The House Across the Lake

How it reads

The House Across the Lake is thriller (domestic thriller, specifically), and its dominant mood is tense. The suspense is the kind you feel in your shoulders. It moves fast: plot-driven and hard to put down, the kind of book that carries you along even when you're tired.

It's set in the wilderness or at sea, in the present day, told in the first person by several narrators. Its central concerns are secrets, loss and grief and redemption. In weight it's light and escapist — easy to fall into.

It stands alone, so there's nothing else you need to read first or after. The ending resolves happily. At 369 pages it's an ordinary novel's length. It's well known, the kind of book most keen readers have heard of.