I loved the suspense of this book. Four women reunite at a lakeside Montana Lodge where there was a tragic event that tore them apart 25 years ago. A murder starts to unravel the events of the past.

This story was the perfect mix of murder & family history.

Sarah McCaskill has a bad dream. It's nothing more than that. Or is it?

Once in her youth a young woman came to Sarah in a dream and after, something very bad happened. Twenty five years later, returning to her home town to help her mother with the family estate, Whitetail Lodge, Sarah reconnects with old friends, some family & this dream woman. It just a dream though, right? There can't be any connection between her visions and the dead body found in town, surely. Sarah slowly starts to unravel the mysteries of her vision, her family and the very toen they all called home for so long.

Firstly I absolutely loved the setting of Bitterroot Lake. I love a small town mystery with friendly locals, and old friends that become reacquainted again. The family lodge sounds ideal to me and I wish it was a real Air B&B or Bed & Breakfast I could visit.

The theme of this book was healing, forgiveness and the strength that can be found by women who will stand together and do their best for eachother, their families & their community.

I would recommend this mysterious fiction for sure.

When I initially requested this audiobook, I thought the description sounded very interesting. I'm an avid reader of murder mystery books, so I thought this would be right up my alley.

I found the story to move very slowly. The story never grabbed my attention and I found myself wishing for the book to be over.

Yes, there is a death and a murder in the book but they are both anticlimactic. I was expecting more of a police procedural book and this was not that at all. The main character I found to dwell too much in the past. I also found her to be sort of whiney.

The narrator was hard for me to listen to as she has a soft voice. The way she reads the story doesn't help draw you in. I often found myself zoning out while listening to the book.

*received for free from netgalley for honest review* Pretty good, one of the best mysteries i've read this year. would reread!

I like a slow burn but this was too much for me. I went into this thinking there would be more action or have me on the edge of my seat but I found myself increasing the audiobook speed just to get through it.

Bitterroot Lake by Alicia Beckman is an adequately creepy mystery. The story moves somewhat slowly and certain plot points were confusing to me. But overall, it's an entertaining listen. Thank you, Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for a copy of this audiobook for review!

BITTERROOT LAKE, by Alicia Beckman, has an intriguing premise with its long-ago tragedy that tore family and friends apart, a ghost that seems to haunt an old family lodge, and a current day murder that is tied into the past. That said, it starts out slow, and I felt like the protagonist, newly widowed Sarah McCaskill, was overly repetitious in telling the reader how much she missed her husband. It added to the slowness of the pace. However, once the story began unfolding and the suspense began building, my attention was captured and I began enjoying the book. Ms. Beckman does an admirable job of weaving in seemingly random threads to the story until a cohesive plot with several twists I didn’t see coming, revealed themselves. Writing cozy mysteries under a different name, Ms. Beckman knows how to pen descriptive settings, and as such, the details provided helped me visualize the location of the story as well as the characters. Narrator, Linda Jones, was splendid in capturing the voice of the protagonist and I thought she added to the overall enjoyment of the book.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the opportunity to listen and review this book.

Won this from netgalley for my honest review, Wow, felt longer than it was ngl but more in a there was a lot going on not in a it was a boring way, would reread eventually

I would call this book a mystery/suspense novel. Not quite a thriller as it didn't keep me on the edge of my seat, but I was hooked from the very beginning as four women meet in a place that they had been together in 25 years. There is a murder that brings back memories of an incident they would have all liked to forget, but never have. There are a few mysteries to solve during their stay at this lakeside Montana lodge, that they slowly dig through. There were parts of the book that moved a bit slow, but I still wanted to continue reading to get the answers to the mysteries and to find out who shot Lucus. I enjoyed the book and would read another by this author.

Bitterroot Lake by Alicia Beckman

This is a new author to me!

Sarah loses her husband Jeremey to cancer. Her mom encourages her to come to Whitetail Lodge on Bitterroot Lake, their family lodge. So much history and memories at the lodge, along with tragedy.

After an assault 25years ago a tragic accident leaves one friend dead. The friends are torn apart from the tragic accident.

After returning to the lodge after all this time Sarah runs into one of her friends Janine hiding out. Janine just found their friend Lucas murdered. The person who caused so much pain to her and the rest so many years earlier.

Sarah’s sister Holly joins, along with their friend Nic. Will they uncover who killed Lucas? All eyes are on Janine.

The friends begin to uncover the lodges history and info of the owners. What will it reveal?

Sarah has dreams that are so real, what do they mean?

A pretty good read! I stayed interested for the most part. It has an element of supernatural in it that I honestly am usually turned off by in a book. But the author did a good job, I didn’t mind it!

Thank you Alicia Beckman, Dreamscape Media and NetGalley for the audio to listen to this book in return for my honest review!

Really enjoyed this. I listened to the audiobook. The reader was good, just the right amount of emotions in her voice. The main character Susan is not always a reliable narrator, she holds things back which can get a little frustrating, but I think that's how she meant the story to be.

