Interesting premise but the execution wasn't there. I was bored and found myself skimming, just so I could say I had finished the book.

I wasn’t massively engaged with this, it wasn’t bad but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it as I found myself being quite bored in places and the plot to be quite predictable

This book was very predictable and honestly it was too over the top for my tastes. It needed to be refined

Great plot to get yourself lost in. This book has everything. A real fast paced thriller. Will get your heart racing on more than one occasion. Very well written. Highly recommend this book

Paradox lake - Vincent zandri

Just couldn’t get into it, sorry not my thing plus expired bore finishing.

TW: suicide, graphic sexual assault, murder, drugging, alcohol abuse

Paradox Lake is the peaceful, small town that the protagonist, Rose, needed after years of working as an art teacher. She, together with her 12 year old daughter, Anna, are ready for a few months of bonding near the lake with a few extra perks like the attractive and compassionate bachelor that Rose sets her sights on. However, Paradox Lake has a dark history and as strange occurrences follow this mother daughter duo, they have no choice but to abandon caution and dive into the mystery that shrouds the lake.

Firstly, the layout of the book was very confusing. There was no clear change between the different narrators and there wasn't a table of contents.

The plot, while not unique, had the opportunity to be great. The small town killer and naïve unsuspecting woman/girl is a trope that has been done numerous times before. Thus, if this story were to be memorable, there needed to be more originality in what was being written. Additionally, the overused plot was then further not developed properly and was quite frankly hard to read and not extremely interesting. The plot twists were predictable and incredibly poorly written, which accompanied by the multiple typos, spelling errors and bad grammar made me question the good reviews for this book. I personally loved the reference to "Red Riding Hood" and maybe a bit more expansion on that front would have made this book a lot better. However, this is NOT a thriller retelling of the beloved fairytale and the allusion to it on almost every single page was extremely annoying.

The logistics within the book also did not make sense to me. A young girl was brutally raped and murdered and the perpetrator only got 33 years in prison and was released? That crime should get life without parole so how was the antagonist released? The entire book was written in first person narrative which is best achieved when your characters are well written, relatable and likeable, which are three traits the author failed to exhibit in the protagonist. The main character's actions were incredibly confusing and if the plot of your book has to rely on the stupidity of a main character to work, then the plot is not developed enough.

Some examples of instances where the main character's actions make her unlikable are:

failing to look up any information of the place she is travelling to.

inviting a man she just met into her home with her young daughter.

proceeding to fall in instant love with this man she has known for less than a week

threatening to physically abuse the child she is trying to bond with and is supposedly close to. "I could haul off and slap the brat, but I’m a 21st century mom. Meaning, I give in to my child’s every whim."

drinking every single chance she gets even though she is supposed to be singly responsible for a child

“We’re up in the woods, not the hood.” This statement is inherently problematic. When confronted with a murder and possible danger of a place the protagonist compares it to poverty filled, commonly "bipoc" areas.

constantly leaving her young daughter alone even though this trip was supposedly to bond with her.

It was difficult for me as a young person of color to relate to the protagonist especially with the decisions and statements she made. I am struggling to understand who the audience for this book is supposed to be as the protagonist was a horrible mother, significant other and just a horrible person overall all. Who is expected to relate to that? Aside from the protagonist, the other characters such as the daughter, love interests and antagonist were barely fleshed out. There were no motives for the antagonist's actions, the love interest was only there to further the protagonist's horrible character and the daughter was forgettable. I have seen praise for the author for his ability to authentically write a 12 year old girl which is astounding to me since he writes of her being on her phone talking to boys 24/7. That can be partly true but realistically that is not a young girl's entire personality.

Additionally, the dialogue was cheesy, awkward and extremely unrealistic. The characters saying each others names in every sentence even if there is only two people in the lake house? Extremely unrealistic and annoying. The protagonist's internal dialogue consisting of phrases like, "my ever expanding butt" really solidified the subtle misogyny throughout this book along with the numerous other stereotypes of women used. The writing style of the book was very juvenile as well as the lack of trigger warnings for very serious issues added to this.

