Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Elizabeth Blackwell IS a storytelling genius and I loved the 1920s Chicago setting of IN THE SHAWDOW OF LAKECREST. The story kicks off with a delicious homage to Daphne DuMaurier's opening in REBECCA, but it's all Blackwell after that as this Midwestern American gothic tale unfolds. Remember Victoria Holt? V.C. Andrews? This author clearly knows the classic beats of "modern" Gothic fiction and not only plays to those, but also remakes them. Heroine Kate is at once a relatable every girl with ambition but also just a bit suspect. She lands a swoon-worthy rich husband who's no Prince Charming as well as a mother-in-law who rivals not only Mrs. Danvers, but just about every forbidding matriarch Kathy Bates has ever portrayed on screen. The tension literally drips down the cold stone walls of Lakecrest, the mixed-up North Shore family mansion that becomes Kate's marital "home," and builds on every page - especially when Kate starts asking questions about her husband's spinster aunt, who mysteriously disappeared 20 years earlier and has never been found yet nobody seems to care. Add in a beautiful but damaged socialite sister-in-law, a few secret rooms, fast times and flappers, strange medical experiments, a creepy labyrinth, and a building love story, and the resulting tale had me glued to my tablet.