An enjoyable read that pulls you in. A question hangs over the head of the man who was accused of murder. He returns to the small town where his wife was born to complete the lake house. The police chief piles on the pressure to catch him out and put him away where he thinks he should be. When the first body is found all eyes turn to him. But really the chief should be looking closer to home.

This is the first book that I have read by Joe Clifford and it won’t be the last.

The book started so strongly and maintained that throughout, I was hooked from the beginning.

All of the characters were interesting and I liked how they linked together. I did not see that ending coming!!

The only (minor) criticism I would make, is that I felt there was too many characters and it did get a bit confusing. This could be down to reading as an ebook, some times reading a physical book makes a difference.

Thank you to @netgalley Joe Clifford and @polisbooks for my advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Having recently read "Skunk Train", I had extremely high hopes for "The Lakehouse" and Joe Clifford did not disappoint!!!

Greg Norman, whose wife was killed, moves to her hometown to fulfill a promise they made to build a house on the lake. Let's back up and mention that Greg was accused of and stood trial for her murder and was cleared of all charges....unfortunately, the townsfolk do not believe in his innocence...and when a body is discovered near the site of the lake house, any chance of clearing his name is out of the question. It gets worse when more women start to disappear and the plot thickens.

This story has so many rich characters, brilliantly interwoven into a great story that shows the ripple effect of things that happen in a small town and how the dead don't stay buried. I could not put this book down, every layer that was exposed made me want to unravel the mystery more!

If you haven't read anything by Joe Clifford, please do yourself a favor and pick up one of his books! They will keep you up reading into the wee hours of the night!

A special thank you to NetGalley, Polis Books, and Joe Clifford for providing me with an ARC.

I liked the book a lot 4.5 actually. a slow burn mystery with complicated characters and relationships revealed bit by bit. The ending was confusing, i turned the page hoping for a clearer answer but no. It was left like that and maybe that was the point. There are things that we are not going to know

I found this was a really good read. It’s a mystery thriller. It did keep me guessing right to the end. I’m only giving it 4 stars as a couple of times I got confused about the girls.(The A’s) But that did did not detract me from liking the book. All in all a good book that you don’t want to put down!

A quite suspenseful thriller sets in the small town of Covenant, Connecticut. Not being seen any homicide in 20 years, the town’s Chief of Police gets astonish when a body of a young woman is found nearby a ravine. When his seniors from the larger county of Holland declares it is as a Drug Overdose case the chief has his theory that the sociopath Greg Norman building the Lakehouse up the beach has something to do with it.

The story unfolds from the alternating perspectives of three main characters, including Chief of Police, Dwayne Sobczak; a single mother and divorcee, Tracy Somerset; and a psychiatrist, Dr. Meshulum Bakshir.The book also frequently goes back to what happened in the past with 3 popular girls named as A-holes (Amber, April and Amanda) and then a group of girls who spent time in Green Hills in Farmington, a rehab facility, together (April, Shannon, Beiko and Wendy).

Tracy Somerset, a single divorced mother of a child fells to Greg Norman, who is acquitted from the charges of murdering his wife, and believes in his innocence unlike the whole town who still think him as guilty. Dr. Bakshir goes awol as soon as he learns about death of one of his patient Wendy Mortensen. However, the father of the victim, the town and even the chief of police are all convinced he had a part to play in missing of the girls associated with April Abbott, his deceased wife.

I didn’t enjoy the pacing of the book that much. It had an interesting start then fell into slumber only to end in an incomplete note.Tracy and Greg relationship felt so unreal and preposterous to me (I mean who want to fall in love with an alleged murderer). Dr. Bakshir remained an enigmatic personality throughout the story. The unravelling of the story felt somewhat awkward to me. I still have so many questions that were left unanswered, and so many loose ends were left open in the end leaving me feeling disappointed.

**Thanks to Polis Books and Netgalley for my digital copy in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you NetGalley for my free Arc. I enjoyed the book for the most part but the writing got a little choppy here and there. I got confused a bit and had to reread some parts especially near the end. I also didn’t like the ending as I like a clear ending with all the answers.

