Described in the blurb as a thriller, this novel is in truth a complicated revenge story in which a traumatized, manipulated girl creates an entirely fictitious identity for herself and her (also traumatized) sister, meticulously planning to frame a man for murder. The hand of the author as deus ex machina is a bit too obvious throughout, and there's very little feeling of true tension as to whether the wrongdoers will be caught and punished, or the innocent vindicated and helped. The characters are out of melodrama, and those whose actions and behaviors are truly odd are never viewed as such by those around them, which detracts from any sense of reality.

This is a drama mystery story told by Flo, Lily and Grace. At one point I lost the main idea and it was hard for me to follow the tale. I want to give it a try one day.
Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for this chance.

The beginning of the book is bit confusing, you are thrown into events that are already in motion and is up to you understanding who is who. The confusion, in my view, is a choice of the author: as you progress in the story, you will understand who the characters are and what is happening, that's when reading becomes a jigsaw puzzel between you and the book.

Lily and her sister Grace are charismatic characters, within the roles they play in the plot. Flo, Tom and Annie are more shallow. Among the three, Flo is the one with the biggest character development and, even so, I still wanted more about her. However, the book revolves around the two sisters and what happened at the lake ten years earlier.

The reading is very good, the writing is fluid and the main characters well worked. I couldn't decide whether I guessed the ending OR whether I was able to conclude what had happened due to the information given to me, but it was a lot of fun creating theories as I read. I think that some secondary characters could be more developed, besides that it is a solid book about trauma and its consequences in the human psyche.

Original review wrote in Portugues/Brazil, this is part of the complete review.

I absolutely loved this book! I was instantly hooked from the first page. This is a must read for anyone who loves psychotic killer stories like I do. This is one of those stories that keeps you guessing right up until the end. Everything about this book from the beautiful artwork on the cover to the insane characters is simply amazing. I can't wait to read more work by Charlie Tyler.

Honestly at first I wasn’t so sure about this one but dang I’m glad I kept on reading! I love when that happens. The characters really showed up and made the novel a great one.

This was an amazing book that I began reading thinking was about a crime and soon realized was about sisters, family, and the trauma that forms who we are and the decisions that we make. The story was truly horrifying in how a persons trauma can completely corrupt their morals and actions but also beautiful in the hope that one can find despite being exposed to so much evil. The two sisters in this story create a yin and yang of good and evil. The crime at the center of this novel is perfectly interwoven into the story of their relationship and is as gripping as their unraveling background, not always an easy feat for an author.

Beautifully developed, realistically scary, and as fast-paced as the best thrillers, I could not recommend this book enough.

Lilly has a secret. Fortunately for her sister Grace, she is mute so there isn't much worry of her spilling all the dark and treacherous things they have done since their father passed. That is, there isn't much worry until a young girl's body is found and an old, sinister family member reenters their lives. The description of this book immediately caught my attention. A dark, sinister plot line with a young innocent girl wrapped up in it sounded right up my alley. Unfortunately, it did not quite live up to expectations. This book is filled with twists and turns from beginning to end. There were things I didn't see coming all throughout. The problem is, there was too much unknown from the get-go. Two of the characters go by different names throughout the book which adds to the confusion. There are flashbacks interspersed throughout the book which illuminate much of the story, but there are so many unknown players all the way up until the end that even after finishing the book I find myself scratching my head and unsure exactly how it all played out. Moreover, I don't really love any of the characters. The main characters aren't exactly loveable people and I find myself conflicted regarding my feelings toward Lilly...sometimes I like her and other times I am ambivalent. Also, I read a fair amount of English literature and am relatively familiar with terminology that is primarily English (i.e., British). However, there was even some slang in here that I did not know and found it a bit frustrating.

Told from the perspective of three girls. Lily, Grace and Flo, this is the story of a murder.

Two sisters, a serial killer, a mute girl. This book twists and turns and ties itself in knots. It's the kind of mystery that sticks with you after you are done.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

This book was not at all what I expected, even reading the synopsis could not have prepared me for what I was about to embark upon... The opening of this book grabbed my attention from the start.

The writing is excellent, Charlie Tyler weaves this perfect web of lies and deception that have us questioning every single person and every turn of the page. I didn't know who to trust or what was going on.

