Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an opportunity to read Bitterroot Lake.

A deadly car accident 25 years ago .... friendships that fell apart ... ghosts who appear in dreams ... strange pennies on the floor .a murder

Basically this book has everything but that doesn’t mean that it always works

✔️ the last 30% of this book seemed to be when things really started to get moving and got interesting
✔️ I enjoyed the paranormal aspects of the story
✔️ great friendships and family relationships - even if some mending of fences was required
✖️ this book starts off really slow - I almost DNFEd it but I did want to know “who pulled the trigger”

When four women separated by tragedy reunite at a lakeside Montana lodge, murder forces them to confront everything they thought they knew about the terrifying accident that tore them apart, in Agatha Award-winning author Alicia Beckman's suspense debut.

Twenty-five years ago, during a celebratory weekend at historic Whitetail Lodge, Sarah McCaskill had a vision. A dream. A nightmare. When a young man was killed, Sarah's guilt over having ignored the warning in her dreams devastated her. Her friendships with her closest friends, and her sister, fell apart as she worked to build a new life in a new city. But she never stopped loving Whitetail Lodge on the shores of Bitterroot Lake.

Now that she's a young widow, her mother urges her to return to the lodge for healing. But when she arrives, she's greeted by an old friend--and by news of a murder that's clearly tied to that tragic day she'll never forget.

And the dreams are back, too. What dangers are they warning of this time? As Sarah and her friends dig into the history of the lodge and the McCaskill family, they uncover a legacy of secrets and make a discovery that gives a chilling new meaning to the dreams. Now, they can no longer ignore the ominous portents from the past that point to a danger more present than any of them could know.
Amazon.com

Bitterroot Lake is a murder mystery. But it also combines with the historical and women’s literature genres, both with mystical elements. I’m beginning to look forward to these combined genre novels because they add dimensions to the story.

The book is dedicated to Ramona DeFelice Long. A long time ago, Ramona blogged here at WWK, and later, I employed her as my editor. Writing mystery is a small world, so I thought I’d know the writer, but I’d never heard of Alicia Beckman. When I turned the last page, the author was revealed—Leslie Budewitz was writing as Alicia Beckman. Blow me down!

I’ve interviewed Leslie here on books from both of her cozy mystery series. I know Leslie lives in Montana and went to school in Seattle, the settings of her series, but the writing and combined genres was so different from her usual writing, I didn’t put the two together.

For the first time, please welcome Alicia Beckman to WWK. For about the fourth time, please welcome Leslie Budewitz to WWK. E. B. Davis

Why this book—so different from your other series?

I love both my Food Lovers’ Village and Spice Shop series, and a few of my short stories form a historical series as well. As writers, we all have many stories to tell, and sometimes, they take a different tone or require a different structure. I’d long wanted to explore how women’s friendships evolve over time, something that’s been central in my life. I do that in my cozies, particularly in The Solace of Bay Leaves, the 5th Spice Shop book. But while I think the cozy is pretty flexible and can touch on social justice issues and difficult emotions, I also wanted to take a deeper dive beneath the surface of a family and a community to sometimes-uncomfortable places, into the fractures and the scars, and the ways we find to live with them.

The book is structured by days of the week, a week in which the murder is solved, but in which many stories are revealed. Why that structure?

In the fall of 2019, I read Strangers at the Gate by Catriona McPherson, which uses a similar structure. When I start a book, I often think about what’s struck me in recent reads, and I realized that structure would work well here. It implies from the start that we’re going to dive right into the problem, whatever it is; that time element helps raise the stakes and, I hope, adds a bit of drive and compulsion to the story.

Main character Sarah McCaskill Carter is a new widow at the age of forty-seven. Do you have friends that are widows? Did you use them for researching what widows feel and face in the earliest stages of their grief?

