The Secrets of the Lake is another fantastic novel from Liz Trenow. Molly’s brother Jimmy went missing when he was 10 and after bones are discovered at the bottom of a lake they used to boat on, she hopes to find out what happened to him now she is in her 80’s. The story moves back to Mollys childhood in the small village of Wormley and we discover the events leading up to Jimmy’s disappearance.
This book is a delight to rad and kept my interest throughout. The plot is well thought out and full of twists.

Thank you for the chance to read this book

I usually really enjoy Liz Trenows books but this one really failed to grip me and hence its taken me a long time to battle through - I gave up several times.

Sadly this book wasnt for me

I really intriguing historical novel. I found myself completely hooked from the first page until the last and didn’t want to put it down

I found this book a little bit slow and the characters hard to like. However, I really enjoyed the concept of the dual narrative and also the issue of how we judge those around us who are different from the norm. The setting was well described - it was just the action and the characters who I couldn't quite bring myself to care enough about!

I would be interested in reading another book by this author to see if it is her style or just this particular scenario that didn't pique my interest as much.

I always enjoy split timeline stories and this was a pleasant read.

Molly and Jimmy are devastated after the loss of their mother and life becomes more challenging when they have to leave the familiarity of London to a small village after their father gets a new parish to provide spiritual council to. As the new vicar gets caught up in small town life and the dominant characters who live there the children have to adapt and forge new friendships.

Jimmy, who has Down’s syndrome, is trusting and loving but those in the village aren’t used to his ways and it is not until he meets Eli, an old man living in the woods that he finds a kind hearted kindred spirit.

Molly has a sense of duty to her family but is also looking for love. When fear and scandal over missing church funds hit, the hunt is on to see who is behind it. With her father wracked with worry and drinking a little more than a vicar should and Molly distracted by the potential for live, Jimmy wanders off into the night and never comes home.

Now living in a Nursing home, Molly learns of bones found in a pond near their old village home, will the missing Jimmy finally be found?

Unusual family drama with a collection of interesting characters. What happened to Jimmy that night long ago.? A good read.

The Secrets Of The Lake is an atmospheric, absorbing dual timeline read from one of my favourite authors.

As always I felt completely drawn into the story and into Molly’s life. The author’s brilliant descriptions helped put me into the story and into the sleepy village that Molly’s family go to life in. I felt I could envision the beautiful countryside and the lake so well that I could almost feel the cold water myself. The village is definitely an interesting place which seems an idyllic place to live but which quickly becomes apparent has some sinister undercurrents in it. I really enjoyed learning more about the village and getting to know the eclectic mix of villagers that live there.

Molly was a fantastic main character who I quickly grew to like and felt a great deal of sympathy with. My favourite character had to be Jimmy who was easy to fall in love with and through him it was interesting to see the attitudes of the time towards people with learning disabilities. My heart hurt to read about how awful people were towards him and how much Molly had to protect him.

Overall I thought this was a well written story that just flowed beautifully. The story is interspersed with bits of a children’s book that Molly had written for Jimmy about some of the local folklore that surrounds the village. This helped add a different quality to the book that was almost magical and made the book a fantastic read. I will be definitely be recommending this book to all fans of dual timeline historical fiction or just anyone looking for a brilliant read.

Huge thanks to Anne Cater for inviting me onto the blog tour and to Pan Macmillan for my copy of this book.

Liz Trenow’s new novel, The Secrets of the Lake, opens in the spring of 2019 where we meet Molly Goddard. She is old now and living in an assisted living complex but the events of summer 1950 still haunt her. They are difficult to let go and put to bed and who could blame her given the tragic and unknown circumstances. For during that long, hot, endless summer an incident occurred that changed her life. On the night of a terrible storm which had been brewing for days, her beloved brother Johnny disappeared never to be seen or heard from again. The specific details regarding this disappearance have never become crystal clear and even though many years have passed the guilt still eats away at Molly. Could she have done more to prevent the incident? Why does she feel so guilty? How could she have let her beloved brother down who needed her so much, in such a disastrous impactful way? But now new evidence has come to light. Bones have been found in the depths of what was once a lake but has now been cleared for new pipes to be laid by a water company. Could these remains be those of Jimmy having laid there for so many years?

Molly has tried to supress the memories she has of that summer but at times they threaten to overwhelm her. For it was not just Jimmy’s disappearance that meant life changed. It also set her father John, who was a vicar, on a path of self-destruction, the seeds of which had already been sewn thanks to various events in the village connected to his church. My initial impressions were that Molly actually did know what had happened to Jimmy and that she was hiding a major secret. She couldn’t even tell her daughter Bella what had led up to that night. Maybe I was being far too hasty in my judgements given it was only the beginning of the book but the way it was written gave off that impression. I could have been wide off the mark but this only made me even more keen to read on, I was eager to read after the first intriguing chapter to find out was I right?

