This was pretty good. It definitely reminded my of Barbara Erskine, and so readers who can't get enough of her novels should definitely enjoy this one. I did like the historical story better than the contemporary part, and wished for more of that, but overall this was quite good.

4 stars! Mysterious. Chilling. Suspenseful. Atmospheric.

This novel presents a dual timeline gothic mystery surrounding a golden gown dating back to 1863. In Present Day, the golden gown is in the hands of an inexperienced antiques dealer, Fenella, who received it from her late grandmother. “Fen” feels a connection to the gown and begins her search for the details of the gowns past.

This is my first book by this author and I found her writing to be beautiful and ever-so engrossing. I was invested in this English countryside mystery from start to finish. The pace and flow were perfect. Told through three narratives, I was equally connected to all, although the Present Day storyline ended too dramatic for my liking.

Audio review: 5+ stars! The narrators were PHENOMENAL! I loved the uniqueness they each brought to the story. The perfect choices for the telling of this marvellous tale!

Thank you to NetGalley for my review copy! Thank you to my lovely local library for the audio loan.

This book is great! Would definitely recommend. Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

I enjoyed the historical elements of this story, but found the modern sections to have a number of far fetched elements.

I recieved an ARC of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. I loved this book and will recommend it often to lovers of mysteries, thrillers, and suspense novels!

I received an ARC of this from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was a Victorian murder mystery taking place in both past and present with a few supernatural elements. The common factor is a beautiful gold dress that apparently possesses people and emphasizes certain character traits. There are 3 narrators, 2 from the past in the 1800’s (a lady and her maid), and one from the present named Fenella. Their lives intersect in strange ways, and both Fenella and Isabella slip into the past and future respectively. Each woman is battling her own demons, with Isabella, it’s her treacherous husband, Constance struggles with her place in society and her family, and Fenella is running from a dark past.
While the pieces of the story came together quite well, I really wasn’t all that fond of the characters. I didn’t mind Fenella but her family was absolutely horrible. I was expecting a bit more with the supernatural element so I was a bit disappointed.
This was an ok read for me. It is different and interesting historically, but it wasn’t always enough to keep my attention.

I listened to this book as an audio, after trying to read it last year and I enjoyed it enough to get beyond the first few chapters and finish it. The audio was great, because the novel has 4 POV characters and they had a different narrator for each person. It made the book and the different characters seem so much more real. The Woman in the Lake is unique from most of the books I read because three of the 4 main characters were people that I did not really like. But I still really enjoyed listening to the book. At first I felt a lot of sympathy for Isabella, an abused wife, but I later didn't like her very much either. It was only Fenella in the modern story that I really liked, but even she had some serious flaws. I think it is the mark of a really good book that we learn to love the characters, even when they are not perfect and have serious issues. While this wasn't my favorite book by this author, I still like The Phantom Tree a lot better, I am glad to have read it. I love dual timeline novels like this, and I enjoyed the magical elements that exist in the story as well.

This is the third book by Nicola Cornick that I have read, and while it isn't my favorite of hers it was an enjoyable read. I am a big fan of dual-timeline books with historical and contemporary threads that intertwine so I have read a lot of them. This is a pretty good example of that genre. It is well written with an intriguing mystery. The supernatural element was a bit more overt than I usually like, but that didn't detract from my enjoyment here. There were a few plot elements that came across as too convenient and that is what keeps this from being a 4 star read for me. I would still definitely recommend this book to fans of dual-timeline or historical fiction with a bit of mystery, romance and the supernatural. If you like Susanna Kearsley, Barbara Erskine or Sarah Jio you should give Nicola Cornick a try.

The Woman in the Lake, by best selling author Nicola Cornick, gives readers two alternating stories connected by the golden threads of a seemingly malevolent dress. Lady Isabella Gerard is given the gown by her abusive and secretive husband in 1763 London. Two hundred and fifty years later, the gown is stolen from a historic home in the English countryside buy a young girl with a compulsion to take things that don’t belong to her. Visions, conspiracy and murder seem to follow the golden dress as it changes hands over time.
Fennella Brightwell had all but forgotten the dress she had stolen on a class trip until it mysteriously returns to her decades later. While Fen begins to research the dress and its former owner, she experiences unusual urges and is haunted by memories she would rather leave behind. As the history of the dress unfolds, so does Fen’s grasp on reality. The Woman in the Lake is twisty story of family, revenge and a secret society with a touch of romance and the supernatural. A must read for fans of Cornicks other novels and for historical fiction devotees.

