Hello world!
Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start writing!
PRODUCT
Stillhouse Lake
Sale!
Product Description:
Price:
Original price was: $4.99.$2.49Current price is: $2.49.
Detailed description:
An Amazon Charts and USA Today bestseller.
Gina Royal is the definition of average—a shy Midwestern housewife with a happy marriage and two adorable children. But when a car accident reveals her husband’s secret life as a serial killer, she must remake herself as Gwen Proctor—the ultimate warrior mom.
With her ex now in prison, Gwen has finally found refuge in a new home on remote Stillhouse Lake. Though still the target of stalkers and Internet trolls who think she had something to do with her husband’s crimes, Gwen dares to think her kids can finally grow up in peace.
But just when she’s starting to feel at ease in her new identity, a body turns up in the lake—and threatening letters start arriving from an all-too-familiar address. Gwen Proctor must keep friends close and enemies at bay to avoid being exposed—or watch her kids fall victim to a killer who takes pleasure in tormenting her. One thing is certain: she’s learned how to fight evil. And she’ll never stop.
Read more
Product group:
Categories: Women Writers
Product name:
Stillhouse Lake
Price:
Original price was: $4.99.$2.49Current price is: $2.49.
Tez –
I’m going to start it with a comparison. So for those who have seen the t.v. show Dexter… to me, this felt like I was reading Rita’s P.O.V if she’d have survived the Trinity killer. (He told her as she lay dying in a bathtub of her own blood & water, what Dexter had gotten up to and the monster Dexter was/is.)
Stillhouse Lake:
Gina Royal aka Gwen… Imagine being so blind, naive and manipulated you never knew your husband was torturing and killing people in the garage built onto the side of your house after slitting their vocal cords. Imagine having two beautiful children you have to protect and uproot constantly due to threats. Imagine moving to a lakeside house, and for the first time start to feel safe, only for the past and present to collide. That is Stillhouse Lake.
It is a gritty, edgy, dark and dangerous thriller with a twist of romance.
When we meet Gwen she is haunted by her past and tries to leave her old life as Gina Royal behind her. She is haunted by the fact she never knew what her husband/Mel was – believing due to a breakdown in the marriage – that when he went into the garage to work that he needed space from her and the kids. When she found out the horrifying truth, she lived with the guilt of not knowing, and that maybe if she did know she could’ve saved lives. Many lives.
Mel is now on Deathrow and revels in delight of the murders in committed. He feels no guilt or remorse. Just anger that Gina aka Gwen sold him out and took his kids away from him and went into hiding. Or so Gwen thought. (Mel to some degrees reminds me of Hannibal Lector. Though he didn’t eat his victims, he took pleasure in carving them up until he killed them.)
Living with paranoia, living in hope that no one recognises her, Gwen with her two children Lanny and Connor, move to a rural lake town where everyone knows everyone thinking they’d be safe… (I love but hate them type of places. SO MANY NOSEY PEOPLE.) Gwen with the help of a “friend” finds a place on the lake and buys it at a discounted price – due to the fact it was trashed and vandalised so needed a lot of work doing to it.
Over the years, Gwen has learnt how to protect herself. How to live and protect her children by following a set of rules.
Don’t stay in one place for too long.
Change phones.
Don’t make friends.
Keep away from family.
Don’t create internet trails. (Social media.)
DON’T TRUST ANYBODY.
Slowly, she realises she has to. That her children need to come first and have some normalcy as they are struggling to survive on the rules she has set to keep them protected. It’s almost suffocating them.
As they slowly integrate into society, life seems to be okay for a moment. Lanny, her eldest daughter grasps at the chance for freedom, Connor, Gwen’s youngest, is more precautious.
As they settle into a routine, Gwen still has things she needs to do and check to make sure they are safe. But it’s not for the faint hearted. People want her and her children dead, believing she committed the crimes along with her now ex-husband and got off on a technicality and that’s when the first body appears in the lake behind her house. Thinking it is a coincidence, she writes it off. Until the police come knocking and see her as a suspect.
When her next door neighbour Sam Cade starts helping out/fixing the house up, Gwen and Sam slowly bond. Bring on the romance. And for the first time since Mel, she has trusted a man.
When body number two shows up, she now knows something terrible is coming her way as it seems there is a copycat killer out there.. And now, the police have her marked as suspect number 1 believing she is taking off where Mel couldn’t finish, and she can’t escape with the kids. But the question on her lips: Since she didn’t do it, WHO DID?
It reminds me Cluedo at one point. Because everyone could be suspect. Especially when her past comes out to haunt her and the children which makes life more than difficult, as they didn’t fully understand until she had to explain it to her eldest, the depravity and sadistic things their father had done nor the threat he still posed to them!
The conclusion of this book… I didn’t want to put it down. It’s brilliant. I can’t wait for the second book as it is going to be even better.
