The Lake of Lost Girls: A Novel
A 2024 November LibraryReads Pick
Told in alternating timelines, The Lake of Lost Girls is a haunting novel that will thrill fans of All Good People Here and We Are All the Same in the Dark.
Using suspenseful podcast clips to weave a twisty tale of a missing student and her sister who is desperate for answers, The Lake of Lost Girls is perfect for fans of I Have Some Questions for You.
It’s 1998, and female students are going missing at Southern State University in North Carolina, but freshman Jessica Fadley, once a bright and responsible student, is going through her own struggles. Just as her life seems to be careening dangerously out of control, she suddenly disappears.
Twenty-four years later, Jessica’s sister Lindsey is desperately searching for answers and uses the momentum of a new chart-topping true crime podcast that focuses on cold cases to guide her own investigation. Soon, interest reaches fever pitch when the bodies of the long-missing women begin turning up at a local lake, which leads Lindsey down a disturbing road of discovery.
In the present, one sister searches to untangle a complicated web of lies.
In the past, the other descends ever deeper into a darkness that will lead to her ultimate fate.
This propulsive and chilling suspense is a sharp examination of sisterhood and the culture of true crime.
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Community Reviews
This rating hovers between 'just okay,' and 'unenjoyable' for me. Honestly, I was disappointed with how many things this book has in common with Listen for the Lie. And that ending? It kinda made no sense at all. This author did a good job with red herrings, but the actual reveal was totally out of left field.
This was a great whodunnit thriller, with lots of different elements we gather information from. Podcasts, social media posts and police transcripts and a handful of POV’s, and some are completely unreliable.
Four girls went missing from Southern State University in the late 1990's. There never seemed to be much of an investigation at the time. But a new podcast and the discovery of a body brings the Police back in to solve the mystery. When finding the remains in Doll's Eye Lake, the people of Mt. Randall, North Carolina speculate that they are the remains of Jess Fadley, who vanished twenty-four years ago. Lindsey's sister Jessica is one of the missing girls and we follow her quest, along with Journalist Ryan Mackay to discover the truth. Now more bodies start to surface in the lake.
This one was a slow burn for me in the beginning of the book, but by the middle of it…hang on tight. When the plot thickens, the author creates such an atmospheric blanket that engulfs you, you feel like you are in the book with these characters. The twists that we take, and the unknown perpetrator is not revealed until the last few pages, and it was well worth the wait.
I would recommend this one to all thriller readers who love multimedia and unreliable POV’s and characters. For me this was a solid 4 star read.
I had the honor of reading this ARC thanks to Netgalley, the author, Katherine Greene and the publisher Crooked Lane Books.
Four girls went missing from Southern State University in the late 1990's. There never seemed to be much of an investigation at the time. But a new podcast and the discovery of a body brings the Police back in to solve the mystery. When finding the remains in Doll's Eye Lake, the people of Mt. Randall, North Carolina speculate that they are the remains of Jess Fadley, who vanished twenty-four years ago. Lindsey's sister Jessica is one of the missing girls and we follow her quest, along with Journalist Ryan Mackay to discover the truth. Now more bodies start to surface in the lake.
This one was a slow burn for me in the beginning of the book, but by the middle of it…hang on tight. When the plot thickens, the author creates such an atmospheric blanket that engulfs you, you feel like you are in the book with these characters. The twists that we take, and the unknown perpetrator is not revealed until the last few pages, and it was well worth the wait.
I would recommend this one to all thriller readers who love multimedia and unreliable POV’s and characters. For me this was a solid 4 star read.
I had the honor of reading this ARC thanks to Netgalley, the author, Katherine Greene and the publisher Crooked Lane Books.
Missing girls, a true crime podcast, and a sister determined to uncover the truth? I was hooked from the start.
The Lake of Lost Girls follows two sisters…Jessica, a college freshman who disappears in 1998, and Lindsey, who’s still searching for answers decades later. The story alternates between past and present, with podcast clips and media snippets that bring the investigation to life in such a realistic way.
I loved how the dual timelines slowly revealed bits and pieces of the mystery, keeping me guessing until the very end. Even though I figured out the twist, the author had me second and third guessing myself the whole way through.
If you love dark mysteries, podcast-style storytelling, and sister-centered suspense, this one’s definitely worth picking up.