Lost Lake: A Novel

Sarah Addison Allen fans won’t be disappointed in her latest novel, Lost Lake, a gentle fantasy of the magical and the mundane, of love and romance, and secrets and families and the sacrifices love sometimes demands we make.The story begins in the past, in Paris, in 1962. Eby Pim and her husband, George, are lingering, stretching out their vacation as long as they can, because “the longer they spent away, the longer they wanted to stay away” (12). One night they are out walking and meet a young girl, Lisette, who, to their horror, jumps into the river. They save her and she follows them, all the way back to America and eventually to Lost Lake, a magical place hidden in the Georgia countryside.Then, a gentle shift and we are in present-day Atlanta. Addison fans won’t feel dislocated; they know the connections will be made. It’s been a year since the death of Kate Pheris’s husband. Today is moving day for Kate and her daughter, a move orchestrated by her super-capable mother-in-law, Cricket, who micromanages everything. “Cricket doesn’t weather anything. She controlled storms.” She rescued Kate and Devin after her son’s death and Kate’s collapses into a dark, dark lost year of deep grief. Cricket, who is a real estate agent par excellence, doesn’t waste anything; this move is to be filmed for a commercial: “We know a thing about moving on” (22).The connection to Eby? Her sister, Quinn, was Kate’s grandmother. Kate has had no contact with her great-aunt for years, but she has never forgotten the summer when she was 12 that she spent at Lost Lake. For Eby, now 76, some of Lost Lake’s magic seems to be gone. The cabin resort has been slowly going downhill for years. It looks like she will be forced to sell. This may be the last summer for the quirky folks who have taken a cabin every year, such as Selma, who has been married seven times, and her friend, Bulahdeen, whose husband is in memory care for Alzheimer’s.Kate, with Devin, bolts from her mother-in-law’s relentless caring and self-serving control. A 15-year-old post card from Lost Lake turns up as they finish packing up their house, the memories rush back and now that Kate has awakened from her grief, she is faced with what it will mean to live completely under Cricket’s control.They run away and escape to Lost Lake. They almost can’t find it. They drive through a “kaleidoscope of landscapes … farmland, sandy pine barrens, cypress ponds … but mile after mile there was no Lost Lake” (46-47). Until a large alligator “suddenly appeared on the gritty ribbon of highway in front of them’ (47). Avoiding the alligator almost causes them to hit another car and when they catch their breath, there is no alligator, but Devin sees the road sign pointing to Lost Lake.Was the alligator there or not? Serendipity or gentle magic? Time will tell. Directly ahead for Devin and Kate is reunion with Eby, and what soon turns out to revelations of more possible magic as Kate and Devin learn when they meet Bulahdeen. She tells them that Selma has “eight charms. Eight surefire opportunities to marry the man she wants.” Seven charms have been used. But is this just Selma’s desire, her overwhelming belief in herself? And Lisette, is she just imagining that Luc’s ghost, still 16, is sitting quietly in her kitchen every morning—just as he was when she saw him last before he killed himself after she had turned him down as her lover?What will happen when a farewell party for Lost Lake is planned, a farewell before it is sold?And when the last of the players enter the stage, Wes Patterson, the childhood friend of Kate, and his unscrupulous Uncle Lazlo? The latter is a familiar evil: he wants to buy Lost Lake and develop the property. Not to mention the alligator…Things are now in motion, both in memory and in the present. Allen fans know that things will eventually turn out, more or less okay. Lovers will be reunited and wrongs addressed. There will be complications, crises, and confrontations. There will be magic—and magic will come with a price. The alligator has work to do.This time, things seem darker. Some of the prices paid to stop the bad guy, end the evil and right—at least some of them—of the wrongs—seemed, to me, to be high and they were paid at great cost and with pain. Allen’s gaze has sharpened, and her understanding of the human condition has deepened, and the novel is the richer for it.On a different note, when I read the Acknowledgments I learned that in 2011 Allen had been diagnosed with advanced-stage breast cancer. She is okay; the Acknowledgment ends with this sentence: “I just celebrated my second year in remission.” Hallelujah!Allen fans, you’ll love this one, too.