Note to people who have read the comments mentioning she is too paranoid: She is very paranoid. Over protective/OTT. But she is looking at some pretty nasty/grave/hateful stuff whilst checking to see what threats are out there and if anyone has found out where she has moved too. When things start to truly speed up, it’s at the midway point through the book. And the end chapters… I devoured them and was left wanting more.
Sheri Conley –
This book was extremely intense! It kept me on the edge of my seat the entire time! Once I started it was extremely difficult to out down!
Highly recommended!!!
M.P –
En algunas partes la historia puede llegar a ser predecible, pero sigue siendo emocionante, impactante. Una vez empiezas a leer el libro, no puedes parar.
Carole Wooten –
This was so good! This is only the second book by Rachel Caine that I have read so while I had heard it was good, I didn’t really know what to expect. This book ended up being fantastic listen. I was hooked by the story from the very beginning. When I wasn’t listening to this book, I was thinking about it. Could this really happen? How well do we really know those people around us? My husband and I had a couple of conversations about it. In other words, this book really stayed with me throughout my day. I listened to it pretty quickly and really enjoyed the story it told.
At the beginning of the book, we meet Gina. Gina is just a mom picking up her kids on a completely normal day. The day doesn’t stay normal. When she returns home with her kids, she finds that a driver has crashed into her garage and police are all over the place. Gina doesn’t understand why she is being treated like a criminal since she is obviously the victim in this situation. Gina had no idea what kind of secrets her husband was keeping inside of that garage.
Fast forward a few years, Gina is now Gwen and her ex-husband is in jail. She is no longer the same person. She is a fighter and has learned to take care of herself and her kids. Gwen and her kids have had to move around a lot in order to stay safe and avoid being recognized. They have a little house at Stillhouse Lake and hope to stay put for at least a little while. They start making connections and things seem different here until a body is discovered in the lake.
I liked Gwen a lot. She has had to overcome a whole lot to get to the point she is at. She is smart, tough, and willing to do whatever needs to be done to keep her kids safe. She is no longer the clueless woman that was married to Melvin Royal. She no longer trusts easily and has had to learn the hard way that innocent people sometimes are blamed for things they didn’t do. I liked both of her kids as well. They have been through so much and really do seem to be good kids despite a few more normal acts of teenage rebellion.
This was quite the page turner. I was hooked by the story as soon as that car hit the Royal family’s garage. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen at Stillhouse Lake but I quickly became invested in the characters and couldn’t wait to find out. I had a hard time trusting some of the characters Gwen and her kids came in contact with even when I wanted to trust them. As the book progressed, I found that the story became even more intense.
This was my first experience with Emily Sutton-Smith as a narrator. When I first started the book, I honestly wasn’t sure what I thought of her narration but she quickly won me over. I think she did a great job of bringing this story to life. I think she did a great job of bringing Gwen to life with a wide range of emotions. She had a very nice reading voice that was easy to listen to for hours at a time.
I would highly recommend this book to thriller fans. I liked that this was a different kind of serial killer story with the focus on the murderer’s family. I plan to listen to the next book in this series very soon.
Ella –
Stillhouse Lake by Rachel Caine
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Wow! All I can say is wow! Even though I wanted to yell at Gwen (Gina) for being stupid at times, overall this story was great. It had a decent pace and moved quicker when the action got going. The story that follows Gwen, the ex-wife of a convicted serial murder, Melvin Royal. She constantly moves to keep herself and the kids safe, until one day her new home turns into a copy-cat Melvin’s playground. How will Gwen stay safe and keep her children safe, especially with the police watching her?
Overall I give this book a rating of 4.5 books out of 5.
Who’s Who: The Lovable and the Unlovable
-Gwen Proctor (Gina Royal)
-Main character.
-Mom to Lanny and Connor
-ex-wife of Melvin Royal
-dubbed “Melvin’s Little Helper”
-acquitted of presumed crimes
-crazy, mistrusting, paranoid
-Lanny
-Oldest child
-Daughter
-Wants to learn to protect self
-Connor
-Youngest child
-Son
-No friends/bullied
-Lance Graham
-Police with 2 sons (bullies to Connor)
-Javier
-Gun range owner
-Sam Cade
-ex-military
-Neighbor
-Helps rebuild home
-Prester
-Detective
-Absalom
-Creator of new ids/new places to hide
-Kezia
-Female officer
-Melvin
-Serial murderer
-Gwen’s (Gina’s) ex-husband
They Did What? (Spoilers)
Gwen is on the run from the threats, taunts, and torments on her and her childrens’ lives because of the atrocious acts committed by her ex-husband, Melvin Royal. Ever since the day his activities were found out and she was dubbed “Melvin’s Little Helper.” She had done nothing wrong, but still went through a year of trials and jail before being acquitted. Now, with the knowledge of the torment he did right on the other side of the garage door to numerous women, he is on death row, and she is on the run.