Each chapter was from a different perspective and character POV, which I do feel helped to really build up the story. However, at points it did get quite confusing, and it felt as though some chapters weren't quite fitting in with the rest of the story.

At points I really struggled to connect to the characters, I felt like I couldn't form a proper opinion on them throughout the book as we just didn't have enough from them. Which was really disappointing for me as I loved the way the author wrote the book from their different perspectives.

Once everything started to unravel I was hooked. I couldn't stop reading because I needed to know how it ended. I was sucked in and when I completed the book I wanted to applaud the author for weaving such a clever web of lies!

That being said, I did feel at points like I was walking through treacle trying to read this book, some paragraphs were just way too long and I could feel myself skim reading them because they were taking too long.

On the whole, I have really mixed feelings about this book. There is no doubt that it was very cleverly written and that Charlie Tyler has a talent and I was gripped from the outset, there were just a couple of things that knocked this book down for me.

I did enjoyed it and would recommend it to anyone who was interested in this genre!

The Cry of the Lake follows the story of Lily and her best friend Flo. When a girl from their school is murdered, Flo’s father is accused of killing her. Lily is hiding a number of secrets about her past and wracked with guilt over the murder, Lily knows she has to make things right, but can she face the truth before the real killer strikes again?

The Cry of the Lake is one of those books that sucks you in from the very first page and doesn’t let you go. I started this one on a quiet Sunday morning and ended up reading it in one sitting. Dark, addictive and with a cast of really compelling characters, The Cry of the Lake is not to be missed.

The Cry of the Lake is quite a short book, but it certainly packs a punch. The story has plenty of twists and turns but the thing that really made this one for me was the fascinating characters. I really liked Lily and Flo and I found Grace to be a really interesting protagonist. and I enjoyed the alternating POVs between the different characters, it gave you the opportunity to see things from different perspectives and it definitely helped to ramp up the tension.

The Cry of the Lake is a dark and gripping psychological thriller, full of twists and turns. If you’re looking for an unputdownable thriller to read this summer, The Cry of the Lake should definitely be on your wishlist.

The Cry of the Lake tells the story of Grace and her daughter Lily, a troubled girl who is mute after experiencing some kind of trauma when she was younger. Grace’s partner Tom also has a daughter, Flo, who is close friends with Lily and the four are preparing to start a happy new life together when Grace and Tom get married. However, all plans for an idyllic family life are shattered when a schoolgirl is found dead and evidence points to Tom as the main suspect.

As the case develops it becomes clear that Grace and Lily’s history is far more disturbing than anyone knew. As Grace’s behaviour starts to become more and more erratic, Lily must make a choice – stick with her family and protect their dark secrets or help Flo to prove Tom’s innocence.

This story was told from three different viewpoints in alternating chapters which was really interesting as the story switched between past and present, building up to reveal more and more of what happened to Lily when she was younger. Based on the blurb I didn’t really know what to expect from the book but in essence it was a very dark family mystery / psychological thriller which looked at different forms of abuse and how this can completely ruin lives.

The Cry of the Lake was a really unusual story of revenge, murder and manipulation which really took me by surprise. I was really impressed by this debut novel and am looking forward to reading more from Charlie Tyler in the future.

A dark, twisted tale, brimming with suspense.

What an opening - We are thrown right into the action with a murder! Right from the first line 'Death smells like macaroons' I was hooked.

The story unfolds from three different perspectives Lily, Grace & Flo and as we learn more about these characters we learn nothing is what it seems, there are lots of deeper, darker secrets uncovered slowly as you read each chapter and I found it really difficult to put down - I had to find out exactly what was going on!

It narrowly missed out on 5⭐ because I was left a little bit frustrated by the ending.

Overall, a fabulous debut with haunting characters that will stay with you long after you have turned the last page.

A huge thanks to Anne Cater & Darkstroke Books for gifting me a copy in return for an open & honest review.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

I just finished reading The Cry of the Lake and I would rate it a 3 out of 5 stars.