In conclusion, this was just overall a poorly written and not intriguing book. An underdeveloped plot and unlikeable and forgettable characters were emphasized by poor writing, cheesy dialogue and unoriginal tropes. The misogynistic undertones as well as lack of trigger warnings considering the dark themes of the book were also crucial factors in my dislike of Paradox Lake. If you are looking for a "Red Riding Hood" retelling or an extremely thrilling read. This is NOT the book for you.


Thank you to Oceanview Publishing and Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.


**I chose to read this book and everything stated in this review is my own, honest and unbiased opinions.**

The story starts out with a slow build, Rose rents a lake house with hopes to become closer to her preteen daughter Anna. It wasn’t completely predictable but the characters were frustrating, I do not enjoy reading when the characters stay in a situation that they should have already left. There was horror, there was suspense, but this book was just ok.

I understand that the whole stalker-single mom trope has been done to death, but I still opted to read this one because I haven’t read too many books of this kind. And I do believe that even the most done-to-death idea can be interesting if the writing is good.
Here sadly, it wasn’t so.

Theodore “The Wolf” Peasley, held guilty of the rape, murder and mutilation of 12-year-old Sarah Anne Moore in 1986 at Paradox Lake, has just been released after 33 years in a maximum security prison. The system believes that he is no longer the criminal that he used to be, and is no longer a threat to society. However, in the minutes before he is released, Fr Sean O’Connor, the prison chaplain, realises that Theodore is just as vile and evil. He, and we, fear the worst.
Single mum Rose Conley has experienced tragedy. Having lost her older daughter, Allison, to leukemia and her husband, Charlie, to suicide, her younger daughter, Anna, now 12 years old, is all she has. Hoping to bond with Anna, before turbulent teenage hormones take over, she books herself and Anna, into an Air BnB in an isolated, off-the-grid town called Paradox Lake, where they’ve rented the old Moore house. She has taken a semester off her work at the university where she teaches art and sculpture, and hopes to sculpt while homeschooling Anna.
What she doesn’t know is that the Wolf is on the prowl and Anna could be in real danger.

The book is written in the present tense, in the third person PoV of the Wolf and the first person PoV of Rose. I appreciate the author for the narrative, for the details that helped to root us into the story.
You don’t have to be a parent to stress over the outcome of that situation. Right away I was fully invested in the plot, and I didn’t even know the characters well yet. Two vulnerable characters thrown in the middle of their worst nightmares.
And that’s where the trouble started. Having started well, however, it was all downhill from there. The author made Rose opt for the lamest of choices.
Rose was probably the stupidest character ever to be caught in danger. She did everything wrong, hiding the truth about Sarah from Anna, when she should have completed her research and packed and set off for home at the earliest. Metaphorically speaking, she’s the idiot horror movie character who runs into, not away from, the haunted house.
Rose’s penchant for talking to her dead husband and daughter wasn’t the problem, but her ability to receive advice from them that matched exactly the deluded action she planned to take certainly was. Nor could I understand the nonchalance with which she proceeded to drink alcohol when she had a child to look after and was stuck in the middle of nowhere, and could not afford to lose control over herself. Even when her worst nightmare comes to pass, she needs, in her own words, “the calming effects of the alcohol.”
The fact that the author is a male trying to write from a female PoV is evident. Does he really think that women think nothing of stripping naked in front of their kids, especially when the daughter is 12? On another occasion, Rose comes across a secluded beach and strips naked. What if someone were to come along? There are several references to the phrase, birthday suit, that are tedious. I was also put off by the gratuitous descriptions of the sex and violence.
The book was riddled with typos and errors. For example, And the blood, she runs thick. At another point, Rose tells us that she has tinsel strength. Did she mean tensile?
The constant use of names in a conversation of two people is another bother.
I wish the author had bothered to learn a little more about Catholics before foisting Catholicism on the characters. Catholics don’t hold rosary beads and whisper One Our Father after another as Rose tells us that Tim is doing.
The story seeks to bring the horror of the old children’s story, Little Red Riding Hood, into real life. The author constantly points out the danger by harping on the What-Big device as a way of conjuring horror. But there’s only so much of What Big Hands/Teeth/Tongue/Eyes etc that a reader can take. After a while, the excessive foreshadowing from the Wolf’s PoV becomes tiresome, undermining the whole effect.

