SOCIAL MEDIA

Review: The Lantern

Why I picked it: If I'm completely honest... I picked this book after seeing it all over the internet. It's getting a lot of press and I was curious.  I enjoy gothic novels (ie: Niffenegger) and thought I would enjoy this one.

Synopsis: When Eve falls for the secretive, charming Dom, their whirlwind relationship leads them to purchase Les Genevriers, an abandoned house in a rural hamlet in the south of France.  As the beautiful Provence summer turns to autumn, Eve finds it impossible to ignore the mysteries that haunt both her lvoer and the run-down old house, in particular the mysterious disappearance of his beautiful first wife, Rachel.  Whilst Eve tries to untangle the secrets surrounding Rachel's last recorded days, Les Genevriers itself seems to come alive.

As strange events begin to occur with frightening regularity, Eve's voice becomes intertwined with that of Benedicte Lincel, a girl who lived in the house decades before.  As the tangled skeins of the house's history begin to unravel, the tension grows between Dom and Eve.  In a page-turning race, Eve must fight to discover the fates of both Benedicte and Rachel, before Les Genevriers' dark history has a chance to repeat itself.

An evocative and sensuous tale of romantic and psychological suspense set against an exquisite landscape, The Lantern is a gripping story of past and present, love and jealousy, secrets and lies, appearances and disappearances that captures our age-old terror of the dark.

Type: Fiction

Quick Take: Let me start by saying this book was good, not great.  I'm not sure if part of my confusion was due to reading an ARC on my ipad.  Some of the chapter numbers were sideways, some normal.  I was reading into this... trying to decide if this would help me understand who was narrating a particular chapter, or if we were time traveling to the historical part of the book.  I never figured this out. 

I wasn't emotionally attached to the characters but I can say I enjoyed Eve's story.  She becomes obsessed with Rachel, Dom's first wife who he refuses to talk about.  I'm pretty sure I would have enjoyed this book more if I read it in a week's time.  Give this one 100 pages for the story to develop.  The pace picks up and you will enjoy the descriptiveness of France, the house and Eve's emotions. 

Rating: 3/5 stars
Source: Review Copy (NetGalley)