I am a big advocate of emotional research, mining our memories and observations for insights into human experience, as well as reading books and articles about loss and grief. Though, fortunately, I have no close friends who were widowed at Sarah’s age, I’ve certainly watched older women, including my mother, sister-in-law, and friends who’ve been through the experience. A dear friend’s husband was diagnosed with cancer when their children were about the age of Sarah’s children—he’s doing quite well, thank goodness—but I saw the fear and the rawness that evoked, and imagined what the next stages might bring. Writing fiction requires the practice of empathy, which can be wrenching but is also deeply gratifying. If you do it well, and truly connect with the characters, then readers will connect with them, too, and have a satisfying emotional experience—which is, after all, one of the reasons we read.

Historically, Sarah’s family—the McCaskills—have been wealthy sawmill owners and employers, wealthy enough to have predecessors who willed them a lodge with cabins and acreage on the other side of Bitterroot Lake from their hometown of Deer Park. The camp started as a summer home and continued in that capacity for generations. Although Sarah wants to help her mother inventory the lodge and plan its future, she isn’t prepared for the cleaning. Why haven’t the lodge and cabins been maintained over the years?

Sarah and her siblings’ lives have gone in different directions, with the sisters leaving Deer Park and the brother busy with the business and his own family. I suspect that their father’s death a few years before our story begins affected their connection to Whitetail Lodge as well, since it had been his family’s place. Peggy, their mother, has had some disquieting experiences in the lodge over the years, which have also contributed. Family property can be a great joy and connecting force, but it can also be a burden, especially financially. Here in Montana, some historic lodges have become commercial properties while others have passed into the control of community preservation groups. A few, happily, remain in family hands or have found other owners who treasure them.

Sarah also isn’t prepared to run into her old friend Janine, who she finds camped out in one of the cabins, on the run from a murder scene. Even though Janine left Deer Park, where she, too, grew up, her history is well known there. In small towns, does history forever label you? Does trying to maintain privacy aid and abet the gossip mongers?

Oh, yes, both those things can happen. Deer Park is a truly small town, well under 5,000, although it expands with tourists and summer people in season, which brings a different set of tensions. Small towns can have long memories.

Because of her history, Janine is afraid to go to the authorities after finding the body of a man the women knew when they were college age. Was it the attempted rape of her by the victim or her mother’s history that made Janine run from the scene?

Both. Janine is keenly aware that society dismisses some people, and that social labels can be passed from one generation to the next. She’s not sure how much she can trust Deer Park to have changed. That’s not an unreasonable fear, I think, when the past is so tragic and has so deeply scarred her. Of course, this is part of the burden Renee Harper carries as well.

Much like Janine, Sarah finds her history also hinders her, an unexpected slap. She’s looked upon as perfect, had it easy, married a man who became wealthy, had perfect children—and when others put Janine down for her poor history, others put Sarah down as being too high and mighty—even her younger sister Holly. How can it go both ways, and in each case, they are innocent? Cases of schadenfreude?

The biggest rift is between the sisters. Each knows she’s judging the other harshly, and wonders if that’s fair. Do they justify their actions—and their words—to themselves? They have in the past, but now that they’re face-to-face, they’re forced to acknowledge that they haven’t lived up to their expectations, in Sarah’s case, or been fully honest, in Holly’s. I’m fascinated by the
layers within a long-term relationship, and the sometimes-profound impact of misperception and miscommunication.

The other three women seem to have kept more in touch with each other than Sarah has kept close to them. She feels guilty, but then she also lived in Seattle. Did she isolate herself or did the others exclude her?

A little of both, I think. It’s often the case that within a small cluster of friends, some bonds are stronger than others. Janine and Nic were united by being the outsiders, and of course, they both lived in Montana and saw each other, although Janine left for a while. And sometimes, physical distance becomes an excuse and emotional distance a habit.

Without spoilers, it’s fair to say that Sarah’s brother, Connor, and her late husband, Jeremy, make an important decision affecting her without telling her. They don’t seem particularly sexist, and yet their actions are troubling in a way. Why the secrecy?

Quite simply, they think they’re protecting her, both by sparing her the decision and by the decision they make. When we try to protect people from painful emotions, we often create another layer of pain, missing an opportunity to connect on a deeper level and implicitly telling them we didn’t trust them to make good decisions.