Every one of Sarah Addison Allen's books have been beautiful, and magical. But, her forced hiatus for a couple years brought a new depth and maturity to her writing. I loved Garden Spells, and enjoyed all of her other books. However, Allen's latest novel, Lost Lake, is as haunting and magical as the location of Lost Lake itself.Eby Pim was one of the few Morris women who discover true love and escape the family greed. The women wanted money, but usually married for love, and spent the rest of their years regretting the money they didn't have. Eby found a man she loved, and shared a remarkable honeymoon in Europe for four months until they were forced to return home to Atlanta when her sister was widowed. But, Eby and George refused to allow money to control their life. Instead they bought a small resort on Lost Lake, Georgia, cabins encircling the lake, and brought their love and Eby's need to fix things to the small town.Two generations later, Kate desperately needed to fix her life, but not in the way her mother-in-law expected. When her husband, Matt, died, Kate, like other Morris women, slept away a year, going through the motions. But, a year later, on the day they were to move in with Kate's mother-in-law, her eight-year-old daughter, Devin, discovered a postcard from Lost Lake, saying Kate could always come visit. Kate's impulsive decision to visit her great-aunt would send them to the resort, now a little run-down with few guests. And, Eby had finally given in to a developer, and agreed to sell.At Lost Lake, Kate and Devin both find a refuge, a place where they feel as if they belong. Devin can be an eight-year-old, with a child's understanding of magic, while Kate finds a place where she can breathe for the first time in years. Kate had once had her "last best summer" at Lost Lake, and, now her daughter can have that, too. But, knowing Eby is selling Lost Lake means other people return for their own "last best summer", a return that brings misfits and lost souls home. And, Kate, along with a few others, begins to harbor a secret dream that maybe there's a way to save memories.In summarizing Lost Lake, it's easy to get lost in the plot of a widow returning to the scene of her lost childhood. However, Sarah Addison Allen always adds so much more to her stories, a gift of her own magic that makes readers pause and ponder, and dream a little. Her characters are unusual, sometimes with gifts that aren't really magic, but gifts that have magical effects on those around them. Eby Pim wants to fix people. She takes in strays, including a lifelong friend from France. She's a woman who understands happiness, as others don't. "Wasn't happiness like electricy? Weren't we all just conduits?" "There was so much happiness in the world. It was everywhere. It was free. Eby never understood why some people, people like her family, simply refused to take it."Allen's books blend exquisite phrasing, a touch of magic, and a glimpse into souls. They are thoughtful, beautiful books that leave a reader yearning for something more. It's hard to move onto the next book after reading one of her stories.Lost Lake will mean something different to everyone who reads it. Is it a story of misfit souls who find a home, as Allen herself thinks? Is it a story of not letting go of a dream? Is it a story of finding the magic in life, whatever that magic means to you? Is it a story of determining the ending of your own story? Sarah Addison Allen offers every reader a magical gift of this book, a book that allows each reader to find their own answers and their own truth. "Putting aside her disbelief and confusion and worry for a moment - all things the adult in her felt - Kate found that the only thing left was the one true thing."

A beautiful novel by Sarah Addison Allen which is fanciful and heartwarming.After reading Waking Kate, I mediately turn to Lost Lake to see how and what would change her life. After her husband’s death, Kate experienced life in a fog. For about one year she tended to her young daughter Devin’s needs but as a somnambulist.Not wanting to stay in the home she shared with her husband, Kates controlling mother-in-law cricket, a successful real estate agent in Atlanta, sold that house, and had enrolled her granddaughter in a school near her own home. Crickets intention was that her daughter-in-law and granddaughter would reside on the third floor of her spacious home. On moving day, while going through a trunk filled with old costumes, Devon found an old postcard addressed to her mother. The postcard was from her great aunt Eby who owned vacation cottages on Lost Lake. Kate had spent a week there when she was a young girl and had fallen in love with both the lake and a young man named Wes.Hoping to spend a few days with her daughter before submitting to her mother-in-law‘s plans, Kate and Devin decide to visit great aunt Eby. They are shocked to find plans for her aunt to sell Lost Lake.Reacquainting herself with her aunt, Lake, and Wes, Kate was relaxed and saw that it was an intriguing place for her young daughter. Could she dissuade her aunt from selling, would she feel her friendship with Wes rekindle? This charming story with an abundance of eccentric characters will have you turning the pages. Five stars from me.