The story takes us chapter by chapter in the life of Flo, Grace and Lily. Grace and Lily are not who they appear to be and it is not until the disappearance and death of a young girl in the community that people start to take notice of Grace and Lily's past life. Grace, especially, will stop at nothing to keep her secrets under lock and key, even when her fiancee, Tom, finds himself the number one suspect in the death of one of his students. It is up to Flo, the soon to be stepdaughter of Grace, to unlock the secrets Grace as buried deep down, all while fighting for her dad, Tom's, innocence.

This book was full of twists and turns, revenge and secrets. I also liked the varying perspectives as each chapter was detailed from the eyes of a different character, leading up to major reveal. At times, I didn't want to stop reading as I wanted to figure out who murdered the young girl and if they would be caught as well as what secrets Grace and Lily were hiding. The ending was a nice wrap up, with a bonus twist, however, there was some things to dislike about this book as well.

I felt in the beginning we are abruplty introduced to Lily and Grace without any explanation as to who they really are and how everyone is connected. As the chapters unfold, we start to see the connections, but starting it off with very little background, made it very difficult to follow and I almost put the book down. The characters and their personas were well developed, however, there seemed to be a lot of emphasis on Grace's persona to the point where it felt extremely redundant and had me wishing we could just get on with it. The plot and subplots were interlaced well, yet, I found myself wishing that more was given from chapter to chapter rather than dragging them out. Some chapters seemed to feel repeatitve or as though they could've been left out.

That being said, I did enjoy the plot of this novel and would recommend this to someone who can be patient with the development of the characters and intrigue because the twists and turns were worth it.

The Cry of the Lake by Charlie Tyler After a confusing start, felt overwhelmed with all the characters, POVs, time periods and information. Unfortunately lost interest in the book. Perhaps readers with multitasking minds will prevail and enjoy the book.

Thank you to the publisher, author, and NetGalley for the opportunity to preview the book.

Not gonna lie, I chose this book solely for the cover alone. It’s gorgeous, but that’s where my like for this book ends.

After the first few chapters things got a little muddled for me. There’s SO much going on that you kind of lose focus on the plot, and on top of that the story switches POV between Lily, Grace, and Flo. It gets confusing keeping up with everything. It sort of corrects itself towards the end of the book, but you’re still left a little frustrated with how the book finishes.

The Cry Of The Lake by Charlie Tyler is a psychological thriller that is also Charlie's first published book. Well, I am glad that she published this one! I fell in love with the cover of this book immediately and hoped what was inside was just as good as the promise the cover held. I am so happy it really did, and more, if that is possible.
Lily is a young girl who chooses not to speak and Grace is her 'mum', none of them are who they say they are. The book opens with a murder and we clearly know who has done it, but the question is why? As the story unfolds, the treachery is unbearable as the aim is to frame an innocent man for murder. The secrets and lies that come to light are like a spiders web, all spun together and make one extremely large and creepy, horrific story.
I really loved Lily, I felt her every pain and sorrow.She is harangued by Grace at every turn and Grace is such an unlikeable woman, selfish, cold and jealous. I wanted to sweep Lily up and bring her home away from the cruelty of Grace. Even knowing Grace's dark, sad past didn't raise too much empathy within me, as I was horrified at the things she took out on Lily. That takes a cold, hard person, as you will discover when you read the book.
A fast paced story beautifully told with heartbeaking detail. A book I really devoured.
Huge thanks to Anne Cater at Random Things Tours for allowing me to be a part of this haunting novels Blog Tour today.Also Netgalley for the ebook

This just did not work for me. While I enjoy stories told from multiple viewpoints, it felt like the author was trying to cram too much into the beginning to really solidify any of the characters. I normally give myself until 25% through a book before I decide to dnf it, but I stuck it out until about the 40% mark and I still felt like the plot was muddy and I didn't feel an attachment to the characters.

Interesting premise, but would not recommend unless someone really wants to wade through the muck to potentially find the storyline the blurb promises.

I don’t quote from books, especially not from ARCs but this time I’m going to start with the very first sentence. “Death smells of macaroons.” I so very love macaroons but after reading this sentence I’m not sure I’m gonna look at macaroons the same was I used to.

The Cry of The Lake is one of the most disturbing stories I’ve read this year so far. It’s one of those books you just can’t put down because you need to know what happens next.