The story is interspersed with chapters from Molly’s book, The Ugly Dragon. She had later gone on to become a successful children’s novelist but said story had never been published. Instead it had been begun over that fateful summer specifically written for Jimmy. I loved how The Ugly Dragon tied in so beautifully with the overall themes explored in the book and also connected so effortlessly to the stained glass window in the church. It could have been just too mythical, fanciful and over the top but instead it was interwoven into the plot to perfection and added an extra welcome layer to the story. I felt the chapters from Molly’s story offered a sense of lightness when things in her real life got too much and there were lessons to be learned from the dragon’s tale that could be applied in her life and those of the residents of Wormley.

Part Two sees the reader taken back to December 1950, where Molly then aged 14 and her brother and father are newly arrived to the village of Wormley. They are only getting used to life without their mother and John is finding life challenging. Settling into a new parish takes time and his nerves are not the best having suffered working as an army chaplain during WW2. I felt although Molly was so young she, perhaps unbeknownst to herself, took on the role of matriarch of the family. She was constantly on alert, always looking out for both her father and brother. She thought too much of what other grown ups thought of her when she should be living and enjoying her own childhood.

There is nothing specifically mentioned until much later in the book but you get the sense that Jimmy needs to be looked out and cared for. That he views the world differently to others and takes things at face value rather than being able to interpret things in a more meaningful and comprehensive way. Anything that is said he takes it as being literal. Molly is his protector but really should she have been expected to take on that role despite the sibling love she has for him? The love Molly has for Jimmy shines through but as summer approaches a love/infatuation of her own takes over and you sense that at times she tries to break away from the pressures, responsibilities and burdens that she has taken on. Someone that young shouldn’t have to live like this and you wonder did she take on these challenges unnecessarily? Should she just be free to explore this new and interesting friendship that she has found instead of endlessly worrying about her father, his state of mind and the lurking secrets and apprehension that surrounds his new job?

The author does a wonderful job of setting the scene and introducing a whole range of characters. There is Kit, the son of the Waddington’s who live at Wormley Hall. Kit becomes the apple of Molly’s eye and she can never understand why he blows so hot and cold. He intrigues and unsettles her with his arrogance but yet at times he can be sensitive and funny. There are periods of absence when he is way at school and when he returns it is like everything is wonderful but still she can’t fully reach him. His signals are misleading and for a young girl in the first flushes of what she perceives to be love this is confusing and hurtful. Molly can’t stop thinking about him. Everything about him is tinged with excitement and he makes her realise her own life is tame and dull. But the times spent with Kit and his friends near the lake bring fun and laughter to a life that has become increasingly fraught with tension, worry and anxiety. I thought Molly was more aware of adult issues that perhaps she should have been and I questioned whether she regretted taking on the role within her family that she had.

Eli is the gravedigger who lives in a hut in the forest. He is an unusual soul who has suffered trauma in his life, he likes to keep himself to himself and away from those that could cause unnecessary trouble or stress in his life. Molly and Jimmy strike up a friendship with him with perhaps Jimmy finding a kindred soul who really does understand him. But Henry Blackman, the church treasurer who is also a property developer, does not view Eli in the same way and in fact is a character who was very dark right from his introduction. He is an operator, secretive and insidious, and he creates such an unsettled feeling whenever he appears or is mentioned in the book. There are many twists and turns that occur that maybe the reader does not actually see as such as you read through the middle section of the book. But the feeling of apprehension and unease increases as the chapters pass by. The use of the weather really heightens the emotions being felt by the characters as things begin to unravel. The days pass by, the heat intensifies and the outside world becomes stifling and challenging. There is a sense of desperation surrounding Molly as she knows she has taken on an adult role and is trying to fight a cause best left to the adults. Although given her nature she can’t stand by and watch injustice being served on many levels.

Liz Trenow has written a story that draws you in right from the beginning. It’s packed full of mystery and explores a childhood that had the potential to be idyllic but things went out of her control and fell apart despite her efforts to rectify things if at all possible. The last few chapters were tantalising as the truth edges ever closer. There was a sense of ambiguity which could have left readers with so many questions but I think overall the ending was well done. The Secrets of the Lake is well worth a read and I would love if the author continued to write stories of this nature with a good solid storyline, interesting characters and a mystery at its centre.

Thanks to NetGalley for a preview of this book in return for a honest review

Yet again Liz Trenow weaves a intriguing story with wonderful characters you can visualise in your minds eye.

After the war and the untimely death of their mother, Molly and her young brother Jimmy who has learning disabilities move with their father a Vicar to a village on the Essex /Suffolk border called Wormley. A fascinating local legend of a dragon in the local lake takes an interesting part of their first summer in the countryside. Molly and Jimmy make friends with an elderly gentleman Eli who lives in an old shepherds hut in the woods of the church.

Lots of twists and turns in the lives of the locals, Molly's father is suspected of syphoning off church funds, and at the same time young Jimmy goes missing.