I enjoyed this, the characters were good and likeable. I would have preferred a more suspenseful read though, ie if Greg was actually a potential murderer. The police thought he did it, but the way Greg is portrayed is too gentle on this and could have helped to add more danger to Tracy's story.

An excellent murder mystery story with plenty of dark characters and suspicious minds. I loved it. And really different from others of similar genre x

This book had a lot of potential. It’s very well-written, and has a great beginning, which was giving me Twin Peaks vibes. Tracy Somerset moves to a small town after a rough divorce, and meets a handsome stranger, Greg Norman. Things are looking up! Until she learns that Greg was tried and acquitted for murdering a woman years before. Greg has (somewhat inexplicably) moved back to the small lakeside town where the crime occurred. She decides to date him anyway. This development is sort of rationalized and then set aside.

This is where I start to have some problems with the book. I have trouble identifying with a main character who starts dating a guy who was on trial for murdering a woman. Is he maybe innocent? Maybe. Do women do this in real life? Sure, probably. Would I ever take this kind of chance? HELL no. Similarly I have a little trouble identifying with someone who would date this guy for the reasons provided here. The book doesn’t give a very compelling psychological or other reason why Tracy might do this and Greg isn’t especially charming. If it seemed like Tracy was falling under the spell of a potential murderer I might have been more intrigued by this, but Greg is depicted as a wronged nice guy from the start. Sorry about your murder trial dude, but if it’s all the same, I’ll just head back to Tinder and find someone who more definitely is not a murderer.

The book is still well-written and spooky but from that point things become a bit less believable. Also the book moves at a rather slow pace. Towards the end of the book things get more exciting. I was very intrigued by several of the small-town characters like the psychiatrist and the sheriff and liked it when the book let us spend more time with both of them. The ending was also very good.

Overall, for me a mixed bag. I wish we could give half stars because this book is a pretty solid 3.5 - good (if slow) writing, and some interesting characters and ideas. But ultimately I am rounding down due to the mostly slow pace and the fact that I could not really get behind or understand Tracy’s decision to date the potential murderer. If you’re less picky than me about your plot points your mileage may vary, as many others are enjoying this book. Clifford is definitely a talented writer.

Thanks to Polis Books, NetGalley and Joe Clifford for the advance copy!

This is a thriller. I got a little lost a couple times reading this book, and I think it was the writing style that made me get lost. I cannot say I was thrill during reading this book. I also feel the pacing was off in this book (the beginning was ok then it got boring and slow). I did not like or love this book. I was kindly provided an e-copy of this book by the publisher (Polis Books) or author (Joe Cliffod) via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review about how I feel about this book, and I want to send a big Thank you to them for that.

Excellent and dark murder mystery involving a whole lot of complex connections between characters.

The story is about a Todd Norman, a man formerly accused of his wife's murder. When he returns to his small hometown in Connecticut after a very disturbing period in his life, 'He wants to start over at a quiet lakehouse, but... a body is found dangerously close to his house,

At the very core of this thriller lie the messed up, unexpected and shocking connections between the characters. It's a story of a dysfunctional family, recent and all but forgotten murders from long ago, some romance and lots of hard feelings. I don't want to reveal any of the plot, but I think The Lakehouse if perfect for fans of small town murder thrillers where the characters have more in common than you would expect.

While I loved the way various individuals were connected with each other, I wish character development was richer because I didn't feel as though I could fully connect with the main characters.

*Thank you to the Publisher for a free advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

A tale about murder and missing girls in an idyllic New England town, set against the backdrop of the vulnerable, the marginalised and the lonely.
A well written book with characters that have depth and emotion,. This is a story about solving a crime, however, it is also social commentary on the lost and the invisible in society: "Get rid of your demons and the Angel's might leave too'"...Read it!

At times it was exciting but most of the story was either predictable or confusing. The writing itself is okay and consists mostly of dialogue...internal and otherwise, which is what causes the confusion. This story is told in first-person by the two main characters. The chapters switch back and forth between the characters narrations, which I normally enjoy. However, with this book, when the point of view changes no time has passed so it is hard to suddenly be reading from a different perspective, but pick up with the same event in the story. It has some interesting plot twists toward the end, but most I had predicted before they occurred.