Being human can involve some painful ambiguity and contradiction at times, can’t it?

Sarah finds two situations that she believes are mystical or self-invented to be real. The first are her dreams that she believes are warnings, and they may be that. The second are signs from her late husband. Do many new widows receive tangible proof from a dead spouse?

Turns out they do. After my sister-in-law’s husband died shortly before Christmas a few years ago, she often found an ornament from the holiday tree sitting on the floor, too far away to have simply fallen, or elsewhere in the room; she interpreted the incidents as a sign that he was thinking of her, and occasionally, that he wanted her to reach out to the person who had given them that ornament, which she did, always discovering that her call came at an important time. Other widows have told me similar stories. And it isn’t just widows—the story in the book of the artist who painted the angel clouds her murdered sister sent her was told to me by the artist. And I choose to believe that my mother, who adored bunnies, had a hand in the surprising number of snowshoe hares we saw around our house in the months after she died. (My pen name, by the way, is a tribute to her and her mother’s family.)

Bastet, the cat, Janine’s baking, and wine seem to be the only sources of creature comforts for the women. Do those shared comforts assist in keeping the peace among the women?

What a lovely insight! Those things, along with poring over the newly-discovered journal, albums, and letters from a century ago help them reconnect and restore their friendship. Those moments remind them that they have much more in common than the memory of the tragedy that tore them apart, and reassure them that their bonds are not hopelessly severed, that they can depend on each other again.

When Sarah finds her great grandmother Caro’s journal, she discovers that Caro and her friends had founded the Lakeside Ladies’ Aid Society, a group of wealthy women who loaned money to poorer women in need before social security and welfare were promulgated. Were there groups such as this around during the 1920s through the Depression era?

Women’s social and community clubs were hugely important from roughly the 1880s through the 1960s and ‘70s, but especially in new towns and rural communities in the west. Pioneering was often lonely and isolating, and farm and ranch women sometimes went weeks or even months without seeing another woman. I remembered my own mother’s involvement in church groups and the ways that good deeds were often done behind the scenes. It wasn’t much of a stretch to create the Lakeside Ladies’ Aid Society, a sort of secret “good works” club.

Sarah also learns that she isn’t the only one suffering nightmares. Is this a true haunting since it’s recurred over the last 100 years?

One theory about such visitations is that they are tied to the site of an unsolved or unrectified death. That’s very much the case here, though I think I can say without giving too much away that what the spirit—if I can call it that—wants is not revenge, but a sort of fulfillment.

Is Bitterroot Lake the first in a series?

The book came about in a bit of an unusual way. My agent and I pitched a traditional mystery series, and got some interest, but Terri Bischoff at Crooked Lane thought the first in the series had the potential to be a standalone. I’d been very much interested in that, and after working with Terri at Midnight Ink, I trusted her judgment. Writing a standalone is different from writing a series—each decision, from setting to tone to subplots and more, can be made with just the one story in mind, and all the story questions need to be answered, since this is the one time your reader will meet these characters. And the tone and voice are different from my series books, which is probably why you didn’t recognize me as the author—I love that, by the way! So while the series potential exists, I have no plans for a series now.

What are you writing now?

I’m finishing edits for Carried to the Grave, a collection of Food Lovers’ Village short stories slated for summer; it includes a historical prequel set in 1910 featuring the contemporary protagonist’s great-grandparents. And I’m writing the next Spice Shop mystery, which should be out in spring 2022.

Thanks for having me here today, Elaine, and for great questions!

Know in advance that there's a paranormal thing going on here but know as well that it never gets too woo woo or overtakes the basic story of a woman confronting her past. Sarah's mother thought toting through the stuff at their family vacation home- long unused- would be a good for Sarah, who is mouing the death of her husband. Maybe not, except that it does mean that Sarah will finally resolve something that's lingered for years. Lucas, who was a creep 25 years ago and who has continued to be a slug, is found murdered in his office. Her friend Janine, who she hasn't seen for 25 years, is concerned she'll be arrested but luckily, their friend Nic and Sarah's sister Holly also turn up to help solve the murder. Sarah's dreams are important clues to what happened and will happen. She's interesting, the others less so (they're less well rounded) and the story moves briskly. Thanks to netgalley for the ARC. A good read.