Historical fiction is one of my favorite genres, but this one missed the mark. One timeline follows Isabella, who is in the midst of a highly abusive marriage circa London late 1760's. The other timeline is of Fenella, who recently escaped an abusive relationship and is trying to find herself again. Through in a magical dress that somehow ties the two women together and you've sort of got a story. There was something lacking to connect the two story lines, and the mystery of the dress just wasn't enough. While not a bad read, just not for me.

This book opens with a unique voice. To set up the multi-narrator format, Nicola Cornick introduces multiple characters. However, instead of simply using the different characters to advance the plot, she as different characters retell the same moments and the same space of time. This only really happens in the beginning, but it’s incredibly powerful. I could understand each character so much more deeply by seeing how they felt in what were the same exchanges. This style helped shape the characters in a way that describing them could not have achieved. I now understood why the servant felt resentment during an exchange, but from the Lady’s POV, she seemed reasonable and sympathetic. Further proving the point that the majority of communication is nonverbal, and why it’s so important as an author to be good at both dialogue and descriptions.

Without spoiling too much, the ending was wonderfully and deliciously satisfying. After the events that take place in the book, the author gave a perfect conclusion that was neither corny nor disappointing. As for the mystery plots, I was constantly guessing and didn’t want to stop reading until I figured everything out. Tidbits of information were sporadically provided, which generated just enough interest without giving any real answers.

My only criticism, and this is a pet peeve of mine, were the realistic descriptions. At one point a character gets on a train and is described as smelling of stale sweat. Now, I know that smell. I get it. When someone sits next to you on a train after they have hurried to make it, the body odor is noticeable but usually (hopefully) temporary. But when I’m reading, and that description is used, I am instantly taken out of the fictional world. Some people think this makes a story more realistic. I’m just not one of those people. All I could think about was the smell of the guy and how much I would want to get out of there, but this was a major plot point and the characters needed to have a longer conversation, so I just had to get through it. Maybe this means I need to be a little less intense about my reading, or find authors that don’t create such great scenes that I get engrossed in them?

To sum up, I loved this book. I loved the cover. I loved the story. And as it turns out, I loved the author. Unbeknownst to me, I have read another Nicola Cornick book. I didn’t realize it until I was writing this review and thinking of books to compare it to. I thought of a book called The Phantom Tree, and discovered that it not was only written by the same author, but #2 of this series. Needless to say, I have added the first book to my TBR. Each book in this series is a stand-a-lone read, but dual time traveling is used as a series theme. Awesome concept with great execution.

I couldn't put this book down!! I loved this story and Nicola had me turning pages fast right from the beginning. She did the timelines perfectly and I love how the golden gown tied them together.

In 1765 a woman receives a yellow gown from her abusive husband. Her refusal to put it on sets events in motion that will ripple across time over 250 years.

In the 2000's, a student crosses the threshold of time during a class trip to a famed estate and returns with a mysterious yellow gown that draws her in and eventually tests her sanity.

This is a great mystery for a rainy afternoon. It's not going to top your best reads of the year, but it passes pleasantly enough with good writing, interesting characters that are fleshed out "just enough" to not seem two dimensional, and a little bit of romance. I'm not sure why it's called "the Woman in the Lake" when that tid-bit is a very small part of the story without much bearing as a whole. "The Yellow Dress" would have been more appropriate. It's an interesting idea having an article of clothing be the harbinger of obsession, and I wish it's origins were delved into a bit deeper to explain why it affects those who own it the way it does. But alas, it was just right at the time I read it.

From what I see, this is the third book in the Timeslip series by Nicola Cornick. I haven’t read anything before by her so this was an interesting introduction to her work. The story told by dual time periods, the past and the present, feature an intricate plot that wove a tale that featured historical elements, suspense, supernatural elements and those qualities pulled from the seven deadly sins that make this books interesting.

The book was told from three different perspectives: Isabella (Lady Gerard), her maid Constance and Fenella (present). These three woman had such strong personalities which gave a really interesting point of view to the book. I definitely had a love/hate relationship with the characters. More so due to their actions especially Lord Gerard. He was not a good person. The ladies had their moments where they rubbed me the wrong way but as the plot unfolded had their redemption.

