Lakesedge by Lyndall Clipstone
I would like to thank Titan for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review
Publisher – Titan
Published – Out Now
Price – £8.99 paperback £5.89 Kindle eBook
There are monsters in the world.
Violeta Graceling has spent her life in an isolated cottage, trying to protect herself and her beloved younger brother Arien from their adoptive mother’s twisted cruelty. A cruelty driven by the mysterious shadows that unwillingly spill from Arien’s hands, spelling dark magic and an even darker underworld.
To escape means taking a position at the haunted estate of Rowan Sylvanan—the so-called “Monster of Lakesedge”—who comes seeking Arien's dark magic. The monster who, it is whispered, stalks the halls of his manor and the shores of the blackened, cursed lake.
Yet as Violeta investigates Lakesedge's tragic history, she discovers that its prickly, standoffish lord is far from a monster, but an orphaned boy not much older than she is. As their friendship blossoms, Violeta learns the tragic truth of Rowan’s curse and his fateful bargain with the Lord Under. To save Lakesedge, she must make a bargain of her own with the fiendish being who rules over the world Below.
There are of course always going to be books with similar plots; characters or settings – the fun for me as a reviewer is a bit like a band playing covers of old songs its what you bring to the party. A twist here, some added complications there and of course the writing can make the most familiar story seem different. That for me is always what I am looking for some surprises and some skill. Sadly as I was reading Lakesedge by Lyndall Clipstone my main reaction was one of disappointment.
Violeta and her younger brother Arien are oprhaned and now staying with an increasingly cruel and violent stepmother. Arien has powers of some kind of dark magic which in this part of the world are viewed as ill omens. Arien attracts the attention of the new Lord of Lakesedge Rowan a young man with a reputation as a monster for being involved with the death of the rest of his family which he admits. Violetta though as she stays with Rowan and his trusted servants finds there is more to this broody stranger than meets the eye. He’s warmer than the villages think and also trying to deal with a dark force known as the Corruption and behind it all the Lord Under the dark power that rules the Underworld and is keen to make bargains. One of which Violetta thinks she may know more about than she realised.
I didn’t mind that within a few chapters I could see that Rowan would not turn out to be the monster that he was initially told to us he would be, nor that Violetta herself has hidden latent powers that may be important to the plot nor the fairly standard relationships that build between the two; but the entire execution of the story was poor. Clipstone had adopted a rattling pace but at no time are we actually exploring the characters or world in any detail. Instead, we get some very predictable and mechanical set-pieces; and the story was unsurprising. It is rare I read something and can’t click with it at all, but the personalities of the group are wafer thin and this meant very hard to be engaged with the book. The story really needed some time to breathe and allow is to get to know this world which does have a creative idea underneath it all. I am also a tad frustrated that a book labelled as gothic actually just has a character who wears black, and the story constantly mentions darkness and shadows. A gothic tale should really be full of atmosphere, but this story has no sense of place that is memorable.
This is a soulless read I unfortunately cannot recommend to you, and I don’t think I will be tempted into ever finding what happened next. A huge disappointment.