This started off strong but then new mysteries were introduced over half way into the story and it wasn't fully resolved by the end. The writing was good and kept me engaged throughout. I don't think the supernatural/ghostly aspects of this book were fully realised as well as the resolution to the initial missing of the letters.

I do not think this was a bad book it was just not for me.

Thank you to Netgalley for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

In this debut Suspense Novel Bitterroot Lake, Alice Beckman takes us into the lives of four friends reunited by tragedy at a lakeside lodge in Montana.

In this book we follow Sarah McCaskill who just days widowed returns to her childhood home to help renovate Whitehall Lodge. On her first night she runs into an old friend Janine who has just seen someone from her past killed. Sarah and Janine along with their old friends Nic and Holly become amateur sleuths trying to clear Janine's name who is accused because of something that happened between her and the victim in the past. In addition to this story line we also are drawn into the mystery of Whitehall lodge. What actually happened to her ancestors here, and who is the young woman she has been seeing in her dreams before tragedy strikes.

The author did a great job at setting the story. She put a lot of time and effort into describing the lodge and surrounding area and immersing the reader into the setting. The Author also captures Sarah’s feelings throughout the book well. As the story begins she has been widowed for less than three weeks and the emotions are raw and well done.

At times I think this book took on a little too much. It felt almost like two completely different stories: The mystery of who killed Lucas and the mystery of Whitehall lodge. About midway through the book the first mystery stops in favor of exploring the second. To me it seems like this story could have been two novellas or two fully developed books in a series. The ending seemed a bit rushed as the group discovered who killed Lucas, what happened to Anja and everything in between

If you like slow burn thrillers with a historical element in a picturesque lakeside town then I would definitely recommend you check this one out!

CW: Sexual Assault

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher (Crooked Lane Books) and the Author (Alicia Beckman) for an e-ARC of this book to read for my honest review.

This was a slow burn that bled throughout the entire novel. I have a hard time DNF'ing a book because I want to give the benefit of the doubt, but this was one I probably should have. It just didn't have the plot development I was looking for.

3.5 Stars

Twenty-five years after a horrific car crash killed a friend and changed their lives forever, four friends find themselves reunited at the newly-widowed Sarah’s family’s lakeside lodge. One of the key players from all those years ago has been murdered and one of the women is under suspicion. They have to try to work out what’s going on before they all end up victims.

This book is hard to categorize; it has s central mystery with the murder and the events surrounding it, but it’s also a personal drama, with Sarah working through becoming a new widow and the women all navigating their relationships which have changed dramatically in the 25 years since they were last together. Some remained close, others drifted apart for different reasons and some of those reasons still sting all these years later. So it’s not as fast-paced as a normal thriller, it has a lot of places where the focus is on the relationships and the personal aspect.

But the mystery is pretty interesting, and there were some red herrings. I didn’t really figure it out. There’s also a little supernatural element in there, which I wished was explored a little more. But overall it was good.

This was a good book if you like light thrillers that also have. A human element. If you’re looking for a. Hardcore suspense thriller, this isn’t the one for you. But if you’re looking for a book that explores friendships and has a mystery involved, check this one out!

