Book Review: Daughters of the Lake by Wendy Webb

C | Has a book disappointed you because it just had so much potential but never fully reached it?

That’s how I feel about Daughters of the Lake by Wendy Webb. It is a gothic, historical fiction, mystery novel that is blended in with a very typical ghost story. It tells the tale of Kate and the woman whose body she discovered. It jumps between POVs, with Kate dreaming of the past and uncovering the secrets and events that lead to the woman’s death.

The concept was pretty cool. But execution wise? It was weak and didn’t have enough substance. A huge part of the issue lies in the pacing and the fact that we were told more than we were shown. There was also the fact that the dead woman whose story is the driving force in this novel had the personality of a rock while she was alive.

Title: Daughters of the Lake

Author: Wendy Webb

Publisher: Lake Union Publishing

Publication Date: November 1st 2018

Synopsis: After the end of her marriage, Kate Granger has retreated to her parents’ home on Lake Superior to pull herself together—only to discover the body of a murdered woman washed into the shallows. Tucked in the folds of the woman’s curiously vintage gown is an infant, as cold and at peace as its mother. No one can identify the woman. Except for Kate. She’s seen her before. In her dreams…

One hundred years ago, a love story ended in tragedy, its mysteries left unsolved. It’s time for the lake to give up its secrets. As each mystery unravels, it pulls Kate deeper into the eddy of a haunting folktale that has been handed down in whispers over generations. Now, it’s Kate’s turn to listen.

As the drowned woman reaches out from the grave, Kate reaches back. They must come together, if only in dreams, to right the sinister wrongs of the past.

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— REVIEW:

First, let’s talk plot.

Webb took on too much and split herself and her attention between too many plot ideas. This lead to certain plot points being incredibly flimsy and quickly tossed in without regard to substance. If you erased certain plot points from the book? I wouldn’t have even noticed they were missing.

There’s a certain plot point that comes out of left field. Well, ok, not really. This book set itself to be a paranormal book from the start. However, I felt like this particular point just popped up from the ground like a daisy! Had this been introduced earlier, I think it would have solved this issue because by the time it showed up, we had so many plot points on our plate:

• This mystery of who the dead woman is and who killed her
• The dead woman’s story and why Kate is dreaming about her
  • The phenomenon of why these women are drawn to the lake
  • The love story and the events surrounding the love affair
• Time-traveling
• Characters having visions and what they could mean
• Kate’s divorce and cheating husbands in general
• Then the ghost part of things/the hauntings

See the thing is, it is 100% possible to have all of these plot points. The issue lies in the fact that interesting as everything is, there just wasn’t enough substance. On the surface, things seem to flow. Hell, despite the fact that I enjoyed this novel overall, once I started to think and got deeper into the book, I honestly went, “What?”

What played into this issue with the plot was the pacing.

The first half was really just worldbuilding/establishing the universe. Now, you guys who have read my reviews know that I love worldbuilding and have no problem when authors take the time to introduce us to the world and characters.

However, the issue lies in the fact that it took pretty much the entire first half of the book before anything really truly interesting took off. Prior to this, the only thing keeping my attention was just finding out who killed the woman and why she was in the water, perfectly preserved.

And ok, I get it. It’s important to establish who these people are, what is their deal, and all that stuff. But where was the action? Where was the doing that would move the plot along?

We’re supposed to believe that Kate becomes obsessed with this mystery. Her cousin tells her (and us) that she needs rest because it’s consuming her. But is it, really? Because it didn’t feel like it was. Sure, Kate was dreaming about the woman. Sure, she was thinking about her when she was awake. Yet, her actions didn’t really point to obsession. Even later on when she finally started doing something, I didn’t believe in the obsession. Can we even call it obsession? Was it even intended to be this case?

Couldn’t tell you.

Now, let’s talk about another issue: the dead woman.

We know how her story ends. We know where she ends up. I had a lot of ideas of why she ended up and I was not disappointed in what happened.

What disappointed me was the lack of substance we got. Once again, there’s that issue of great idea, but executed poorly. The more I read about her, the less I cared about her. Sure I wanted to know what happened, but I couldn’t care less about her story because it was entirely devoted to a man.

It just felt like she had no personality aside from waiting for this man, loving him, marrying him, and being his wife and mother to their child. Where was her personality? I get that she’s a dead woman, but jeez, what was the point of having us see her life if she was going to have the personality of a rock?

If this was going to be the case, we might as well have stuck to Kate’s POV entirely! Maybe then she would have actually been doing something early on. Articles, her family’s diaries, the occasional vision of the past, and ghosts could have filled in the rest.

But I didn’t care about how this woman was born or her childhood and how she pinned for this man who quite frankly is an a$$hole.

Do I recommend?

Eh. Sure? It’s not a bad book. It’s interesting and I enjoyed it on the surface. Maybe check it out and see if it interests you!