Review By Kayleigh
Venom Lake is a modern-day Desperate Housewives whodunnit that I devoured.
Favourite Quote:
As much as Marta enjoyed the book club soirées (that was putting it mildly; getting together with the Murder Mamas was the highlight of her social life every month), she wished it could just be her and Imogen tonight. Celeste and Bernie were great, of course, but they were newer friends, and they were Imogen’s friends first. And, if she was being honest with herself, Marta wasn’t ever sure where she stood with either of them.
Book Synopsis:
On a weekend getaway for their true-crime book club, four women retreat to the sole cottage on isolated Snakebite Island. But what was supposed to be a fun weekend of getting trashed on rosé and talking serial killers takes a dark turn when a member of the group is found dead on the shore. Murdered. By one of her supposed friends.
Under the surface, there’s turbulence in the group. Blackmail, affairs and addiction. Financial misconduct. A missing husband. All of the women are hiding dangerous secrets, but how far are they willing to go to keep them?
The murder creates a dilemma for the three surviving book club report the death and have their own lives shredded by an investigation or use their true-crime knowledge to stage their friend’s disappearance on the lake.
The consequences of their decision will ripple outwards, creating new risks and threatening to unravel their entire net of lies.
Review:
Oh God, this book is so fun! In the story, we meet Imogen, Bernie, Marta and Celeste, four friends/ frenemies who are in a book club together. Each woman has her own past and secrets that she holds to her chest. Everything seems copacetic until one of them dies during a weekend retreat. One of them is the murderer on this remote island they are staying at, but the other two have reasons not to want a murderer to come to life. What’s a group of true-crime-loving women to do?
This story is told through each woman’s POV as well as through the transcripts of a podcast called Filthy Funds, which is one character, Marta’s, favourite listen. I loved the multiple POVs. They were well constructed to move the story forward as well as develop each character. None of these women is a paragon of virtue, and each is terrible and flawed in their own way. I loved rooting for each of them while also kind of despising them each. It felt like I was watching a very toxic episode of The Real Housewives and made me yearn for the days Desperate Housewives was on TV.
This is a fast read; Emma’s impeccable plotting kept me turning pages long after I meant to. Everything mentioned in the book has meaning, and it was so fun to watch the four women’s lives twist and turn and finally knot into each other. This book is a master class in how much work a well-plotted book can be. Emma makes it look easy, but I’d love to see the diagrams she must have had to create in order to ensure hints were dropped at the right time through the story and perspectives. I loved realizing, after the fact, what some things meant. The addition of the podcast transcripts was a fun way to bring a medium that the women all love into the book, especially as the women’s crimes became a focus of the podcasters.
This is a book best read this summer on a dock with an icy cold drink nearby. However, it may not be the best “girls weekend” read, as you may find yourself sleeping with one eye open.
Thank you, Harper Collins Canada, for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