I throughly enjoy the concept of this book. It felt very much like a modern day fantasy with the evolution around the shape shifting character. However, the pace seemed a bit rushed. The time line made sense but some of the choices made by the characters felt forced thus making them hard to connect with.

Overall, I am giving this book a 3 out of 5 stars. It was enjoyable where it was good and just simply needed some work in other aspects.

I normally try to not be hyper-critical of books, but this was just bad. If you told me a bot wrote this after reading every thriller/female driven pyschological drama, I wouldn't be surprised.

The storyline was cliche, which I could have looked past, but the actual writing was terrible, and the dialogue was so unrealistic it was impossible to get into the story or characters. Pretty much immediately I could tell it was written by a man, as some of the internal monologue from the narrator was just wildly ridiculous. I have literally never heard anyone- man or woman- refer to a vagina as "my sex". And the internal monologue of the "wolf" was incredibly repetitive. It was bascially all "what big _____ you have" "the better to _____ you with". Yuck.

The dialogue was repetitive and characters used the name of the person they were speaking to in almost every line. I've also never heard a 12 year old casually talk to their parent about their sex life. Not the 12 year old's sex life, the mother's sex life.

I think some heavy editing and additional work on dialogue could have been a major benefit to this novel. Perhaps one of the drawbacks of self-publishing. This author may have other work that is great, but based on this novel alone, I'm not a fan.

Paradox Lake sure has the makings of a good thriller: a creepy setting, Mam and daughter in a house alone, strange people living in the town. And there were certainly times that this book sent shivers down my spine. I quite enjoyed the bones of this story, however, there was too many things that took me away from full enjoyment.

I think the main thing was the dialogue. Every time one person addressed another person they used their name. As well as this, a lot of the sentence structures and things people said felt unnatural, which stopped me building a connection with them and distracted me from the story. I also found the relationship between Rose and her daughter, and her partner actually, too undefined. Although they were made out at the start of the book not to be very good, the actions and words of Rose later on proved opposite to this.

I can’t say I disliked Paradox Lake but I didn’t love it either.

Oh boy - I could not get into this book for various reasons. Firstly, I did not enjoy any of the characters whatsoever. The plot also felt rushed and wasn’t super intriguing.

I went into this book not knowing much and honestly I wish I would’ve done more research cause personally it wasn’t for me.

I think the writing style wasn’t for me and just didn’t work out. I could appreciate the author’s work and definitely hope others enjoy it more than I did.

Rose Conley and her twelve-year-old daughter Anna headed for Paradox Lake in the Adirondacks, to spend a few months, sculpting, relaxing and getting closer to one another. Rose had lost her first daughter Allison to cancer and her husband Charlie, who was unable to cope with Allison’s death, to suicide shortly before Anna’s birth. So, the two of them had been close since Anna was a baby. There was also Tony in their lives, a writer and Rose’s boyfriend. They were looking forward to the peace and tranquility the lake would bring. (Even though Anna was stressing about the lack of internet)

Meanwhile a killer who’d been imprisoned for thirty-three years in an institution for the criminally insane had recently been released and had returned to his old home in Paradox Lake. He’d vowed to the priest that he was a changed man…

Unfortunately I didn't enjoy this as much as I thought I would. There's nothing I can really place my finger on aside from not being able to relate to the characters who seemed dull and flat

Paradox Lake was a twisted story with a fairy tale ring of Little Red Riding Hood. A fast pace and fantastic read. Had a good build up of characters that had you leaning in and yelling, “No don’t”.

Rose and Anna are on a getaway vacation at Paradox Lake that quickly becomes a little chilling. Age old murder mystery in the airbnb I’m staying in...no thanks. Charming caretaker to boot! Had me from the beginning pages and I was eager to see the story play out. A dark and twisty read for sure! I will be reading another Vincent Zandri book as this was my first of there's.

