The author has managed to write a book where reading it felt like walking through a dream, or, more likely, a desperate nightmare. This book is full of dark curses with a gothic atmosphere. It’s there they find Rowan might not be the most dangerous thing at Lakesedge. When Lord Rowan demands Arien return to Lakesedge manor with him, Violeta is not willing to let him go alone. He’s been able to hide this odd phenomenon from the people in the village, until he catches the eye of a lord, rumoured to have murdered his entire family. Arien has strange dreams, ones that cause shadows to pour from his hands. Violeta and her brother, Arien, have eked out a living with an often cruel woman, after losing their parents. Thank you so much to Macmillan Australia for providing me with a copy of this book, in exchange for an honest review! To save Rowan, and herself, Leta must confront the darkness in her past, which includes unravelling the mystery of her connection to the Lord Under. There’s a monster in the shadows, and now it knows my name. A creature to whom Leta is inexplicably drawn…

But neither the estate nor the monster are what they seem.Īs Leta falls for Rowan, she discovers he is bound to the Lord Under, the sinister death god lurking in the black waters of the lake.

She knows the terrifying rumours about Rowan Sylvanan, who drowned his entire family when he was a boy. (Sept.When Violeta Graceling arrives at haunted Lakesedge estate, she expects to find a monster.

Agent: Jill Grinberg, Jill Grinberg Literary. Narrator Violeta’s controlling reflexes and an unsubtle blurring between desire and violence combine disturbingly with challenges repeatedly solved through self-harm, resulting in a linguistically lush fantasy of helplessness whose plotting frequently bends around emotion rather than developing its own ideas. But as dark visions stalk the halls, Violeta discovers that the estate’s secrets connect to the magic she traded away in a devil’s bargain years ago-and she might have to choose between her attraction to Rowan and mending him and Lakesedge both. Rowan plans to use Arien’s magic to mend the Corruption that is poisoning Lakesedge and consuming him. But when regional lord Rowan-a beautiful, facially scarred 19-year-old who purportedly murdered his family-notices Arien’s power and spirits him to the cursed Lakesedge Estate, Violeta forces her way in, obsessed with protecting Arien. Foundling Violeta Graceling, 17, can see her younger brother Arien’s nightmares-shadows that claw her through his hands and draw their pious foster mother’s violence to burn death god The Lord Under out of him. Clipstone’s literal-leaning, overwhelmingly white fantasy debut runs the Gothic trope list aesthetically but founders under a looping compulsion for self-sacrifice.

Lakesedge book review