Bottom Line: It was interesting but became confusing at times remembering which character was speaking. The story itself had sufficient mystery to keep my interest. The story of each main character became so entangled I was eager to see how the author would unravel the mystery in the end. It was not entirely surprising.

The Lakehouse is a fast read because Joe Clifford keeps you guessing as to who did it. The reader feels an urgency to discover the truth because Clifford's characters feel like friends. This is the first book I've read by this author and I'm looking forward to reading more. I want to thank NetGalley and Polis Books for an early copy to review.

For the most part, I really enjoyed this mystery/suspense novel. It's fairly well written with a good story line and moves at a pretty good pace. It's told from the POV of several characters and they feel different from each other even if they are a bit 2-D or cliched.

Three things detracted from it being a 5 star book for me though: 1. It's told in the present tense, which I find somewhat annoying ("Tracy reaches for the..." and "Dr. Bakshir wonders..."). 2. I had a hard time keeping the girls straight. The book frequently goes back to what happened in the past with 3 popular girls whose names all started with A (Amber, April and Amanda) and then a group of girls who spent time in a rehab facility together (April from the first group, Shannon, Beiko and Wendy). I found myself forever trying to remember who Amber was, and the three girls from the rehab other than April never seemed like distinct characters). 3. The ending was so confusing and unsatisfying. It leaves as many questions as it gave answers (actually more). Apparently that was okay for many reviewers, as this seems to be really well reviewed and some mentioned not needing all the answers, but if I read a whodunnit I really want everything explained. I found myself going "What?????" constantly in the last few chapters, even re-reading in order to see if I could make it make better sense. I still don't know a couple of big things and there's one character's story that is just completely left unwritten... I think, unless I've got her confused with someone else.... I have no idea, but it felt kind of like the last bit of the book was one of those movies where a main character or director died and someone else had to just quickly wrap something together. I would love to see the ending polished up with more answers and clearer events, and for the main characters to be a bit more humanized from the cliched small town burly police chief, lonely single mom and strong and stoic wrongly accused man. Despite all that, I enjoyed the book and read through it quite quickly to find out what was going to happen.

I read a digital ARC of this book via Net Galley.

#thelakehouse #joeclifford #netgalley #netgalleyreviewer #netgalleyreads I’m so torn on how to review this book. You know when you meet a book and you’re all #itsnotyouitsme well I think that’s what happened to me here. From the book description I was so excited to start my #falldays🍁 with a cozy murder novel 😂 #judgeme but whether it’s my #autoimmunediseases making my brain not work or the book itself .... I just feel so #confuzzled so for those that read it please fill me in 😂 a man loses his wife. He states it’s from a stranger #breakingandentering everyone else suspects he did it. But when he is tried. And cleared. Moves back to their hometown ..... girls go missing. All eyes and fingers point to him. Did he do it? #bookaholic #bookstagram #booklover #booksbooksbooks📚 #reviews #bookstagrammer #bookworm

Who is looking for a good mystery? If you are than The Lakehouse is perfect for you! Set in a small town in New England, this is the story of the gritty underbelly of small town suburbia. How, in a town where nobody locks their doors and the Sheriff is the only full time employee of the police departments, secrets run wild. And in small towns, it’s even harder to not let public opinion interfere with your own ideas.

Clifford does a fantastic job of weaving together a seamless plot, and there were multiple red herrings that really helped to increase the suspense of the story. Clifford’s writing is excellent and the monty crew of characters is prefect for this story. I really enjoyed getting to know each character, and understanding what drove them to do the things they do, was intriguing for me.

It’s hard to get too into the plot without giving away keep aspects of the story. Just know that this was a fabulous story and I can’t wait for more from Clifford.

This book comes out September 15th, make sure to pick it up!

I hope you enjoyed my thoughts on The Lakehouse If you liked this review please let me know either by commenting below or by visiting my instagram @speakingof_books. Huge thanks to Polis Books for my advanced copy!

This thriller was a little more complex than I expected. It is worth reading. ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for a fair review.

the mystery caught me right away with this book, I loved the twists and turns. I wish there would have just a little bit more detail into the personal lives but I still loved the entirety. I even screeched in the end.