I was able to guess who the killer was about halfway through the book but that did not stop me from enjoying the rest of the story! I loved the alternating timelines between the present and the past. ( )

I have read most of Kimberly Belle's books and have enjoyed all of them, including this one. Stranger In The Lake is so much more than an "is her husband a good guy or bad guy?" theme. Charlotte (Charlie) comes from the poor side of town, is swept away by Paul's charm, and married in what must have been a whirlwind romance (we meet them after they've been married over a year.)
Charlie is newly pregnant, and Paul is ecstatic. He's older, widowed, and very wealthy.
The story begins when Charlie finds a woman's dead body under their dock... eerily similar to Paul's first wive's death.
I kept changing my mind as to who I thought was behind these deaths, right up until the end. Even when the "bad guy" is revealed, there are still more twists and turns afterward which keeps the intensity of the book going right to the last page.
I loved that Charlie didn't need a man on a white horse to rush in a rescue her, and I especially loved the bond between her and her brother, Chet.
Another great psychological suspense read from this author!
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An Appalachian murder mystery. Poor girl from the wrong side of town marries rich guy with buried secrets. I enjoyed the read. ( )

I’m a huge fan of stories about marriages full of secrets, and this novel is chock-full of them. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for Charlotte, the sweet, trusting second wife of successful architect Paul, as her fears and suspicions blew out of control in the aftermath of the gruesome discovery beneath their dock. STRANGER IN THE LAKE is loaded with unexpected twists and revealing backstory that will hold you in its grip all the way to the end. ( )

Present killings connected to events a long time ago that swirl back and forth very nicely. Readers will be kept busy guessing who did what and when. Ultimately a very satisfying whodunit. ( )

tbh I knew it wasn't going to be good from the beginning but I don't like to DNF books. anyway, it was predictable and i hated everybody and the characters weren't even 2d, they were like 1d, and it wasn't the worst book I've ever read but there wasn't really anything i liked about it, either. also loved how there was only one sentence in the entire book that mentioned racial inequality (it was like the tenth to last page, too) even though half of it was about corrupt cops, socioeconomic differences (kinda?), and guilty people walking free. that was sarcasm i hated that. ( )

Another great Kimberly Belle novel....just a tiny, tiny bit of a gulp at the ending...FINE, but....... ( )

The Good Life. This book has a few intriguing storylines deeper than the primary mystery - which itself is compelling and very well told. One of which I know well the temptation of, because I'm actively living a version of it. (Though in my version, I didn't marry into it but instead created it for myself.) And here the subtle commentary (well, in some cases not quite so subtle) is pretty spot on in my own experience in a similar region (a small Southern US town on the shores of a large lake). Still, the commentary is (again, mostly) subtle enough that if you didn't live that life, you might not catch just how true it rings, and instead the focus of the tale is the central mystery of the description: who is this stranger, how did she get in the lake, why are so many bodies being found in this lake, and why do they all seem to be connected to Charlotte's husband? Very well told and with Belle's usual swerves even until the last pages, this is one you're going to want to pick up. Very much recommended. ( )

Initially when I started reading it, I thought it was going to be amazing but finally it ended up being just okay for me.

The atmospheric setting was good and obviously finding a stranger’s dead body in the water under your dock is creepy. The secrets, suspicions as well as the investigation were all great.

But I just couldn’t connect with Charlotte’s character and the ending was somewhat predictable.
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Charlotte is from the poor side of town, and she is thrilled to marry older, wealthy, charming Paul, whose first wife tragically drowned. When another woman is found drowned in the same place as Paul's wife, she starts to wonder if something more is going on.

I would have liked to see some more depth in these characters. In the end, I found Paul's mom to be one of the most interesting, and sadly she's not in the book that much. ( )

I really enjoy Kimberly Belle’s thrillers, and this was no exception. I read it in one long sitting.
Charlotte (Charlie) grew up poor in a trailer park with a drug addicted mother, and caring for her baby brother. However, all her dreams came true when she met Paul, a wealthy architect. Now married to Paul, she is living an idyllic life until one morning when she finds a body floating under their dock. This is the second woman to be found dead in the lake under their dock. The first woman was Paul’s first wife, Katherine.
Strangely, these aren’t the only 2 bodies that have been found in the lake. Another was Skeleton Bob, a local drug dealer found in his old Camaro at the bottom of the lake. Are these three bodies connected? If so, how?
Charlotte’s husband begins acting very erratically, and now Charlotte doesn’t know whether or not she can believe him.
Adding to her suspicions is the way Paul’s friends are behaving- Batty Jax and Lake Hunter Micah. Sam, Charlie’s old friend, is cold towards her, telling Charlie she shouldn’t have married Paul. Diana, Paul’s mother, has never truly warmed to Charlie.
Charlie turns to her brother, Chet, for help - but he hasn’t told her the whole truth either.
As Charlotte tries to discover the truth, she learns more than she expected, turning her world upside down and putting herself in great danger.
The novel keeps the tension level high, and keeps you guessing, but I definitely had my suspicions of who committed the murders. It turns out I did guess correctly, but I didn’t guess the reason. So the reason behind the motive for the murders was definitely a surprise!
I am looking forward to the next Kimberly Belle novel.
#StrangerInTheLake #Kimberly Belle ( )

What happens when the girl from the wrong side of the tracks falls in love and marries the man from the right side of the tracks in a small town? He comes with secrets and a dead ex-wife, she comes from a horrible background and the whole town is watching and talking. Enter a pretty stranger that is going to blow the top off of a cold case. Not the one you might think.

