In the Shadow of Lakecrest [book review]

In the Shadow of Lakecrest by Elizabeth Blackwell
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I bought this book as a Kindle First offering in January 2017 at a highly discounted price. The expected publication date for this book is February 1, 2017.

From the first chapter, this book reminded me of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, a Gothic romance first published in 1983. Like Rebecca, In the Shadow of Lakecrest is about a young working class woman who marries a wealthy man with a mysterious background. In fact, the parallels are conspicuous, at least in the beginning—the narrator in Rebecca was a lady’s companion and the narrator in In the Shadow of Lakecrest is a governess, both were on holiday with their respective employers when they met their wealthy husband-to-be, and finally, the story centers around the family manor and family’s mysterious past.

I had read Rebecca a few years ago and the beginning of this book, I would say the first quarter of the book, greatly paralleled Rebecca, so much so that I began to wonder if the author just rewrote the du Maurier novel with minor changes in characters and premise. But Lakecrest soon diverged into its own storyline.

In the Shadow of Lakecrest is a light gothic novel about a young governess and companion to wealthy daughters who snags and marries a rich businessman with a mysterious family past. Kate Moore and her rich husband, Matthew Lemont, returns to live at his family’s estate in the pre-Depression Chicago suburbs, where Kate feels ill-equipped to handle an overbearing mother-in-law and high-spirited sister-in-law. She learns that her husband is not the calm and confident man she married and is instead haunted by nightmares of a past that has affected his mental health. She discovers unsavory family secrets and the mysterious disappearance of Matthews aunt.

The story started out well with the build-up of the characters’ relationships and the suspenseful build-up of the family secrets and mysteries. But I feel like the story devolved by the second half of the book, both in the storyline and in the behavior of the characters, which could not be explained by the events that were occurring. It made it difficult to remain empathic to the characters. The storyline also devolved with the seemingly random occurrence of events, like Matthew’s twin sister suddenly eloping with a British nobleman and the summer storm that appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the Lemont’s annual party, pushing the story into its final stages.

The second half of the story was fast and disjointed where the first half moved at a steady pace that carefully laid out the story. I enjoyed reading it up to a point, and then I was just rushing to finish the story and to find out what happens at the end. The build-up and the suspense was atmospheric and gripping, but the reveals and the resolutions were underwhelming, not to mention the uncharacteristic personality twists that Kate’s character went through was ungrounded in her character build-up from the beginning of the book.

There are many great elements in this book that I feel were not fully fleshed-out and was not given the attention that they deserved to be a truly remarkable read, though it is a quick and entertaining read for those not overly-concerned with the writing.

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Something a little different [audio]

An audio recording of myself reading the poem "Let Them Not Say" by Jane Hirshfield. I received this poem in my email this morning through my subscription to Poem-a-Day from poets.org. It seems to be a fitting poem on a day that many have dreaded its coming: Trump's inauguration.

Audio Recording: Let Them Not Say, by Jane Hirshfield

Poem at poets.org: Let Them Not Say, Jane Hirshfield, 1953

Chrysalis [poem]

Caterpillar cocooned, like
an angel in chrysalis,
preparing to proclaim
an ascension

Missed Connection [flash fiction]

I saw you across the platform of the subway station. You were wearing bright blue knee-length tube socks, a loose black sheath dress, and impossibly high black ankle boots, one booted foot tapping out a rhythm over the other leg. I was standing on the opposite platform, watching you, looking at your femininity obscuring the masculinity of your birth. Your eye shadow was a vibrant blue over your eyelids and trailed silver sparkles to your temples. You were stunning.

You sat on the wooden bench writing in a little notebook, oblivious to the crowd shifting around you, blissfully ignorant of the argument down the other end of the platform. I don’t know if it was the way the strange yellow station lights sought you out in the crowd or if it was because of your own special glow, but you were a radiant of light in an ugly setting. You looked like you had fallen in love that night, a smile playing around the corners of your mouth as your pen flew across the pages of the your notebook. You were enclosed in a glow of soft vulnerability and impenetrable strength that only a deep abiding love could provide.

As you set pen to paper, that slender instrument gliding gracefully across the page, I watched the beauty of your face, the almost smile tugging on the corners of your lips, your eyes glowing with growing intensity as your scribbles flew faster. Were you remembering a beautiful encounter, or were you mourning a loss? Because as I stepped onto my train, I saw a single tear fall from your eye onto the page of your notebook. I watched you resolutely close your notebook on that wet stain, inevitably smudging your writing, and hugged the notebook tightly to your bosom. You stared blankly into the tracks. I wondered what had crossed your mind in that moment, what terrible memory had been conjured up to cause the entirety of your person to snap closed in an instant.

You stood up and walked to the platform’s edge as the train was announced over the loudspeakers. You looked up and our eyes met for a split moment as my train pulled away from the station. In that instant, I saw the depths of your pain in your pools of deep hazel, and it pierced my heart to the very core, leaving me gasping for breath as my hand clutched to my chest. I lurched away from the window as I swiveled around, and my eyes searched frantically around me at the faces of the other passengers in a desperate need to confirm what I had seen. But nobody paid me any attention.

As I took a step towards the communications button that would connect me to the conductor, a deafening shriek of brakes from the station we had just left reverberated through the tunnel. Too late. I was unable to save you.

Later, I would read about the tragedy in the news and I would remember that moment of your beauty falling to pieces.

What did you lose?