Stillhouse Lake by Rachel Caine: Book Review

Thriller | 34 comments

How well do you know anyone? You might meet people every day, but still, do you know the real them? Stillhouse Lake by Rachel Caine takes us for a wild ride making us question the very thing,

And it is not a surprise to know that it has been on the Amazon Top Charts for more than eight weeks now. Read on to know more about the top selling serial killer novel Stillhouse Lake by Rachel Caine right ahead.

About Stillhouse lake by Rachel Caine

Book Name: Stillhouse Lake

Series: Gwen Proctor #1

Author: Rachel Caine

Genre: Fiction – Thriller

Characters: Gwen Proctor, Melvin Royal, Lancel Graham, Sam Cade

Setting: The USA

Plot Summary of Stillhouse lake

Gina Royal is a happy stay at home mother for her kids and is happily married to Melvin. Her life falls apart when a drunk driver wrecks their garage, exposing the remains of the heinous murders her husband had committed. She is tried as an accomplice and acquitted later, while Mel is sentenced to death row.

Fearing the Internet threats and the trolls, that she dubs as Sicko Patrol, Gina renames herself Gwen Proctor, a fearless mom who will do anything to protect her teens . Gwen could have been her last identity change until the serial killing starts again just around her neighborhood. She continues to fear her husband’s threats and doesn’t know whom to trust.

What length would she go to save her kids and her own sanity? Read Stillhouse lake by Rachel Caine to find out.

Book review of Stillhouse lake

Stillhouse Lake is a fast paced thriller that is not your breezy summer read. The well placed twists would keep you hooked until the last page. The reader is as confused as Gwen about the people she could trust and things she should stay away from.

Stillhouse lake talks a lot about the dark side of the Internet. It is terrifying that all the threats and abuses she and her kids have been facing are possible in today’s world.

There are a few plot holes that I am trying hard not to nitpick, but the whole premise works only on those flimsy grounds. For instance, Gina was married for ten years and she has never been into her husband’s garage, where he hid, raped, abused, and killed several women.

Gina trusts someone who had been against her from the beginning. And this baffles me: is it even possible in this real life that there are thousands of people who want to kill a family when they were not even related to the murders, especially in this self-absorbed world where we talk about any social issue only until the next one crops up?

The creepy serial killer angle works great, but no other characters are likable. Usually I like women protagonists who are stong and fight back, but Gwen did nothing of that sort, except being so predictable and stupid.

The book ends with a cliffhanger which may or not work for you. Though much has been said about Stillhouse Lake ending with a cliffhanger in the book world, the book works well as the first installment in a series to come and as a standalone too. I didn’t mind that some questions have not been answered.

While the plot and premise are refreshingly new, the writing leaves a bad aftertaste in your mouth. If keeping the story moving was all that the author aimed at, well she succeeded. There are girls tortured and killed, kids kidnapped and one character is sent to death row and yet I am thinking about the bad writing. Yes that was the level of emotional connection I had to the characters.

The badly written monologue that repeated in every chapter annoyed me. The author commits more than once the cardinal sin of telling but not showing. She tells the reader what to see, what to feel rather than letting us learn by action or context. It irritated the crap out of me.

Bottom line

Despite all these misgivings I was not able to put Stillhouse lake by Rachel Caine down until the last page. So if you are looking a fast paced thriller like The Girl on the Train this is your poison, pick it right away.

Similar book reviews you might like

• Lies We Bury by Elle Marr
• Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
• My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
• The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides
• The Devil’s Prayer by Lucas Gracias

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Have you read Stillhouse lake by Rachel Caine yet? Do you mind reading books ending with a cliffhanger? Do you watch out for the Amazon best seller list? Let us talk.