did live in ignorance the whole time, and had no idea in all the world that such a thing was in any way possible … until an SUV crashes into the garage and reveals the horrors to the world. Because sometimes psychopaths are scary smart, and they can be meticulous at covering their tracks, and her husband – no: ex-husband Mel made sure she was oblivious. But a few years and a court acquittal later, Gina – now named Gwen – is living a life that was unimaginable before that SUV crashed, constantly on the alert and when necessary on the run. Between Mel's victims' families and the hordes of internet vigilantes – and, heaven help us all, those wingnuts who are worshipful fans of her ex-husband the serial killer – who just cannot believe she was innocent and ignorant, and Mel's incarceration on death row isn't enough – they want blood vengeance, and hers, or her kids', will do just fine. (Mel's fans, of course, don't want to punish her for taking part in the killings. They want her punished for having found concretely damning evidence against him and bringing it to the police.) They're legion, they're everywhere, they're determined, and they get together and pool their information, and every time they seem to get close Gwen has to pick up and recreate her identity and those of her children, and relocate yet again. As the book opens, she has a home by a lake – Stillhouse Lake, surprisingly enough – and it feels like it might possibly be as safe as it is possible to be. And she cautiously sticks her head just a little bit out of her shell.

She regrets it.

What follows is a roller coaster. I don't mean one of those fun little Coney Island trips where your car goes up and down a few times and you whoop a bit and hop off and go get a hot dog. I mean one of those things that have names indicating they might kill you, that go up and down at angles which shouldn't be survivable and then do it all backwards and flip you over a few times until the change is shaken out of your pockets until you're deposited at the end so shaken you hit your knees and think about kissing the ground except you're afraid you'll collapse entirely and you won't be thinking of food for hours. Who can be trusted? How is it possible that anyone found her? Does she have to flee yet again, or is it going to be possible to face it down this time and take the reins of her life back in her own hands?

The only real flaw I could find in the book, and maybe someone can explain to me why it's not one, is the question of why Gwen doesn't take her children and leave the country entirely. Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK – or perhaps a non-English-speaking country would add a layer of protection; if her source could provide her with all of her new paperwork every time she regenerated (so to speak), surely he could have gotten her a set of passports.

But apart from that question, which nagged at me, I loved this book. I can't see ever reading it again, as it was not a comfortable or … <I>fun</i> read, in that the suspense was powerful and terrible things happen. But the story was spun out beautifully, the characters were vivid (Mel is frankly terrifying, both in Gwen's memory (that moment in court …) and in person), and the psychology of having survived horror and continuing to survive its aftermath seemed, to my ignorant mind, dead on. One major point for me in the story's favor is that nothing (well, almost nothing) that happens to Gwen and her kids is down to anything they have done wrong. I think it would be easy for an author to make, say, one of the kids get tired of the strictures of what their life has become and kick over the traces, opening them all up to attack. Not here, or at least nothing major. The kids are not stupid, and they're almost as afraid as they should be (Gwen hasn't told them everything, or they would be every bit as afraid as they should be), and even when they grumble they do what they're supposed to. It all goes back to the reason they trusted Mel, and loved him, and honestly believed that he had the capacity to love them: it's hard to distrust everyone all the time. They all make decisions to extend a bit of trust to a tiny handful of people, and the one who deserves it least is a shock. I saw it coming, a little – but that could be just because I was busily and paranoiacally suspecting everyone who was not Gwen or one of her children.

I'm surprised there's a sequel; this is such a self-contained story that it feels like it doesn't need one. But, then again, I definitely want to know what happens next.

We always seem to want the hundredth of whatever to be special. This was my hundredth book read this year – and by golly, it filled the bill.

The usual disclaimer: I received this book via Netgalley for review.

A captivating thriller that will knock your socks off... I love a good thriller. One that has just the right amount of creep factor and keeps you guessing from start to finish. Sadly, I didn't feel that way about this one. The beginning was a little slow for me and it took me a while to get into the story, but once it really got going, I was like "wow." The book ended with an epic cliffhanger. Although I am excited now to read the next book to find out what happens, I'm more of a get it now kind of girl and the ending isn't sitting well for me. Needless to say, I will be reading the next book, because I have to know.

A nice psychological thriller with a new take on serial killers - you never think about their families and how they are affected. I liked the kids and really felt bad for them. Good suspense at the end in particular. Even if you figured out who the bad guy was it left you guessing whether he had an accomplice and who it was.

This is the first in a series, which I didn't realize when I started reading and wasn't exactly thrilled about. I think the next one will probably be good also but I would have preferred a standalone novel.

I really enjoyed this book. I love a book where you can not figure the killer out till the very end. There were several characters that could have been the bad guy so you had to catch all the little clues. Looking forward to her next book

Bestselling author, Rachel Caine, has released the first in what she calls the Stillhouse Lake Series. In Stillhouse Lake, the protagonist, Gina Royal, returns home after picking up her children from school to find that an SUV has run into her garage, which is her husband’s beloved woodworking shop. Gina hasn’t paid much attention to her husband, Mel’s woodworking shop in the past, so she is absolutely stunned to find herself arrested and charged as an accessory to several serial killings committed by her husband. After being acquitted, Gina takes on the name of Gwen Proctor, moves out of town, and tries to start a new life with her children. The kids adapt fairly well to constantly moving, but when they finally end up at Stillhouse Lake, and are in a house they love and in a community they feel comfortable in, dead bodies, killed in the same style as those her husband murdered, begin to be washed up to the shore. Law enforcement, as well as some of her acquaintances learn of her real identity, and she is the primary suspect, since Mel is still in prison. Is it possible that he is manipulating someone to carry on his serial killings and cause Gwen to take the blame? How can he really know where she is, since she has covered her tracks extremely well?

Not only is Caine an excellent storyteller, she has developed believable characters, some that are likeable, and others that are a bit suspect. From the beginning chapter and throughout the entire novel, the suspense builds; this is a family in peril, with a mother who wants to protect her children at any cost. Gwen has built up a viable business and is financially fairly comfortable, but it may all be for naught, if her husband is able to frame her from prison and ruin her life and the lives of his children to get his revenge.

This novel will grab readers from the beginning prologue and keep them on the edge of their seats to the very end. The premise of having been married to a serial killer and not suspect a thing is unique and makes for fascinating reading. Highly recommended for readers who like variety.

Special thanks to NetGalley for supplying a review copy of this book.

Really excellent psychological thriller; something different from this author. A woman accidentally finds out that her husband is a serial killer, and is consequently hounded by a public who can't believe that she didn't know. Even as she us sevond guessing herself (why didn't she see the signs?) she is busy building a new life for herself and her children. An engrossing, exciting read.