THE DEEPEST LAKE
In this atmospheric thriller set at a luxury memoir-writing workshop on the shores of Lake Atitlán, Guatemala, a grieving mother goes undercover to investigate her daughter’s mysterious death.
Rose, the mother of 20-something aspiring writer Jules, has waited three months for answers about her daughter’s death. Why was she swimming alone when she feared the water? Why did she stop texting days before she was last seen? When the official investigation rules the death an accidental drowning, the body possibly lost forever in Central America’s deepest lake, an unsatisfied Rose travels to the memoir workshop herself. She hopes to draw her own conclusion–and find closure.
In this atmospheric thriller set at a luxury memoir-writing workshop on the shores of Lake Atitlán, Guatemala, a grieving mother goes undercover to investigate her daughter’s mysterious death.
Rose, the mother of 20-something aspiring writer Jules, has waited three months for answers about her daughter’s death. Why was she swimming alone when she feared the water? Why did she stop texting days before she was last seen? When the official investigation rules the death an accidental drowning, the body possibly lost forever in Central America’s deepest lake, an unsatisfied Rose travels to the memoir workshop herself. She hopes to draw her own conclusion–and find closure.
When Rose arrives, she is swept into the curious world created by her daughter’s literary hero, the famous writing teacher Eva Marshall, a charismatic woman known for her candid–and controversial–memoirs. As Rose uncovers details about the days leading up to Jules’s disappearance, she begins to suspect that this glamorous retreat package is hiding ugly truths. Is Lake Atitlan a place where traumatized women come to heal or a place where deeper injury is inflicted?
Perfect for fans of Delia Owens, Celeste Ng, and Julia Bartz, The Deepest Lake is both a sharp look at the sometimes toxic, exclusionary world of high-class writing workshops and an achingly poignant view of a mother’s grief.
- Soho Crime
- Hardcover
- May 2024
- 384 Pages
- 9781641295604
Buy the Book
$26.95
About Andromeda Romano-Lax
Praise
“Atmospheric, psychological, and surprising, The Deepest Lake mines the depths of mother-daughter relationships and the risks we take in the name of creativity. With humor and lush language, Andromeda Romano-Lax has created a taut suspense story . . . I finished this book wanting to call my mom and tell her how much I loved her.” —Caitlin Wahrer, author of Edgar Award finalist The Damage
“Pulls you into its depths from page one . . . A tense and compelling story of the bonds between women as profound as the lake at its heart.” —Melissa Adelman, author of What the Neighbors Saw
“Welcome to the memoir workshop from hell. In dual timelines, a young writer looks for creative inspiration in a dangerous paradise and a mother searches for answers about her daughter’s last days. I relished this insider’s look at the glittering, intimate, and sometimes toxic world of writing retreats. The Deepest Lake is a gripping yet thoughtful novel about overcoming trauma, meeting our inheritance, and what happens when we seize the power to rewrite our own stories.” —Alison B. Hart, author of The Work Wife
Praise for Andromeda Romano-Lax
“Riveting.” —People
“Will keep you mesmerized to the last page.” —Christian Science Monitor
“Shocking and thought-provoking . . . The intimate struggles of a woman weighing her value, utility, and satisfaction both within and outside the home certainly resonate today.” —The Boston Globe
“On its most powerful level, the book is a hyperactive psychological thriller, exploring the enduring damage done by childhood trauma and the need to mine and process it to become healthy, and the various ways in which victims do so . . . A highly imaginative and compelling read.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune
“An engaging read which will not only entertain you but also teach you a great deal about these giants in the history of psychology, and the ethics of those times, which we now see as abhorrent.” —Psychology Today
“When this story grabs hold of you, and it will, there will be no setting it down until you’ve finished the last page. A morally complex, genre-shattering thriller.” —Eowyn Ivey, New York Times bestselling author of To the Bright Edge of the World
“Romano-Lax’s brilliantly conceived characters, delicate exploration of abuse and childhood trauma, and examination of vengeance and its power to heal will entrance from the very first page. Her latest is a tour de force that will appeal to a wide variety of readers.” —Library Journal, Starred Review
“Daring and imaginative Romano-Lax puts another provocative spin on historical fiction as she has both Ruth McClintock, a struggling small-town Minnesota historian, and her obsession, sharpshooter Annie Oakley, take turns narrating in this highly original time-warping tale . . . As she illuminates Oakley’s extraordinary life, Romano-Lax conjures supernatural dimensions in pursuit of psychological revelations, grapples with the sexual predation of ‘wolves’ and the muzzle of shame, and dramatizes the slipperiness of memory and history, creating a compassionate, heady, and witty whirl of fact and insight, mesmerizing characters and suspenseful predicaments.” —Booklist, Starred Review