And the characters? So well-developed. The main characters Lily and Grace are a mysterie. You know something is very wrong with them - the first chapter sets the mood and you know immediately this book will not end well, it will end in tears and misery - and you want to find out how they ended up where they are. I did, I wanted to know. And when I finally found out there were tears. I felt sad and angry and somehow relieved.

I will be on the lookout for more Charlie Tyler books. He sure knows how to write an emotionally overwhelming story.

Thank you to NetGalley and BooksGoSocial for my copy.

Firstly I was drawn in by the beautiful cover art on this novel. The red title contrasting sharply with the shades of grey background, and a human skull eerily visible against the flock wallpaper pattern. Even the blurb is fascinating and magical, as a young girl tries to capture a mermaid in the pond at the bottom of the garden. She’s been told stories of Myrtle the mermaid with a crown of flowers singing ‘as I went down to the river to pray’. However, instead of Myrtle she finds a dead body. Confused and terrified she learns to take the memory and lock it away deep inside her mind. Yet, still she sees her in dreams, luring her down to the water with her beautiful singing voice. She sleepwalks and finds herself out in the garden at night, barefoot and cold from the dew on the grass. In order to stop these ‘night terrors’ she is medicated. Although she is a maelstrom of emotions and experiences she will not talk. Ten years down the line Lily’s mother Grace is marrying Tony, who has his own teenage daughter Flo. Flo and Lily strike up a friendship despite Lily’s silence and find ways of communicating through text and scribbles on notepads. When Flo’s father is accused of killing a schoolgirl, the girls join forces to find out what’s really happened but this opens up Lily’s past. Now she must force herself back to that boathouse in order to unearth what really happened and who is responsible.

The author has written a great debut here where she skilfully wrong foots the reader and subverts expectation. That very first line - ‘Death smells of macaroons’ - I was drawn into the story. I knew it was going to be sugary sweet on the surface with a nasty aftertaste - a description that suits our narrator Grace perfectly. From the cover I was expecting an older setting, but this is as modern as it gets. Small details, such as Grace dressing from the Joules catalogue, or the teenagers coming into the cafe for Frappuccino’s set this firmly within the 21st Century. She also places terrible and disturbing events in beautiful, lush countryside full of wild garlic and bluebells. The setting is idyllic, but the events are far from it. I had the sense of something lush and overblown like lilies, where the scent is so strong it’s cloying.

The jump from one narrator to another kept me on my toes too. I did get confused from time to time about who was who, especially when we moved back and forth in time. The characters are fascinating. We meet Lily and her mum Grace as they are coming to an exciting time in their lives. Grace is about to be engaged to Tom and she is the perfect girlfriend, with a plan for a traditional wedding. She and Lily live in a cottage and work in Tom’s cafe, she doesn’t want them to live together until they’re married. She thinks pre-marital sex would be a bad example for their daughters. Also, Lily has health problems. She has selective mutism, and a sleep disorder causing sleepwalking and night terrors that need heavy medication. Tom’s daughter Flo gets along really well with Lily, and has encouraged her to communicate using texts. They get along well in the village, the only fly in the ointment, as far as Grace is concerned, is Tom’s ex Annie the local police woman. It slowly becomes clear that she has deliberately lured Tom away from Annie and feels threatened by their easy intimacy and connection, as well as Annie’s continued friendship with Flo.

Grace is simply trying too hard though. Lily thinks she dresses like she’s colour blind or copies exactly the model in the catalogue. At the village picnic Lily is a amused by how overdressed she is - in the catalogue the outfit would have been set off with a fascinator, but Grace has had to contain herself with a ribbon round her straw hat. Whilst Annie rolls up in denim with a carrier bag of corned beef sandwiches and pickled onion Monster Munch, Grace has smoked salmon on vintage china. Everything is just so. Except Flo doesn’t like fish. We know this drive for perfection is simply a thin veneer covering a much darker heart. Her sugary sweet exterior is as real as her flowing red hair. When schoolgirl Amelie goes missing, Lily knows exactly where she is, because she had to help Grace package her body on the kitchen floor. Grace is as meticulous at cleaning up after the crime as she was at packing a picnic. After disposing of the body, Lily is forced to strip and get in the shower. Then Grace is waiting with hot milk and she’s often so spaced out that she doesn’t know what’s real and what isn’t.