Her contact, Absalom, makes it possible for her to get new ids, new home, new backstories to start over again when things are unsafe in their current location. She ends up in Stillhouse Lake, a small community with majority of its residents being life-long and generation-long members. She goes to the gun-range to stay ready and has alarms constantly engaged at home. Through it all, her paranoia forces her to do what she deems as the Sicko Patrol every morning to see if there are any new serious threats out there. When she begins to feel uncomfortable in her new home, she starts looking for a way out and realizes there is van for sale. Upon reaching out and going to see the van, she realizes it is the property of Javier, the gun range owner. She buys it from him, but when something happens and she has to get home, she leaves the van with him and takes her jeep back to trade later to finish the deal.
Connor is constantly bullied by the police officer’s children and when he is brought home one day by the neighbor, Sam Cade, Gwen finds someone who wants to help her fix up the place. Gwen realizes this means staying more permanently. A body is discovered and Gwen realizes she needs to take her kids and run, but when she reaches out to Javier to finish the trade, she is instead surprised by him and a detective at the door learning that he is a reserve police officer. Gwen is then taken down for questioning for hours, until even though she knows nothing and has done nothing, they can’t keep her any longer no matter how much they want to blame her for the copy-cat Melvin Royal crime. Gwen begins to get comfortable around Sam and her kids do to, helping him fix up the house and learning along the way. Gwen decides she needs to go visit Melvin, for the first time. When she sees him, she realizes the beating she had ordered via Absalom went through, but Melvin is still Melvin, cold-hearted, and threatening, even behind the glass. She returns home shaken, but feels firmer in her decision. She reveals her true identity to Sam and he disappears on her.
The next morning, another body is found. This time she is taken down again, but while there she sees Sam being led through in handcuffs as well. Both are cleared, and both are sent home. She grabs her kids from the breakroom, where they were taken, and upon returning home, sees the red painted messages across her home. Melvin calls Gwen at home on her burner phone and it shakes her to the core, because now all the threats are directed towards her and the kids. She gets Kezia to watch her kids under the guard of the alarm, and goes down to the gun range to let off some steam and stress. She returns home only to be stopped by Sam Cade and the two reconcile, only in time for Gwen to save him from getting his skull blown to smithereens.
When she returns home, the children are missing and there is blood everywhere. A new nightmare begins. She returns to the police station, being questioned as a suspect as well as a concerned mother. When she is finally released, she wants to join the search, but no one will take her until Lance offers to take her out there. She accepts and the two start driving out in the torrential rain. She begins to feel uneasy with his actions and Sam texts asking where she is, as he is at the station. She realizes that Lance is lying and that Lance is responsible, she tries to text Sam to tell him, but can’t as Lance takes her phone and smashes it. She flees out of the car after injuring him and tries to run in the wooded area during the rain. She ends up overpowering him, using Melvin’s knowledge of stalking his prey and using that to her advantage, but not without some severe injuries to herself. She finds the hiding place of her children and is finally safely reunited with them, only to be told of news of an outbreak at Melvin’s prison and Melvin’s escape.
They Said What?
This is not a book for teens. It is okay for young adults, but I would still be careful there. Definitely a college-aged book because of some themes and things discussed. This book is graphic in detailing some of the threats that Gwen gets and discusses what Melvin did to his victims. It has graphic imagery in those aspects. There is violence in here with guns, battery, as well as grotesque imagery involving children.
Extra! Extra!
Just a heads up- this book is definitely a thriller and has some focus on the battered woman (physically, mentally, emotionally). It also shows Gwen’s need of survival while on the run.
Writer’s Heads Up!
This book does a great job of showing how to build suspense, how to build suspicion in even the most likely characters, and is a great example of a thriller.
Last Call
Overall this book is a fantastic read. The sequel comes out in December! I have already pre-ordered mine!
Amazon Customer –
This is a wonderful suspense murder novel. It had me on my toes trying to skip pages ahead and I absolutely loooved it!
I am so excited to read the [hopefully] next books because I defiantly need to know hat happens next!
Graphic, vulnerable, intense
Jerina J –
I simply loved this racy thriller from Rachel Caine. I had picked up the second book of the Stillhouse Lake series because of a good deal on Kindle and then bought the first book on Amazon based on user rating. I am not at all disappointed with my purchase.
This is a gripping thriller and is a definite page turner. I couldn’t wait to know what happens to Gina Royal and her children. Gina Royal doesn’t realize that she is married to a serial killer (imagine that!) until one day her perfectly ordinary life gets turned upside down. Now she is trying to save her children from the acid trolling on the internet and vigilantes who think she got away easily instead of being put in jail just like her husband. I don’t want to give away much about the story for fear of spoilers but this book has a lot of good moments, has suspense and revenge and has a lot of action. Mercifully there is not much gruesome detailing as befits a serial killer’s story (which this is not), but there is enough detailing to give a chilling picture of how lives can be altered by other people’s actions/scorn.