Lost Lake is a magical realism story; a contemporary read with a sprinkle of other worldly magic.Kate wakes twice; once to the morning sunlight and once to life, one year on from the death of her husband. Realising that she has only been surviving, she promises to do better for the sake of her daughter Devin. Together they discover a postcard sent fifteen years earlier from Kate’s great aunt Eby, from a place called Lost Lake. It reminded Kate of a summer when Kate had been just twelve; it  had been her very best trip. It’s currently the school holidays, so on a whim, Kate decides to take her daughter on a road-trip to rediscover Lost Lake.The lakeside cabins are old and falling into disrepair; the holidaymakers are fewer each summer. Every year a developer offers to buy the property, but landowner Eby refuses to sell. This year is different; she accepts his offer. Over the years the Lost Lake has been a place to escape for many people and not everyone is ready to let this part of their life go. Assuming that Eby will go through with the sale, the town and the occupants of the lake cabins come together for one last party; will it be the end, or can they rewrite the finale?Using a small group of characters, the author made them all feel like they were my friends and acquaintances. Each had a connection to the Lost Lake; a reason to be there and a need to stay. I particularly liked Billy, the alligator, he was special in a magical way. The connection he had with Kate’s daughter Devin, was lovely. The lake was a place where, over the years, oddball characters could feel at peace. It felt real enough for me to want to go there myself to find my own touch of magic.

The premise of this book was so promising but very sadly it just didn't live up to expectations for me. I felt that the story finished before it started and that the promise of magic, hinted at in the beginning could and perhaps should have been developed far more. Maybe I have just missed the point in that I was expecting something similar in content to Practical Magic - a cross between that and Chocolat perhaps - but it meandered into a fairly predictable love story. Even the talking alligator was a bit of a let down.I don't particularly mean for this to be a negative review as I did quite enjoy the story, even if it didn't turn out to be what I thought. It was just a little bit of a letdown.

I’ve loved every book that Sarah Addison Allen has written; they are stories that I can read time and time again. I found myself willing the book not to end because I didn’t want to leave the beautiful world with a hint of magic and wonderfully varied cast of characters that Sarah has created.The novel starts in Paris in the 1960’s with a dramatic suicide attempt that lays the foundations for an unusual and life-long friendship between Eby and the mysterious Lisette. The story then moves to modern day Atlanta where Kate is coming to terms with the death of her husband. Lost Lake is very much a story about new beginnings, recovery, second chances and has the wonderful sense of home that I love in all of Sarah’s books.Written with her trademark warmth and insight, Sarah Addison Allen makes the everyday seem magical and gets to the core of her characters’ thoughts and feelings. Kate and her daughter Devin are both lovely characters and I enjoyed the extra sense of magic that Sarah showed in this book by examining how amazing the world is from a child’s viewpoint. But my favourite character was Eby, who is the owner of Lost Lake and really the linchpin to the whole story.As Eby prepares to sell Lost Lake, a number of events or coincidences conspire to bring the people that the resort matters most to together for one final time. There’s femme fatale, Selma for whom love is literally a matter of charm; shy and sweet Jack who is harbouring a secret love and another of my favourite characters in the book Bulahdeen whose take on books and stories is beautiful.Sarah's love of stories and books really comes through in Lost Lake. The philosophy that a book’s ending can change after you’ve read it really caught my imagination and made me think and I loved the message that Sarah gives in this book about moving forward and hope.With plenty of Southern charm, mystery, romance and even a clever crocodile Lost Lake felt to me like a grown up fairytale – a book that is good for the soul.

This is the first book that I have read by this author and it will probably be the last. Although her story telling is quite good it was definitely an odd book. I found the obscure names very off putting and because I had not heard of most of them I found it difficult to work out who was who and even what gender people were. Do people really call their daughters 'Devin'? The description of Lost Lake itself made it seem dank, dark and depressing and I'm amazed that it had ever been a holiday destination but this may be because I am British and the whole landscape seemed alien. Neither do I really rate having an alligator as an interesting character. Cats and dogs - yes, horses- maybe - amphibians - definitely not. I didn't mind the semi mystical elements but the ending was quite predictable.

This is a gorgeous feel-good book, uplifting but not at all saccharine. Interesting characters, interesting situations, plenty of atmosphere, and all with a slight twist of the unexpected. I've never been to the southern states of the USA, but this left me wanting to visit. This book engaged me from the first page and left me, more than once, with a (happy) lump in my throat. Sarah Addison Allen really is a terrific writer.