📖 Book Review ~ Lake of Widows by Liza Perrat

 

October 2024

Women of the Lake #2

My thanks to the author for my copy of this book

Three women. One shared struggle. Can they survive? 

1970. When Adrienne Chevalier’s perfect life in a chic quartier of Lyon unravels, she flees to rural Sainte-Marie-du-Lac to escape her controlling husband, Emile.

Taking refuge at the idyllic L’Auberge de Léa, Adrienne befriends Blanche Larue, who is herself trapped by her husband’s infidelity. Adrienne begins to understand the subtle strictures that keep women chained across generations.

But to what diabolical lengths will Emile go to reclaim his wife?

And can Blanche find the courage to choose truth over appearances?

1914. Suzanne Rossignol bids farewell to her beloved husband as he marches off to war. Through Suzanne’s journal entries, Adrienne discovers that the damaged soldier who returns from the trenches is a stranger, leaving Suzanne to navigate a home-front battlefield.

Join Adrienne, Blanche and Suzanne on their emotional journeys amidst the tranquil French countryside as they fight to escape the shackles of tradition and abuse. Their stories, bridging half a century, are bound by a timeless struggle.

A heart-wrenching blend of historical and women’s fiction, Lake of Widows explores the complexities of marriage, family secrets and self-discovery in 20th-century France.

📖 My review..

Lake of Widows is the second book in The Women of the Lake series which introduces us to a strong set of female characters who each have their share of heartache. In this novel we get to know Adrienne Chevalier who escapes a troubled marriage in a time when women simply didn’t walk out on their husband and children and we soon learn that life in 1970s rural France is a very different place. Combine Adrienne’s story with that of Suzanne Rossignol’s tragic marriage in the aftermath of WW1 and we get a picture of two troubled women, separated by time, whose sympathetic connection will prove to be a salvation for one of them.

Set around Lyon, we are introduced to the community of characters who live at Sainte-Marie-du-Lacwho we met in the first book, Lake of Echoes, so it’s been really interesting to revisit the area again and meet again with a few of the characters however, this is very much Adrienne’s complex story. Beautifully evocative, and with a rather harrowing story at its core, the author brings the lives of women during the early, and mid-parts, of the twentieth century alive and creates a picture of complex marriages in which women had very little control over their own destiny. 

The author writes with such passion that both place and people come alive, so much so I read the book in one sitting as I wanted to discover more about this intriguing group of women. Whilst Lake of Widows can be read very much as a standalone story as with any series it is best to start at the beginning, you won’t be disappointed.

About the Author

Liza grew up in Australia where she worked as a general nurse and a midwife. When she met her French husband on a Bangkok bus, she moved to France, where she has been living with her family for thirty years, working as a medical translator and a novelist.

Several of her short stories have won awards, and been published in anthologies and small press magazines. Her articles on French culture are published in international magazines such as France Magazine, France Today and The Good Life France.

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