Frightful Friday is a weekly meme in which I feature a particularly scary or chilling book that I’ve read that week. Feel free to grab the button & join in!
This week’s featured book is: The Lantern by Deborah Lawrenson.
- Hardcover:400 pages
- Publisher:Harper (August 9, 2011)
- ISBN-10: 0062049690
- Source: Publisher
Set in the hills of Provence, The Lantern takes place in two time periods. The present: a young woman and an older man meet in a maze called the Labyrinth of the Five Senses on the shores of Lake Geneva. The attraction was quite immediate, a whirlwind relationship quickly ensues.
The gentleman’s name is Dom, that the reader is certain of. He refers to his young love as Eve, but she, the narrator, quickly reveals it is not her real name.
Eve leaves behind her life in London and the couple buys Les Genevriers, a home dating back to the 1600. The house requires a lot of work to restore it to the original glory, so the couple decides not to install phone or internet lines, relying on their cell phones with spotty coverage to communicate with the outside world.
Dom tells Eve early on that he is divorced. Eve attempts to learn about Dom’s ex-wife, Rachel, by asking questions about her every once in a while. Dom’s response is always somber, brief, not really revealing much of anything. While they talked about everything with one another, the topic of Dom’s ex-wife was one they never discussed.
When the couple runs into a woman who claims to recognize Dom, Dom becomes defensive. Eve can’t help but wonder the cause of this reaction but doesn’t dwell on it. Other things are on her mind, like the shadows she begins to see out of the corner of her eyes, the shapes out in the courtyard. And when Dom’s mood seems to change, almost overnight, Eve becomes wary in her new surroundings. Young women go missing, Dom’s mysterious behavior continues; she can’t help but begin to wonder if they are somehow connected.
The past: the previous occupant of the home, Benedicte, tells the story of her families struggle with poverty and tragedy. Hers isn’t a light and hopeful tale; stories of the abuse at the hands of her brother Pierre haunt her. The last living survivor of her family, she reveals the horrible tragedies that take place in their home.
It’s not long before the two women’s stories begin to converge. Two women, both devoting their entire hearts to the men the love. Benedicte was able to learn from her decisions. Is it Benedicte that is appearing to Eve in the night, warning Eve of her potential fate?
It isn’t until construction begins on the home that truth is revealed.
The Lantern is one of those books that you lose yourself in. Several occasions in my reading of the book, I’d sit down, only planning on reading a few chapters but end up becoming immersed in the story. Lawrenson’s artful writing quite literally paints a portrait before your eyes. The reader is immediately captured within the embrace of the fine writing, within the first few lines of the book:
Some scents sparkle and then quickly disappear, like the effervescence of citrus zest or a right note of mint. Some are strange siren songs of rarer origin that call from violets hidden in woodland, or irises after spring rain. Some scents release a rush of half-forgotten memories. And then there are the scents that seem to express truths about people and places you have never forgotten: the scents that make time stand still.
The gothic setting was another aspect of this book that gained my attention: a desolate home, removed from civilization by location and due to the lack of access to the outside world by way of the internet or telephone. The home was the scene of awful tragedy, adding to the overal dark feeling. An amazingly addictive gothic suspense, The Lantern is a book that I highly recommend.
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