This book is part whodunnit and part family drama. And I loved all of it. The characters were so well written that you love them all and suspect them all too. I listened to the audiobook version and the narrator really brought all the characters to life (including the lodge which is as much a character in the book as anyone)

Bitterroot Lake
Alicia Beckman, Leslie Budewitz
Twenty-five years ago, a group of friends gathered at Whitetail Lodge along the banks of Bitterroot Lake. Tragedy struck when one of the young women was attacked and a car accident killed another. There were three young men in the accident, only two survived. Sarah McCaskill married one of the survivors and the other became a detested attorney. Sarah has lived with the guilt of ignoring a warning, a vision that came to her in a dream.
Sarah had always loved Whitetail Lodge and it seemed natural for her to return there after her husband succumb to cancer. When she arrived, she was surprised to find an old friend at the lodge, and someone had murdered the despicable lawyer. The four women/friends are reunited at the lodge. Sarah is having the strange dreams again. What do they mean? What are they warning her about? The women begin researching the history of the lodge and the McCaskill family. What they unearth gives a disturbing new significance to the dreams. Sarah and her girlfriends have each received an anonymous letter saying someone knows what happened years ago. Sarah is mourning her loss, while attempting to understand the past and look toward the future.
There are several threads to this tale, when woven together they create a complex thriller. Sarah is a likable character; like all of us she has flaws. She is a widow, a wealthy widow and her friends and sister made disparaging remarks concerning her finances; it was obvious she would give it all up to have her husband back. I was not fond of Sarah’s sister when she first entered the plot, but I became a little more sympathetic as the story progress. I also had mixed feelings concerning Janine. The murder of Lucas was almost a subplot when compared to the dreams that haunted the McCaskill family.
Author Alicia Beckman is a talented writer. You know a book is well written when you find yourself caring about the characters.

The story of Bitterroot Lake was a really good one. Though I do feel that the pace of the book was lacking. It seemed to take forever for the story to actually take off and for things to start happening. I honestly struggled with staying attentive in the story and I kept getting distracted. It just seemed like it took a really long time to get going though once it did the story was really good. I really liked the characters and the things that they went through, but it was hard to connect with them because of how slow the pace was going.

I loved the cover of this book. It definitely drew me to it and once I read the summary I couldn't wait to read this book! This book had me from the beginning and the narrator was fantastic. I loved the Montana setting of Whitetail Lodge on the lake and the history of the lodge and the family that was uncovered over the course of the story. The main mystery was twisty because the motive was hard to decide on and there were many suspects and there was a secondary mystery also which was interesting to solve. I hope that this author has another book coming out soon!

I received a complimentary copy of this audiobook from the publisher through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

This is a no for me
Super slow moving. Characters lacked depth. Storyline lacked substance to hold your attention. It was almost a DNF for me
Just wanted it to end, and not in a good way

⭐⭐ I had high hopes for this book. Unfortunately, I was duped. The narrator was great, I really enjoyed her voice (except for the crying/worried voice-that was annoying.) The beginning started off well, it was intriguing and I enjoyed the introduction of characters. But then...blah I didn't feel like this story took off. I found it boring and bland, the concept was good, but it just wasn't there. Sadly, this book is a no good for me and I would not recommend.

Bitterroot Lake is a slow-burning book that takes its time building suspense, but for not a whole lot of payoff. The characters are interesting and the premise is promising, so it should have been a book that kept me reading and guessing, but it just sort of fell apart in execution. I was often bored listening to the audiobook and would zone out, only to snap back and wonder what was happening, but it hadn't really progressed. I stuck with it, but would probably not recommend it to someone looking for fast-paced mystery thrillers.

Thank you NetGalley for letting me listen to this audiobook in exchange for my honest review.

Bitterroot Lake is a psychological mystery thriller that revolves around an accident and secrets from decades before. The mystery and dynamics of relationships and how they change through trauma over time is an evident theme in this novel. The compelling piece of this book is how the secrets from teenage years comes back up during a murder in the small town of Deer Park.
I found the pace of this book to be very slow with a little too much inner monologue from
Sarah. I didn’t fully connect with the characters in this book, but the mystery is well written.

Bitterroot lake is a murder mystery set in rural Montana. Sarah returns to the lodge where she grew up after the death of her husband only to find a dead body and mysterious ghost. As she investigates, she reunites with her mother, sister, and high school friends.

I really liked the slow pace and atmosphere of the book including the descriptions of small town life and reunions with characters from the town. The cozy small town scenes were contrasted with the falling-down lodge which brought up memories from the past and may have a supernatural resident.

While I really enjoyed the neighbors in this book, I was less interested in the main four women who came together to solve the mystery. Since they had lost touch after high school, they had little connection to each other. Sarah was isolated among so-called friends, and even her mother left the room every time she entered. This isolation made me less interested in finding out what happened in the story. The mystery should be bringing these people together in a common cause, but in fact, they seemed to separate more as the story went on. I was expecting the book's theme of community engagement and social assistance brought up in the backstory to be carried through to the modern-day events, and there were several areas where the women could have improved themselves by helping each other and the people in the town.

Two unpalatable aspects in this book are its treatment of sexual assault and police interactions with black citizens. An attempted assault was brought up repeatedly in the book, but in my opinion not treated with the gravity it deserves. Also, a white woman calls the police on a black character in a way to maximize police confrontation.

I listened to the audiobook which was read by the excellent Linda Jones.

Content warnings: murder, use of guns, blood, discussion of sexual assault, discussion of suicide, calling police on black people