We also see that Grace’s adoration of Tom is an act too. In a passage as they snuggle on the sofa, Grace’s real feelings belie her actions:

‘I sat, legs curled up on the sofa, with Tom’s arm draped around my shoulders. The heaviness of his body; the musky scent of his cologne and the graze of his cheek against mine made me feel nauseous. I suppose, if I were forced to be objective, I could see why Annie had been attracted to him and sometimes, when we kissed, the pit of my stomach whirred with a brief flutter of desire. Desire which was quickly followed by a flood of disgust. Tom Marchant was a pathetic liar of a man and every ounce of his being repulsed me.’

This is not just a passing dislike, this is a hatred that runs deep. There is a past here that is complicated and disturbing. The key is in an interesting event that Lily dreams about and has been in therapy for, way back in the past. When she was a little girl, Lily thought that the lake in the grounds hid a mermaid called Myrtle. This started with a fairytale told to her by Grace and Uncle Frank, accompanied by the folk song Down to the River to Pray. Lily hears snatches of it in her dreams. Again, while this sounds like a beautiful story, it comes about around the time that Lily stopped speaking and Grace’s hair turned white overnight. How lucky the girls were to be looked after by Uncle Frank who ran an institute for mental well-being and was involved with pioneering mental health drugs. Lily was seen by a young junior doctor who used a visualisation method to help her with the feelings that disturbed her. He tells her to imagine somewhere she enjoys, and Lily chooses the aquarium with a treasure chest on the sea floor where she can lock away those memories that disturb her. She chooses a key decorated with a spiders web and mimes locking the chest. Then, when she feels safer, they can slowly unlock the chest and taking out one image at a time to work on. Yet this part of the therapy never happened and Lily was left with all these images locked up inside. What will it take to uncover them?

Back at the picnic, the villagers were horrified to find human remains in the lake. Could they belong to Amelie? In the aftermath, Grace agrees that they should all be together, so she and Lily stay over with Tom and Flo. Next morning Flo is horrified to find her beloved fish all dead in the garden pond, the telltale blue of slug pellets lingering on the bottom. Flo calls Annie and she comes out to question everyone. Grace and Tom seem oddly tense, but Flo remembers seeing pond scum on the floor and didn’t Grace put Lily in a shower in the night? As the study the pond Annie sees something else submerged in the rushes. It’s a bundle of shoes, tied together with a pair of knickers and it looks incriminating. There’s no option but to question Tom, remove phones and laptops and start to ask if anyone has noticed Tom getting a little too close to one of his students. Annie isn’t so sure. She confides in Flo that she can’t investigate the case, but she’s suspicious that it all looks a bit too cut and dried. Also, if you were really trying to keep evidence hidden, why would you draw attention to it by committing another crime?

There’s never a moment to to stop and contemplate though. The different perspectives and timelines keep revealing new clues and new horrors. There were times where I had to go back and reread a section to be sure I’d got the right sequence of events, especially where people’s names have changed. That’s mainly because the story is addictive and the pace is relentless. Over 24 hours I was rarely without my head in this book because I was so involved in all the little twists and turns. I wanted to understand how Lily and Grace had become so psychologically disturbed. I had a sense that Lily would start to make more sense once Grace stopped giving her such strong medication. I sensed she was a lot stronger than she thought. I was fascinated in finding out what had formed Grace’s personality and drove her to be so cruel and cunning. I couldn’t stop reading until the tangled web was unravelled. Until Lily’s treasure chest of memories was unlocked and she was able to speak freely again.

This will appear as part of the blog tour this month,

Never trust a crazy bitch!

Lily and Flo become friends when Lily’s mothers starts dating Flo’s father. Things move fast but before they know it the couple are engaged and it’s getting serious.

Fast forward a couple of days and a girl from Lily and Flo’s school is murdered and Flo’s father is accused of murder. All evidence points to him but Flo knows her father didn’t do it.

After a string of murders both past and present Lily’s world begins to unravel. Her “mother” pumps her with pills and controls her which is why she’s never spoken a word in ten years. Her memoirs are locked in a box with the key being the only trigger.

Everyone has room for an ulterior movie, crazy people always come undone eventually. Only the truth can set you free and finally bring you peace.

Trigger warning for rape, murder, emotional and physical abuse.