I’m a huge Kimberly Belle fan. Love her writing, plot twists, story lines. This wasn’t my favorite though. But, it was an enjoyable thriller and held my attention. I did find this read more straight forward, figuring out the ‘Who Done Its’ pretty early. The descriptive scenery is top notch...beautiful and scary at the same time. The relationships described between friends and family members is excellent. I thought the character development was excellent, revealing to us a little at a time, the true nature of the characters.

Thanks to Ms Belle, Harlequin, and NetGalley for this ARC. Opinion is mine alone. ( )

This is the third book I have read by Kimberly Belle; I loved her last one “Dear Wife”. It pains me to admit that I had a difficult time getting into this one as the narrative in the beginning was drawn out with the main female protagonist Charlie (aka Charlotte) spending an inordinate amount of time just waiting in her house trying to figure out what was going on with her husband Paul and his friends. Once the story started moving, it got better although I figured out what who the murderer was about halfway through, and accurately anticipated some of the plot twists.

I would have loved to see the characters more developed. The whole story of the friendship among Paul, Jax, and Micah, in my opinion, needed to have been developed more in the flashbacks. And Sam was, regretfully, really underutilized.

It isn’t a bad book; it just left me wanting more from it. Her last book, “Dear Wife”, set a really high bar. ( )

A new husband, Paul, a dead body in the lake, and Paul leaving on a hiking trip?

What should Charlotte think about all of this especially since she saw her husband talking to the dead woman yesterday, and he denies he knows her? And to top it all off, Paul tells her to lie to the police about where he went.

The body is in the same place that Paul's first wife was found four years ago.

Every time their neighbor, Micah, stops by Charlotte gets nervous because he is part of the police force. She is worried and angry at Paul because she might mess up and say something she shouldn’t. Why did he leave and make her deal with all of this alone?

There was a lot of gripping tension for Charlotte and for me as I read. I would have been pretty nervous about the lies, and I wondered why Paul asked her to lie if he had nothing to hide. What did Charlotte get herself into by marrying Paul?

The apprehension mounts as you turn the pages and find out the secrets everyone has been keeping for years in this town.

STRANGER IN THE LAKE is about more than the stranger in the lake. It is about the lengths people go to in order to keep themselves out of trouble.

Hang on to your hats - Ms. Belle has done it again!!

You won’t be able to put down this twisty, surprise-filled, keeping-you-guessing-until-the-end book.

ENJOY!! 5/5

This book was given to me by the publisher via NETGALLEY in exchange for an honest review. ( )

Full review here: http://girlwellread.blogspot.com/2020/06/stranger-in-lake-by-kimberly-belle.html. ( )

Stranger in the Lake is an entertaining thriller about murder, long-hidden secrets and old and new lies in a small Appalachian town. If you look hard enough, every character has a connection to every other character, and nothing is what it appears to be at first glance. Old grudges hang on, and you can’t always successfully cross from the wrong side of town to the right side.

There is a rich cast of characters. Paul seems like a good man who’s found love and happiness again after losing his first wife. Charlotte loves Paul and feels protected and safe in his wealth after her anything but easy childhood. They are surrounded by Charlotte’s brother Chet, Paul’s childhood friends Micah and Jax, Paul’s mother, Micah’s police chief father, Charlotte’s old friend Sam from the days she was just Charlie. And then a mysterious women comes to town and begins to shake things up. Until she is found floating in the lake. Paul was accused and exonerated of killing his first wife, but this death is nearly identical. Is there really any such thing as a coincidence?

I had a hard time rating this book. On the one hand it was a gripping story and once I started reading I didn’t want to stop. Author Kimberly Belle’s writing style flows smoothly and is easy to read. On the other hand, although there was a large cast of characters, it seemed like their stories dropped off just as they were getting interesting. The narrative switched from Charlotte’s telling of current events to Jax’s story from 1999, the summer before the boys were to go to college. The switch wasn’t always very smooth and at times it took a minute to place a character from the past in the present.

As soon as the body was discovered there was a sense of danger and uncertainty surrounding Charlotte and she began to question what she really knew about Paul and his past. What caused my difficulty in reviewing and rating was that the mystery and actual events were pretty easy to figure out early on in the story. My desire to read on through was more to see how the author would wrap things up than to learn who did what.

This is the first book I have read by this author and I do recommend it and will read more of what she writes. It’s a good read and the deep dive into the psychological motives of the characters is very interesting. Thanks to the author and publisher for providing an advance copy of Stranger in the Lake via NetGalley for my honest review. All opinions are my own. ( )