Anna's grandfather Max is 94 and the discovery of a Parisian apartment frozen in time deeply affects him. He begs Anna to travel to his childhood home in Germany and retrieve an engagement ring hidden there seventy years earlier. Anna travels to Germany but finds the locals and new owner to be unhelpful. Can she find the ring and Max's lost love?
The House by the Lake has a dual timeline of Anna in 2010 and Max in the 1930s. We first met Isabelle de Florian in Paris Time Capsule but now find out much more about her life and love. However, this would work just as well as a stand alone novel, and perhaps it would even work better as the first in the series as readers of the first book already know what happens to Isabelle so the impact is reduced.
The build up of the relationship between Isabelle and Max develops in contrast to the rise of Nazism and the political situation in Europe. The class and social struggles that Isabelle faces at first fade to insignificance compared to the prospect of war.
I liked the use of a relationship between a French woman and German man to show the troubles faced by both nationalities in the lead up to war. There is a feeling of hope at the end of the book which softens the heartache of earlier events.
Anna in the present day is tenacious in her search for her grandfather's ring and his lost love. The descriptions of Germany and the house are vivid, and I felt drawn into the mystery even as it unfolds in the earlier timeline.
Overall, The House By The Lake was an enjoyable historical novel about love and loss.

Anna has a happy life in San Francisco until her grandfather asks her to go to Germany and find a package in his family's estate in Germany. For the first time she finds out that he was part of an aristocratic family before WWII. When she gets to the small town in Germany she finds the castle abandoned and falling apart. She feels that she has to learn the history of the home and of her grandfather's family so she contacts the lawyer of the owner and after a rude start, he helps her try to trace family history despite all of the dead ends that they encounter. By the end, they find that the house in Germany and her grandfather are linked to the abandoned apartment in Paris. As with Book 1 in the series, this book has mystery, romance and family history that unlocks her grandfather's past.

Kate Morton fans will fall in love with Ella Carey’s evocative, immersive and brilliantly atmospheric dual narrative novels. The House by the Lake is a sweeping and enthralling tale guaranteed to hold readers spellbound from beginning to end.

In 1939, the Second World War has just been declared. Everybody’s future was in jeopardy and turmoil and anguish were guaranteed. Lives were going to be lost and loyalties were surely going to be tested in a daily struggle for survival. In Germany, pledging allegiance to the Nazi party wasn’t a choice, but a necessity. Failing to conform would mean certain death and nobody was willing to risk incurring the wrath of a ruthless party intent on causing maximum destruction. When Max Albrecht, heir to a beautiful house by the lake, is asked by his family to join, he finds himself with no other choice. If he does not become a member of the Nazi party, his whole family will be killed and Max will do whatever it takes to protect them – even if he isn’t sure about what he is pledging allegiance to. But worse is to come for Max when his beloved Isabelle shows him the horrifying reality of what the Nazis stand for. But what will Max do? Will he choose the woman he loves over his family’s life?

In 2010, Anna Young lives in New York where she runs a busy deli and looks after her beloved grandfather, Max. The two are very close and love spending time together. The thought of a future without Max fills her with dread and sorrow, however, that is a reality which she knows she most face someday. But hopefully not yet. Max never speaks about his past in Berlin or about all the sorrows he experienced. But after decades spent keeping a lid on his wartime experiences, he gives Anna a map that will take her to a grand house north of Berlin where he has buried something of paramount importance under the floorboards which he is desperate to reclaim before it’s too late.

On her arrival, Anna finds a velvet box with an engagement ring nestled inside it. Who was the woman Max had planned to propose to? What happened to her? Is she still alive? Or had the war torn them apart? As Anna begins to ask the locals about her grandfather, she is met with a stony wall of silence. What did Max do? Does she knows him as well as she thought she did? What secrets has he kept hidden all this time?

With her grandfather in hospital too ill to speak, will Anna liberate the skeletons cluttering her family’s closets? Or should some secrets be kept dead and buried?

Ella Carey is a wonderful storyteller who brings the past to colourful life on the page and takes her readers on an emotional journey fraught with danger, jeopardy, love, loss and hope. The House by the Lake is a compelling tale of sacrifice, loyalty, heartache and healing that will break readers’ hearts and keep them engrossed all through the night.

