A review by jcpdiesel21
The House Across the Lake by Riley Sager

2.0

Crushingly disappointing. Not only is the story in this book uninspired, shamelessly borrowing from other tales including Rear Window and The Girl on the Train, but it never fully grabbed my interest and transformed into the page-turner that I expected it to be. Telling the story in a dual narrative from two different time period does it no favors, and in the final act this format muddles the unfolding events. By far the worst aspect of the book is the preposterous twist it employs in the third act to reframe everything that precedes it, a device that I found cheap and unnecessary. I hope that Sager bounces back from this dud and pens something much better for his follow-up.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this title.