By Jamie Day
** Publication Date 15 July 2025 **
​4 stars


Nothing sounds better than a home by the lake. The sound of the lapping water. Being able to fish for your dinner. Making s’mores over a fire. Unless that lake brings terror, as so many do.


Lake Timmeny has been home to Julia’s family for years. Along with her camp crew of David and Erika, Julia has many fond memories of the lake. Even as adults they still plan two weeks at the lake, all three families. But this year something is very different. 


David has done the unthinkable and built a three story glass monstrosity that blocks the views from both Julia’s and Erika’s homes. Julia is irate, but Erika less so. Erika claims she is practicing mindfulness, and really, what can be done now. Julia is still seeing red. Her perfect vacation ruined by David’s thoughtlessness. Add in his way too young and rather risqué girlfriend, and Julia isn’t sure she’ll get through this one.


Izzy has come along with David’s family as a nanny to his two young children. Izzy lied her way into the job, but she had reasons for wanting to be at Lake Timmeny this summer. Reasons she can’t share with anyone, especially her mother. She took the job without meeting David, but once in the car for the drive, he gives off creepy vibes. 


The lake is home to two previous disappearances. One in the 1960’s and the other back in the 1990’s. Neither girl was ever found. Now there are three young women at the lake that could be the next prey for the lake. After all, this is the sixty year anniversary of the first disappearance and the 30th for the second. As the story goes, the lake takes them.


Well written and suspenseful mystery for a great summer read. Izzy and Julia are full of secrets and suspicions. We see the story unfold from their eyes. It is easy to point the finger at just about anyone, because it seems that all have motives. I loved that this book was written from a young woman’s and a middle-aged woman’s point of view. Two clearly different viewpoints, yet their feelings merge often during the tale. 


Some of the characters give off a very bad vibe, but can just as easily turn it around and then seem great. It’s the mark of a good mystery when you struggle to define any one person as the culprit.


Great beach read. Great anytime read. 

By Lillie Vale
** Publication Date 15 July 2025 **
4 stars


Secret crushes. Secret wishing wells. Inexplicable magic. Prior’s End is full of all these things. 


Seven years ago Nova’s dad went out into the forest looking for his best friend. Neither he nor his best friend ever returned. Nova still ventures into the forest to look for her dad but never gets very far.


To get even with a psychic that has befriended her mother, Nova goes to her tent to confront her. Only Nova gets caught in the tent when her classmate Kiara comes in to ask a question. Nova thinks she’s being funny when she pretends to be Aurora and gives her a phony reading. The next day terrible things start to happen to Kiara. 


One of Kiara’s best friends asks for Nova’s help in finding the secret wishing well to try to turn around Kiara’s luck. Nova agrees, thinking it will be just the two of them. Nova and her very secret crush. When she shows up to the forest, not only is she going hiking with Kiara, but also Kiara’s posse of exes. 


Nova knows her only way out of this is to help Kiara turn around the hex, and maybe in the process she can find what happened to her father. But this won’t be some simple hike and camp in the forest. These six are going to encounter things they never imagined. Hopefully they will all make it out.


Incredible story about trusting your gut and your family. Loved this story with all its weirdness and mythology. The group of friends is very diverse, both racially and sexually. There is some violence and gore, but mostly superficial. It is definitely a tad scary. But all in a really good way.


Lillie Vale has done an amazing job of bringing together the typical ghost story but added a dimension of humanity to it. Nova is just a teenager who still struggles with having lost her dad. Kiara has always been the one who had it all. It makes for a wonderful thread running through the darkness and mirth.