Ms. Beckham also writes cozy mysteries under the pseudonym Leslie Budewitz. I throughly enjoyed her Spice Shop Mystery series so I was excited to get the e-galley for Bitterroot Lake. Unfortunately, I wasn’t as impressed with this novel. The amount of sub-plots disrupted the flow of the main storyline and it came across as disjointed. The first half was a bit boring since it contained several descriptions of cleaning. The second half left me wondering why so much was included that didn’t contribute to the plot. I did like that the protagonist was in her late 40s and the author did complete detailed research of the area. I don’t think I would recommend this particular book but I would recommend the author’s cozy mysteries.
2.5 stars rounded down to 2. I typically give 3 to an okay book that meets my expectations.
Thank you to Crooked Lane Books, the author, and Net Galley for giving me this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Synopsis: After the death of her husband, Sarah McCaskill returns to her family lodge on Bitterroot Lake where everything started 25 years ago. She’s drawn there by her mother who’s hoping to take her mind off things for awhile, but the events that unfold once she arrives are not at all what Sarah was expecting. Murder, anonymous threats, and old secrets finally coming to light.. But is it all related to what happened all those years earlier or something else entirely?

Thoughts: This was a classic whodunnit type of story that I thoroughly enjoyed! Let me start by saying thank you so much to @crookedlanebooks and @netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read this early and give my feedback! What drew me to this book initially was the setting. My dream home would be a lakefront property, so anything set on a lake is right up my alley and Bitterroot Lake did not disappoint. It’s got everything from familial drama to the supernatural, so there’s something for everyone. While the storyline was a little slow at some points, I actually enjoyed that too because it fit with the laidback environment that I associate with lake living. Overall I was drawn into the mystery from the start and right there with Sarah questioning everything and everyone along the way. Make sure to pick up your copy next month!

This is the third or fourth book I've read with a similar premise. A group of friends come back to a place that had a tragedy some years prior, involving all of them.

Bitterroot Lake was okay, not fall out of my chair great, but still readable.
The premise, itself, is okay. A recent widow comes back to her family lake house. She reunites with her long long friend who is scared and almost in hiding due to a suspicious murder in the small town.

But then....then I got bored. I don't need to read 15 times that there is no cell service by the lake and that people have to drive to get some. It's not a slow burn, it's just slow.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review.

Beckman, pseudo name for Leslie Budewitz is a three-time Agatha Award winner and the bestselling author of The Spice Shop and Food Lovers’ Village Mysteries. In her suspense debut, Beckman brings readers to her native state of Montana and introduces them to protagonist Sarah McCaskill, a young widow who recently lost her husband and childhood sweetheart to cancer. Sarah is encouraged by her mother Peggy to come back to the family-owned Whitetail Lodge on Bitterroot Lake to begin her grief-healing process. Although the lodge has always held a special place in Sarah’s heart, it was also the site of a horrific tragedy and crime that occurred 25 years ago. That night so long ago involved a sexual assault and a devastating car accident that ended in one of Sarah’s friends being killed. Lucas, the driver should have been convicted but instead ended up going scot-free and even became a lawyer in the same hometown.

When Sarah returns to Whitetail Lodge, she is met with the same friends of her past and a mysterious murder that may be tied to the tragedy of 25 years ago. Sarah and her friends begin to dig into the murder mystery and in doing so they uncover the secrets of Whitetail Lodge and the McCaskill family from a century ago. Beckman paints a gorgeous picture of this idyllic small-town Montana setting. With some paranormal aspects, past and present secrets abounding, and a multitude of suspects in a murder investigation, this suspense debut is sure to lure readers in.

This is a Super Slow Moving Suspense Mystery/ Thriller. I really try to read this book, but I could not do it. I ended up DNFing this book at 35%. This book was moving so slow it could not keep me pulled into the story. I could not get into the storyline or the characters. If you like slow moving thrillers you may like this book, but I have to have a fast moving thriller/mystery to keep me pulled into the storyline. I was kindly provided an e-copy of this book by the publisher (Crooked Lane Books) or author (Alicia Beckman) via NetGalley, so I can give honest review about how I feel about this book. I want to send a big Thank you to them for that. This book is schedule to be release on April 13-2021.

This novel was not the type I enjoy. I wanted to read it because I love Montana and happen to know many of the places around the fictitious lodge where the action takes place. I liked how the locations are described in such loving detail, but I never connected with the characters. There is too much non-propulsive dialogue. I’m renovating a cabin in Idaho, and many conversations sounded like my contractor. There is a ghost story and a whodunit mystery, but I kept getting distracted with all the chats about the characters’ feelings. A reader or cozy mysteries may like this book better, it was just not for me.
I chose to read this book and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased. Thank you, NetGalley/Crooked Lane Books!