Overall, the plot was really interesting. I really enjoyed how the past was blended into the present but there were moments that I felt a disconnect. Maybe that is because with so much emphasis on the dress, there were moments that I wish could’ve been explored more and then moments like what happened like when we stumbled on the woman in the lake (we read what happened but to see it unfold would’ve been a page turner) and the revelations in Fen’s life with the fire (that was definitely a plot twist but I don’t know) I was like those back stories would’ve been more interesting. Other than that, the overall plot I found really interesting and will definitely check out the other books in the series.

When I originally picked this book for review, I’m pretty sure the description wasn’t as detailed as it is now, particularly in regards to abusive husbands and a dress that “possesses” people. If it had been, I may have passed it up, which would have been the right decision as it turns out, because this book wasn’t really for me.

To begin with, the main characters were all fairly one-dimensional, and the two historical women were unlikeable to boot—bitter, scheming, adulterous, and quite happy to stay that way. I felt a little more sympathetic toward Fen, who wasn’t unlikeable so much as uninspiring. At first, her kleptomania sparked my intellectual interest, but that dwindled as the story progressed and it became clear it wasn’t going to be explored in any kind of meaningful way. Most disappointing of all, none of these characters experienced any growth during the course of the story. Their circumstances may have changed by the end, but they were essentially the same in character despite there being ample room for improvement.

The plot intrigued me to begin with, but as the story developed, it became easier to predict the twists and turns so that there was very little that surprised me. The supernatural element also seemed weak, perhaps because it was only a small part of the plot even though the entire story hinged on believing in the supernatural properties of the dress and a random time-travel “portal” scene at the beginning. Then again, I don’t tend to read books with supernatural elements, so perhaps I’m not the best judge.

The writing was okay for the most part, but there were times when it felt stilted, and it lacked the colour and nuance that can really bring a story to life for me. This may have been deliberate to some extent, as it seemed to suit the mood of the characters and the story, but either way, it’s not really my style. On the plus side, there was only very occasional coarse language, but there was also a scene with the historical characters that felt just as sullying as coarse language—perhaps even more so. Thankfully, it was brief and minimally graphic, but I often found myself wanting to detoxify somehow after spending time with the historical characters anyway. Definitely not my people!

So, not really my kind of story at all. But the author did use the word vertiginous, and I’ve decided that word needs to be used more often. So there’s that.

I received a copy of this novel from the publisher. This has not influenced the content of my review, which is my honest and unbiased opinion.

The Woman in the Lake is a dual timeline story. One timeline follows Isabella who is in an abusive marriage in the late 1700 London. The other follows Fenella who has recently left an abusive marriage and is trying to put her life back together. What ties them together is a dress that might be cursed.

I thought this was an OK read. I wasn't a fan of the dual time lines because I found it hard to connect the two stories with each other. They did kind of make a connection in the end, but it took too long to get there. For me, the story would have stood up well with just the 1765 storyline. I liked that mystery more. In the present day timeline, I would have liked the "supernatural" aspect of the dress to be explored more than it was. I think it's one you will have to try out for yourself. It's not a bad read, it just wasn't for me.

Nicola Cornick is known for her fluid time-slip plots, which blur boundaries of time and space. The Woman in the Lake is fiction within a historically “accurate framework.” Says Cornick in her essay Historical Novels: Fact vs. Fiction, “It’s important to me that the setting is authentic—not just because I value historical truth, but also because it creates a vivid world through which my characters move.” There’s a twist to the chronology: “These dual timeline novels are not time-travel books, but rather stories whose perspective slips back and forth between time periods.”

Some objects carry a curse that transcends time, like the golden gown that Lord Gerard gives to his wife Lady Isabella Gerard in London, 1765. Later that year, a woman drowns in a lake in Swinton, a small town near Manchester.

Three months later, Lord Gerard stands at the shoreline of the lake, looking down at a woman wearing the golden gown. As the body slowly rolls over to reveal her face, it’s clear this was not his intended victim…

Fenella (Fen) Brightwell is a troubled, somewhat prickly young lady with a circle of fast-made friends: “It was either that or forever be the loner, the outsider, the one who came and went without leaving a trace.” Her home-life is unusual because she’s a carer for her alcoholic grandmother Sarah. She visits Lydiard Park near Swinton with her St. Hilda’s schoolmates but she wanders off from the group.