The book is about their childhood and memories of Molly as she is in her twilight years.

After the Second World War, Molly moves to the countryside with her younger brother and her father, who has a new job a the village vicar. Struggling to settle in, she makes friends with Kit who lives in the big hall and Eli, a recluse, living in a shepherd’s hut in the woodland. Not long after her arrival, her father is accused of stealing from the church funds by the treasurer, who is feared by many of the villagers.

The book begins in the present day with the police having discovered human bones in the lake. From the beginning we are aware that Jimmy disappeared, was never found and is now suspected to have drowned. Throughout the whole book I was just waiting to hear about his disappearance. There were several false alarms of course, when he just wandered off on his own, but this expectation meant that when he finally did disappear it didn’t have the impact it should have done. The story was ok but it didn’t grip me.

I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is a lovely multilayered novel which has secrets, mysteries a legend about a dragon and so much more.
Molly and her determination to be a journalist was nice to read about but it was heartbreaking to read of her care for her downs syndrome brother, the fact she's lost her mum and her father is struggling. When the brother goes missing, the mystery at the central of the novel begins.

Years later and now Molly is an adult, She writes children's books but she is still haunted by the disappearance of her brother. Then a discovery is made...

I really liked the atmosphere and setting of this novel as it depicts life in an English village. Not just that, it was a village with a mystery and legend about a dragon. Woven cleverly into the story, it really gave the novel an unexpected edge.

This story cleverly flits from the present day England to 1940's France.
A grandmother's will leaves two sisters confused. Morane needs answers and it's through her quest that we discover the early life of her grandmother and her immediate family in both Paris and Brittany.
A clever piece of writing that had me hooked from the start.

Wow, what a wonderful evocative read, The story starts in 2019 when Molly dreams of her little brother who was so special in so many ways. He loved anyone who showed him the slightest kindness but his life was beset with problems and he needed care and support in everyday life. When Molly awakens from her dream she is brought back to the reality that her brother went missing so many years ago when they were children and that the police are coming to talk to her and to ask her to remember those awful events. The majority of the book is set around her childhood and her time in a small parish where her father was the local vicar. Some of it is idilic and some not so. The book is well written and the characters are brought to life with the descriptions of their day to day lives. I loved it

Molly and her brother Jimmy are uprooted from the only life they know in London shortly after the Second World War.
Their mother has died and their Vicar father has been posted as Vicar of a small parish in a village near Colchester. Leaving all her friends and having to take care of 10 year old Jimmy is hard for 15 year old Molly. But they slowly make friends and Molly feels the first stirrings of love when she meets Kit. But Kit has a secret. Then Jimmy disappears and her father is accused of stealing church funds. Years later bones are found that could be Jimmy’s, will she finally find out what happened.
#NetGalley #TheSecretsOfTheLake #LizTrenow

loved The Secrets of the Lake! Liz Trenow’s writing pulled me in from the first page to the last. This atmospheric book is, on the surface, gently beguiling and evocative, but beneath float sinister undertones. Jimmy was a delight and my sympathies were with Molly from the beginning. The fusion of local legend into the plot, and the story Molly wrote for Jimmy were both clever and charming. I loved it, right up to the poignant end.

Widower Reverend John Goddard accepts a job at the Wormley parish in Colchester, it's a change of scene for his teenage daughter Molly and a ten year son Jimmy. Molly’s very unhappy, she lost her mother Sarah a year ago, her father is struggling from the loss of his wife and his experiences during WW II.

Molly dreams of being a journalist, she spends a lot of time minding her brother Jimmy and he has downs syndrome. Jimmy's a sweet boy, he loves the country and he has a tendency to wander off. Christopher Waddington attends school in London, he returns home to the manor during school holidays and in the summer. Kit’s clever, funny and very kind to Jimmy. Kit takes them both out in his new row boat the Robin on the lake and Jimmy loves it.

Money has gone missing from one of the church accounts, being new Reverend Goddard is the main suspect and for his family everything starts to spiral out of control. One stormy night Molly decides to visit Kit late, her father and brother are asleep. The next morning Jimmy doesn’t come down for breakfast, he’s not in his bed and has he wandered off? The Police are called in, they search the area, they find no sign of Jimmy and of course they question Molly and Kit.

Years later Molly is an old lady, a successful children’s writer and still haunted by her little brother’s disappearance. Two police officers arrive to tell her they have found some bones in the bottom of the lake in Wormley, they request a DNA sample and Molly's sure they have finally found her little brother?

The story looks back at life in the village all those years ago, the legend of the medieval dragon, how fascinated Jimmy was by the ancient mystical tale and the events leading up to him going missing. The village had some interesting characters, dynamics and secrets, I really liked Eli Chadwick the local gravedigger and he was lovely man.
I received a copy of The Secrets Of The Lake from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review and four stars from me.