Hazel wants a new life.

She’s thirty years old, single, and her private investigation business is months away from folding.

Her luck takes a turn when Madeline Hemsley, a mysterious socialite, pays Hazel a visit with an offer too enticing to resist. An orphan girl has disappeared from a children’s home—The Orphanage By The Lake, as the locals call it—and Madeline wants Hazel to find her.

At first glance, it appears to be a standard runaway case, but as Hazel plunges into the investigation, she finds signs of something more: unexplained blood stains, cryptic symbols, sinister figures shadowing her every move. The more she digs, the more she realizes that The Orphanage By The Lake holds terrifying secrets, and even worse…

…so does Madeline.

Kindle | 40 Chapters + Epilogue | 300 pages | 2.5 Hour Read

🌟🌟🌟.5

This is another book I got in my short lived kindle spree. The premise sounded interesting enough and though similar, I think, to a lot of other ‘firsts in a series’ I decided to give this one a go.

The book follows PI Hazel, a Korean woman raised in a strict household who is a disappointment to her family because of her career choice. Her business is failing, she’s got debts, she’s lost the love of her job. Right at the tip of things she meets Madeline who tasks her in finding Mia, her goddaughter. Through the book we get the additional characters of Kenny, Hazel’s roommate who is studying to be a police officer, Andrew, the rich socialite with no job and bad cooking skills, Thomas Mackenzie the headmaster, Sonia the school administrator, and Bobby the local police.

It is an interesting group of characters who stand side by side in the book. I did feel a slight disconnect with the characters however, just a sort of niggling feeling that what I was reading wasn’t quite right – you could say my unconscious mind worked things out a little quicker than my conscious mind.

I think I spent a lot of time reading this and waiting for the other shoe to drop. The investigation into finding Mia is one dead end after another and while all the characters had the set up to be the culprit, there were less red herrings and more pointless dead ends that for me, felt a little sour.

However, from a constructional plot point of view, the truth of the crime was well hidden and I failed to 100% correctly guess what was going to be revealed in the climax. I had worked some bits and pieces out but the mechanics of it had alluded me.

I found the character of Hazel to be down on her luck. She didn’t particularly come across as strong or independent. There are TW mentions in her backstory but while I was reading this I didn’t feel that it connected me to the character in any way. I’m not sure if this was down to the writing style or the character herself.

Andrew and Kenny are sort of the two opposite sides of a coin in Hazel’s eye of attraction. Andrew is very pleasing to look at and treats her in a way she is unaccustomed. Kenny is shy and sweet and clearly has a crush on Hazel. I think I’d prefer Hazel to have a connection with Kenny because I see him as a more long-term character and I remained unsure about Andrew through the read.

There are a lot of lies in this plot. Lies from Madeline, lies from the police, lies from the school, lies from pretty much everyone. It had the potential to be confusing but I rather found it a little lacklustre. Some of the lying was predictable and fell short of the intensity I wanted.

I was originally going to give this 4 stars but with the lacklustre feel I had while reading, I’ve put it down to 3.5. There wasn’t anything inherently wrong with this book and it has good reviews on both Amazon and Goodreads. It just wasn’t the right concoction for me to sink my teeth into. I think it was tamer than I am used to and with certain aspects feeling too predictable, it hampered my ability to enjoy the experience.