2004.



She could never forget the day she stole the gown. Twenty-three of them visited Lydiard Park that day.

Fen sees something that will change her life: “Over the high back of one chair, shimmering in the light with a soft, golden glow was the most beautiful dress Fen had ever seen.” There’s also a very odd man, dressed in old-fashioned clothes: “He looked bad-tempered and drunk. Fen was only thirteen, but she knew an alcoholic when she saw one.” Fen has a horrible compulsion: she’s an inveterate kleptomaniac. Just little things, “sweets from the post office, a pair of tights or some lipstick or face cream,” but she steps it up when she spots a shimmering golden gown.

“Take me…”



The golden gown seemed to call to her. She felt the allure of it and was helpless to resist. The impulse was so strong and so sudden that she reached instinctively. She grabbed the gown and ran, fumbling to push it into her rucksack, her feet slipping and sliding on the wooden floor.

An irritated “woman with iron gray hair and an iron demeanor, a museum piece herself,” strides up to Fen and tells her irritably that everyone is looking for her. Even though Fen is desperate to get into the fresh air, she’s compelled to ask, “is there some sort of film being made in the drawing room?” but the woman snarls at her and walks away.

Flashback in time to a badly beaten wife, Lady Isabella Gerard. Her marriage is unhappy, her husband gave her the pox, he has a mistress, so why would he give her the delightful gift of a golden gown?

It was exceedingly pretty, with silver thread woven through the silk and a soft, shimmering appearance. I had seen it as a peace offering which had been foolish of me. It was not peace Eustace wanted, except perhaps from the torment of both hating and desiring me.

Eustace rapes his wife, ripping and tearing the gown, but during Georgian times, rape isn’t cause for the dissolution of a marriage. Constance, Isabella’s perceptive maid, is sure her mistress will give her the gown but somehow, Isabella can’t bear to part with it. The gown has a physical hold on her.

Present day. A grown-up Fen is back in Swinton. She left Sarah’s house when she was 16, exhausted from years of caring for an alcoholic. Fen is as odd a grown-up as she was a teenager. She’s a fantasist, a fabulist, someone who forces herself to be sociable lest she becomes agoraphobic. Life has not treated her well. Her ex-husband was mentally and physically abusive and she greatly fears that he will track her down. Like a wounded animal, she returns to Swinton, where she spent many years with her grandmother. Fen’s life takes an alarming turn when she receives a package from the estate of her recently deceased grandmother. The golden gown is inside—and her grandmother has added a cryptic message.

This is yours. Do with it what you think best but be aware of the danger.



What on earth had Sarah meant by that?



Fen knew all about danger. She had an intimate, atavistic relationship with it that raised the hairs on the back of her neck. The memory of terror stalked her.

Fen is so concerned by the message that she calls her sister Pepper, the executor of Sarah’s estate. Pepper says Sarah had the dress listed in her inventory.

“There’s a pencil scribble here, as well,” Pepper said. She spoke slowly. “It says, ‘Danger: Existing personality traits are accentuated.’ What do you think that means?”

Fen knows what it means and so did Lady Isabella. The golden gown exerts its malevolent energies on Fen’s life, sending her spiraling into despair and danger. After breaking herself of the habit years earlier, Fen starts compulsively stealing again. She is haunted, frightened, beset by fear, convinced that her ex-husband has found her. The friendship of her oldest friend, Jessie, and a new, sweet relationship with Hamish, Jessie’s older brother, are not enough to deflect the anxiety that envelops Fen. The golden gown exerts an ever-stronger control on Fen’s behavior and emotions. The supernatural thread of The Woman in the Lake weaves through time and space, making it impossible to predict the outcome of events in either century. It’s quite unputdownable.

A Postscript: Perhaps the most famous cursed object in fiction is Gollum’s ring, from J.R.R. Tolkien’s saga The Lord of the Rings. The ultimate ring of power takes possession of the wearer and changes him (not for the better, much like Cornick’s golden gown).