Astute, emotional and absorbing, Ella Carey’s The House by the Lake is a stellar page-turner readers will find hard to forget.

Having read two other books by the author, it was natural for me to read this one as well. While Beyond the Horizon still remains the better book, it was net to receive more information on the story that was begun in Paris Time Capsule.
This time, we start with Anna who is quite happy running her café in San Francisco. Her grandfather, Max, doesn’t talk much about his past - until one day he reveals a long-held secret. This sends Anna off to a castle in Germany to fetch something that Max left behind when he had to leave suddenly with the rise of Hitler and the onset of WWII.
As with the first book in the trilogy, it’s an interesting set up. The time period is rich with places, people, and events to build stories upon. It’s not hard to imagine that are still millions of stories to be told from that time.
I did like how the author tied the characters from the first book into this one and how the stories intertwined. It was a nice through-line.
As with the first book, there is a slight issue with language and the writing style. It doesn’t seem as if the writer gained the confidence in style that shows up in Beyond the Horizon. There were also a few minor issues that caught me, such as Anna referring to her “flat” when she lives in San Francisco (should be apartment).
But the story is engaging, it’s a nice throughline from the first book, and I look forward to reading the last in the trilogy to see how it all wraps up.

Anna who has a very close relationship with her grandfather Max has always been curious about his life before he moved to the US. When Max reads a newspaper article about a Paris apartment found intact after being unoccupied for seventy years, he is visibly shaken. He requests Anna to travel to Berlin to retrieve something he left behind in his family home in Berlin. Once there, Anna discovers a palatial schloss all locked up. There’s a cloud of silence over the village with no one willing to talk to her about the past and her family. Knowing how much this means to her grandfather, she manages to make her way into the place and find what Max had left behind.

The book takes us from San Francisco to Berlin and on to Paris and Lake Geneva . The rise of Nazism and Europe fraught by discord and fear make a relationship between a German man, Max and a French woman, Isabelle impossible. As Anna slowly starts to peel away the layers of the past, the reader is drawn into family drama and a heart-breaking love story that took place in the historical years of WWII. We also see Anna too start a new chapter in her own life.

I’ve already spoken about how much I love the author’s writing and in The House By The Lake she doesn’t disappoint.

This is another winning story from the author. Having read Paris Time Capsule, The House By The Lake fills in some details and now I look forward to reading the third book – From A Paris Balcony.

This is the second book of the trilogy inspired by Marthe de Florian's famous Paris apartment. In Paris Time Capsule the apartment and its contents are described in wonderful detail. In this novel, the apartment is only mentioned by way of a newspaper article that triggers 94 year old Max Albrecht to request his granddaughter, Anna, travel to Berlin on his behalf. He wants her to recover something he had secreted under the floorboards of his old room at the Schloss Siegel at the beginning of World War 2.

When Anna arrives in the village of Siegel, she is dismayed to find it rundown and far from prosperous. The mention of the Albrechts is met with unfriendliness as the villagers hold the family, especially Max, to blame for the current state of the village. No-one will help her gain access to the schloss or share any useful information. Eventually, Anna tracks down the current owner's lawyer in Berlin, Wil Jager, who agrees to help her recover Max's property.

The story alternates between the present, where Anna searches for the reason her grandfather abandoned his family and country all those years ago, and the past, from when Max and Isabelle de Florian first meet in the early 1930s and the years that follow. These years see the rise of Hitler and Max's reluctance to join the Nazi Party, despite his parents' urging that it is his duty to do so. Isabelle is certain that revealing her grandmother's past as a demimondaine to Max will end their relationship, as his aristocratic family would never accept her as Max's wife because of it. She is also disturbed by reports of what the Nazis are doing and can't believe that Max would join them willingly. Honour bound, Max enlists in the German army to protect his family, but his initial hesitancy in joining the Nazis has been noted and will lead to tragedy on a Paris street.

This is another delightful read by Ella Carey. Although part of a trilogy, it can be read as a standalone. I particularly liked how a crucial event from Paris Time Capsule is elaborated on to form the basis of this novel, establishing another link between the two aside from the Paris apartment. While I enjoyed the subtle romance between Anna and Wil, it was the drama of Isabelle and Max's part of the narrative that appealed to me more.