The setting of this book had me in LOVE but I will admit that the mystery fell flat to me at times. I had to push through this book when I wanted to be sucked in by the book. All-in-all, I enjoyed it but I wanted a little more from it.

After the death of her husband, Sarah McCaskill returns to the family lodge o Bitterroot Lake at her mother's request. The lodge is in need of repairs, cleaning and the decision to keep the lodge in the family or sell the property.
When she encounters her friend Janine at the lodge, an incident from twenty-five tears ago that involved an assault and deadly car crash are brought back to life. The man responsible for both is ow a lawyer and has been meandered. Does it have anything to do with the past or something else. As the other two women who were there twenty-five years ago appear, they search for answers and the identity of the sender of the mysterious letters each one has received.
Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC.

Published: April 13, 2021
Crooked Lane Books
I received this book in exchange for an honest review.

Alicia Beckman delighted in living in Seattle as a college student, and young lawyer but is happiest back home in her native Montana, where she lives with her husband, a musician, and doctor of natural medicine, and their full-figured gray tuxedo cat.

“Besides, the cops don’t believe women like me.”

Sarah is trying to figure out how her life will continue after the death of her husband. When her mother invites her home to help get the family lodge ready for tourist season, the last thing Sarah ever expected was a reunion. Or a murder. Between trying to figure out her grief, and what happens next, Sarah is faced with more questions than answers. And she might not survive to figure out anything.

I love that this novel took place in Montana. The Midwest is gorgeous, and Montana is such a lovely place. There is a lot of history, natural beauty, secrets, and family in this book. The story is brutally raw but openly vulnerable.

I loved how the stages of grief were so eloquently intertwined throughout the story. The process of healing after a loss is such a quizzical part of life. And Alicia Beckman truly represented every aspect of the process, with the different characters.

The plot moved along at a fast pace, and the character development was divine. I enjoyed getting to know these characters. I also wanted how the past was interwoven with the present and how both had such a bearing on the future.

The twist in this book came at such a perfect place and was unexpected. I found myself connecting with each of the main characters for various reasons, and I love how everything came together in the end. This is my first Alicia Beckman novel, but not my last.

Sarah has arrived back at her family’s lodge to seek answers. Many years before an accident changed everything. But now one of the people from that tragedy is dead. Who killed him and is it the same person who is lurking about? I liked the story. I thought all the characters were good and easy to believe. The mystery aspect was a little shallow, but not a deterrent. What I liked the best is the setting in Montana. Books about the west beckon me and this one was no different. Perhaps Bitterroot Lake should be your next reading destination.

This book was given to me by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Four friends spend a weekend together when a tragedy takes place. 25 years later, they un-expectantly come together in the same spot.
Sarah comes back home to her family's lodge when her husband dies. She finds her old best friend, Janine hiding out in one of the cabins. Janine has just discovered the body of one of the people from that weekend. The friends start to clean up the lodge and find the history of the former owners, find their future and find each other. This was a good mystery. Thank you NetGalley, Crooked Lane Books and Alicia Beckman.

This well-written and complex tale had me completely immersed in all facets from Sarah’s return to the old lodge to surprising occurrences with old friendship and a past that haunts everything that is touched. An awareness that something is amiss with a sense of foreboding holds well throughout the telling of this multi-plot storyline. The who, what, where, when, and why are bandied around and it is those acts and connections that propelled this narrative. I was enthralled with the characters and the pivotal roles they played that enhanced how well this story was being told. The author set the stage for a dynamic read where the pacing increased as the story came to its conclusion and I couldn’t put it down as I needed to know how this would end. This was a great story and I applaud the author in a job well done.

The first part of the story is slow and dragging, but later on it becomes better. The house and the surroundings are well described and the character development is good. Tying up of characters across two generations is done seamlessly. If the narrative in the beginning is modified it would appeal to a larger audience