In London, 1765 the philandering and abusive Lord Gerard becomes so enraged at his wife, Lady Isabella that he commissions a beautiful gold gown meant to kill her. When his plan fails, Lord Gerard enlists his Moonraker pal and Lady Isabella's maid, Constance to destroy the dress. However, both Lady Isabella and Constance become so enraptured with the dress that the task is never completed. Lady Isabella decides to escape the city and convalesce in Lydiard, away from her husband. The dress calls to her though, possessing Lady Isabella. In 2004, Fenella Brightwell takes a school trip to Lydiard. Fen has kleptomania tendencies and when she walks into a small room at Lydiard, she sees a drunken man in time period clothing staring at a golden dress. Fen is spooked, but before she goes the golden dress calls out to her- take me. Years later, Fen is out of an abusive relationship and has created a stable life for herself. Then, she gets a package in the mail. The golden dress has made its way back to her life with a strange message- danger.

The Woman in the Lake is an enchanting dual-time mystery that pulled me into the story just as the dress made its way into the character's lives. From the beginning I was engrossed with the puzzle of who the woman in the lake was and the importance of the dress. The narrative switched between Isabella, Constance and Fen's point of view tying together their experiences with the pull of the golden dress. While the dress enhanced the worst traits in all of the woman, the dress also seemed to make it possible for the women to rid themselves of an even bigger problem, the men in the lives. As Fen investigated the history of the dress, the similarities between herself and Isabella became apparent with a love of art and a knack for falling for abusive men. Constance was a very interesting character to me as it was not apparent as to where her loyalties lied, however, she was definitely the most clever. The golden dress was a character in itself; as I read about the qualities of the dress, I felt possessed myself as I felt the need to continue to read in order to unravel its mystery. I would have loved to know how exactly the power was created. Overall, a captivating story mixing history, mystery and a touch of magic.

This book was received for free in return for an honest review.

The Woman in the Lake is told by three voices, Lady Isabella Gerard and her maid Constance in 1765, and Fenella Brightwell, current day. The story centers around a golden ball gown given to Lady Isabella by her husband Lord Eustace, but not out of love. The gown ties the women in 1765 to Fenella, and the more Fenella learns about the gown, Isabella and Constance, the more she realizes that her life has significant parallels with these women.

Suspense, abuse, criminal activity, paranormal, mystery, betrayal, deceit and a bit of romance, this book would seem to have it all. Yet it never fully engaged me. The characters from 1765 were one note, one color; they each had a primary trait and that was it. I found them lacking in nuance and complexity.

What I expected to be a quite good read became one that I was just eager to finish (and not in a good way). Not a match for me.

Thanks to NetGalley and Graydon House for allowing me to read a copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review.

I received a complimentary ARC copy of The Woman in the Lake by Nicola Cornick from NetGalley and Graydon House Books (U.S. & Canada) in order to read and give an honest review.

<i> “Murder, mayhem and mysticism all crafted into a spellbinding tale…. “</i>

I have become a huge fan of Nicola Cornick‘s work in recent months. I love her style! She has an incredible ability to immerse the reader into whatever historical period she is writing about. Cornick intricately weaves details within her stories so seamlessly that the reader is automatically transported without forcing the reader to endure the dreaded “info dump”. The Woman in the Lake is no different.

Set in present-day Swindon the reader travels back and forth from 1765. The story is told from three viewpoints. In 1765 we hear from Lady Isabella Gerard and her personal maid Constance. Both women are very different from the other women of their time. Lady Isabella is stuck in an abusive marriage to a corrupt businessman and smuggler. Always living in extreme danger from her husband she finds solace in another man‘s arms. Her husband gives her a gift of a beautiful but deadly silk golden gown, a gown which leaves devastation in its wake. Constance learns the secret behind the gown and wants to expose it but what will it cost her?

We also meet college design teacher, vintage item dealer and reformed kleptomaniac, Fenella Brightwell.

On a school trip as a teenager, Fenella steals the golden gown from a small historical museum. Once in her possession, Fenella‘s life spirals out of control. Present day Fenella now an adult is struggling to start a new life after escaping from an abusive marriage, bad divorce and the death of her grandmother. Her sister sorting through their Grandmother’s home discovers the gown with cryptic handwritten notes from their grandmother with the word danger written on them. The gown then mysteriously finds its way back to Fenella. Once the gown is returned back to Fenella, her life begins to spiral out of control again and her past comes back to haunt her.

Murder, mayhem and mysticism all crafted into a spellbinding tale sure to keep you engaged into the wee hours of the morning. I would highly recommend The Woman in the Lake.