The Room by the Lake

This was a fabulous book, a real page turner, which I devoured in a few days.
Caitlin is a lost soul looking for comfort in New York following the death of her mother. She has flown over from London and is not sure what she is hoping to find, only that she needs to escape her past. A chance encounter sees her meeting Jake, an ex-soldier who she immediately identifies with. His unhappy past brings them together quickly and she agrees to meet his ‘family’ in a remote location away from the city.
For Cailtin this is the first step towards a very different way of life. She finds herself embracing a new lifestyle she was at first sceptical to accept and for a while all seems well. An enthusiastic welcome from the group members, whose lives here seem blissful and fulfilling, embrace and soothe Caitlin. The esteemed self-appointed leader, Don brings order and calm to the group. However, as Caitlin becomes more entwined with the regime she starts to realise she has got herself into something which may not be all it seems.
I enjoyed the way this book built up a sense of foreboding. It is a great debut novel and Emma Dibdin is an author I will look out for in the future.

A very good read, had me gripped from the start. I would highly recommend this book to others

Excellent book. Great main characters and plot. I would recommend this book.

great read and easy to follow story line. look forward to reading more from this author.

Brilliant book - could not put this one down.

Thanks for the chance to read this

Lots of young girls head out to a new city, new country even for an adventure, you grab at any new opportunity you can, you talk to strangers in bars to make friends, you wander the streets and you are open to new things and new experiences. That’s the fun part of travel and that’s how this story starts but it soon escalates into something all the more horrendous.

Caitlin is vulnerable and not very street wise it seems. A few bad decisions early on catapults her into ‘Ooh I wouldn’t go there territory” but her vulnerability and wish to stand on her own two feet take her places she might not otherwise have gone.

A cabin in the woods with a new boyfriend - or a dangerous remote lake house where you really are in the wilds of nowhere. Somewhere in Upstate New York but far away from civilization and the few buses which run back to the reassuring chaos of the city.

There are some far fetched moments as you might expect but then this is a story of extremes. Why a girl would fall for such a man, do what she does next and explain the unfolding events in her own head make for a shocking story of how your mind can trick you and how a person can fall into a trap of their own making

Upstate New York has never felt so dark and creepy, a million miles away from the chaos of NYC but here, the forest is suffocating, the silence deafening and the chance to escape impossible. A thrilling read that keeps you gulping for air.

Following the death of her mother following years of acute mental illness and her father’s growing alcohol dependency, Caitlin seeks escape in New York, leaving no trace behind of her intended destination. She is intelligent but socially awkward, introspective, a loner by nature, with no previous serious relationships and hypersensitive to any sign she may have inherited the psychoses of her mother.

Caitlin is seeking a sanctuary and after weeks roaming New York alone believes she has found it in the person of Jake. He seems to understand her and it appears Caitlin has at last found someone with whom she can share the thoughts and fears she’s kept hidden. When Jake invites her to travel upstate to meet the loving family he’s told her about, Caitlin readily accepts. What follows will test Caitlin’s resilience, her sense of her own identity, her strength of will and her very sanity.

The author creates a convincing picture of a damaged, traumatised individual making subsequent events believable. This is definitely a slow burner that builds in tension as, with a growing sense of unease, like Caitlin, you are forced to question whether what appears benign is really masking something more insidious and much, much darker.

A fantastic story with captivating writing.
Dibdin constructs clever plot lines and well thought out characters. Loved it.

Tired with life in London after the death of her mother and dealing with an alcoholic father, Caitlin moves to New York where she hopes her problems will become something of the past. With her money quickly dwindling and feelings of loneliness appearing, her life seems to be looking up when she meets Jake, a handsome man who lives in a commune in the woods. With their emphasis on group therapy, healthy eating and exercise, this looks exactly like the sort of escape Caitlin needs. She soon realises, though, that there is more to this lifestyle than meets the eye and finding her way back out may not be as easy as she thinks.

From the start of the book, I had great sympathy for Caitlin and could understand why she felt the need to escape from her life. Underestimating how lonely it can be in a big city, however, was certainly her downfall and it was easy to see how she became smitten with Jake, the good-looking stranger who went out of his way to make her feel wanted. As the reader, alarm bells were immediately ringing when he suggested she go to meet his family in an isolated house in the woods and it was good to see how Caitlin had the same reservations, her feelings towards Jake suppressing these thoughts however.

Considering that the majority of the book takes place in a vast forest, Emma Dibdin has succeeded in creating a tense, claustrophobic setting with an air of foreboding. It is not really a spoiler to say that the commune Caitlin finds herself part of is not exactly what it seems but the author has done a fantastic job in skewing reality to the point that, even as the reader, you do not know what is real and what is in Caitlin’s head. There were several occasions when Caitlin was having doubts and I was willing her to trust her instincts and get out of there as fast as she could but such is the quality of the brainwashing that she never acted on her thoughts.

I admit that this is not the sort of book that would usually grab my attention, but I am so glad that I had the opportunity to read it as it was a fast-paced, easy read filled with tension. This is a great debut and I look forward to reading more of Emma Dibdin’s work.

With thanks to Head of Zeus, Net Galley and Clare Gordon for my copy of the book.

This book was disturbing. No, not disturbing. It’s made me a bit out of sorts. I’ve never read a book that has left me with a cold feeling before. Not because it was awful, but because it was so dark and terrifying in a way. The way that this book is put across is rapid yet slow, you feel the lack of concept of time along with Caitlin, you feel the neediness of her. You feel her fear, paranoia and psychotic problems alongside every one of her emotions. I rarely feel confused while reading a book, or second guessing what I had read but this just made me a little untrusting of everything.