Love, duty, betrayal and tragedy combine to make The House by the Lake an excellent addition to the trilogy. I'm looking forward to reading the final book.

A few weeks ago I read my first Ella Carey book, and today, I bring you my review of the second book in the Paris Time Capsule series as part of the blog tour celebrating the book's rerelease through Bookouture.

Anna Young runs a successful cafe in San Francisco. Her life is busy enough. When she isn't working she is spending time with her beloved grandfather, Max. She certainly doesn't have time for a relationship, despite his insistence that she should try. Part of the reason why she isn't all that fussed about the idea of marriage is having observed her grandparents cold and distant relationship over the years.


Whilst Anna is close to Max, she knows very little of his life before he came to America. He has always been a closed book when it comes to that time. It is therefore very surprising when he reveals to Anna that he left something behind in his childhood home, and that he wants her to go back to Germany to fetch it.




Finding out that she is descended from an aristocratic German family is the first of many surprises in store for Anna when she returns to the family schloss. Not all the surprises are good though. The people in the small town near the schloss have no interest in talking to her at all once she mentions Max to the point of being resentful. As for the family estate, that is locked tight, and no one is saying who the current owner is.



Anna join forces with a lawyer named Wil to and gain access to the schloss and retrieve the item, all the while not knowing why it is so important to her grandfather right now. And she can't ask him because he has fallen ill back in San Francisco.


Like Anna, the reader finds out more about Max's life as a member of a well to do family in the mid-1930s. When he is on vacation at Lake Geneva Max meets a young French woman, Isabelle, and the couple fall in love. Isabelle is the granddaughter of a former courtesan. Back in Paris, Isabelle is frowned upon by the upper echelon of society, but this doesn't matter to Max.


Whilst he leads a seemingly carefree existence, things are changing in Germany. The Nazi party has come to power and Max's family is pressuring him to join the party in order to protect the family's interests. How does he choose between his family's wishes and the woman he loves. And what would make him walk away from everything he knows to choose a new life in America.


I have read at least three books this year that are set in WWII Germany and telling the story of German characters. While we have had all sorts of other perspectives over the years, it hasn't been as common to read from the perspective of ordinary Germans. As much as I love reading about Paris and France, it was also nice to read about Germany. I found myself googling pictures of schlosses, which of course then leads to dreams of holidays taking in lots of German countryside. One day!





I mentioned in my review for Paris Time Capsule that the structure for that book was all set in the present but looking back to the past. This book has the more common structure of telling both stories alternating between the past and present. As Anna follows the clues to unveil her family's past, maybe she can also unlock a different future for herself.



When I first started reading this, I did find myself wondering how it was going to link in with the first book in the series, but it all became clear pretty quickly, and in the end, I really enjoyed how this book filled in the gaps in the story from Paris Time Capsule. And now, I am reallly looking forward to reading the third book in the trilogy, From a Paris Balcony.

This is a sequel of sorts to Paris Time Capsule, telling the story of the family connected to the apartment in Paris in the past and the current life of the family of an acquaintance. Like all of the author’s books I’ve read recently, this was a fantastic book. I loved it. You can enjoy this book without having read Paris Time Capsule, reading the first book just makes this a richer and more enjoyable reading experience. In a similar vein to Paris Time Capsule this book moves back and forth in time, telling two stories that gradually entwine. The characters are well-written and the book engaging. I really loved it.

The second in a series and the book is connected to book one, but doesn't really need to be read in a row. A character from the first book is in this second, but the stories felt self contained.

Two storylines, one in 2010 and one in the 1930s, one that starts in California and one that starts in Paris, but both make their way to Germany and a castle where both women's lives will be forever changed.

Anna is sent to Germany to the home of her ailing grandfather to retrieve something. There she will find more than the intended purpose of her trip. In 1930, Isabelle makes a visit to this castle and falls in love with a man, but their paths will diverge and her life will go in a different direction.

I loved how the author had both Anna and Isabelle discover the house at the same time and the back and forth in that chapter might have been my favorite in a story where there are two timelines - it was just genius! It happened throughout the book, but for me it stood out in this chapter and I loved it.

There were some moments where the story slowed down a bit and the pacing felt a little sluggish, but at a certain point the story picked up and it was a race to the end!

I can't wait to read book three and see this trilogy be complete.