This is my first Vincent Zandri novel, and I am now wondering what took me so long. Paradox Lake is many things: relationship fiction, a mystery, a thriller and last but not least a horror story! Rose Conley is a sculptor and professor, raising her twelve-year-old daughter on her own, since the death of her husband. She takes a leave of absence from school and moves for a few months to Paradox, a small town in the Adirondacks. She leaves behind her love interest, who does not approve of her departure. Mother and daughter move into a quaint cottage on Paradox Lake, and they soon find out that there is a history there that goes back to thirty years ago. The characters in the novel are well-developed and the relationships are interesting. The story moves along at a quick pace. The reader is caught between the fear of turning the next page and wanting to know what comes next. This is not a book to read alone at the cottage. I look forward to reading many more of Vincent Zandri’s books. Highly recommended. Thank you to Oceanview Publishing, NetGalley and the author for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

When Rose decides to take a sabbatical from her job as an art professor in Albany, she chooses to escape to Paradox Lake with her daughter Anna. But what she doesn’t expect is to stay in a house where tragic loss happened in 1986. Having dealt with enough loss of her own, she becomes consumed with the story of Sarah Anne Moore and even finds herself questioning Tim Ferguson, the handsome general store owner who seems to show an interest in her. But what she doesn’t know is that the story of Sarah Anne hits closer to home, and she might just become the victim of the big bad wolf herself.

Now that is one twisted tale for sure. The ending has the word HORROR coming to mind. I am the kind of traveler that checks out the whole place as soon as I get there. And I promise you I will be even more so next time I travel. As you can see the story hit a nerve. The story is well told. Even small towns have secrets and unsavory characters. Be careful who you make a friend.

Little Red Riding Hood is one fairy tale that has always creeped me out and I can’t imagine the grim nature of the whole tale being read when one is at an age where every shadow is a monster out to eat you. There are versions of the story where the woodcutter does save the little girl, but the first time I read it, it was where the wolf devours her as a whole, what a gruesome thought!

This classic tale has been used by Vincent Zandri to create a ghastly story of murder and madness hidden underneath the placid waters. The story does open brilliantly with the mother Rose and her 12-year-old daughter taking a break at a very idyllic Paradox Lake. The deep forests surrounding the area offer Rose the much-needed succor for her traumatized soul. But the lake is not as tranquil as it appears and the ever-menacing threat is conveyed well by the author through the creepy thoughts of the peeping wolf and the darkness surrounding the cottage.

However, the story fails to be gripping enough as the plot becomes too predictable for seasoned readers of mystery. I was probably thinking that probably the author has an ace up his sleeve with a final twisty shocker, which seems to be the norm of most thrillers nowadays, but I was disappointed. There are also the dialogues between the characters especially the way Anna and Rose converses which was a trifle odd, there was a lack of naturality to the whole banter as if being said by cartoon caricatures.

3.5 could have been better raindrops💦💦💦💧

Many thanks to Net Galley, Oceanview Publishing, and the author for a chance to read and review this book. All opinions are expressed voluntarily.

This review is published in my blog https://rainnbooks.com/, Goodreads, Amazon India, and Twitter.

Pasts being buried and the main characters trying to keep them from interfering with their present and/future is always my jam, so this was a very enjoyable read. It is a great psychological suspense novel that kept me engaged throughout.

I received an advance reader copy of this book through Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

Paradox Lake sounded like a decent thriller in the blurb on Net Galley. After reading it, I wasn’t all that impressed.

For one thing, the twist was easily detected pretty early in the story. The killer repeating lines from Little Red Riding Hood quickly became annoying, and I didn’t buy the concept of a 55-60 year old many running through the forest with amazing speed and agility (I turn 60 in a couple of months, I know what I’m talking about here). I also found the main character to be incredibly dense, commenting on but ignoring several warning signs along the way. It was also annoying how the 50ish woman began saying “I may be falling in love with him.” a few hours after first meeting a new guy. There are also strong misogynistic themes in how the women characters are treated that really turned me off.

I gave Paradox Lake three stars on Goodreads. I guess it was a decent thriller after all, but I probably wouldn’t have requested to read it if I had know about the emphasis given to the sex crime aspect of the story.