Emerald Lake

Emerald Lake is a dual-timeline mystery and family saga set around a fictional Ontario lake, moving between the 1950s and the present day. It is narrated mainly by Jane Weber, an eighty-four-year-old widow dying of heart disease, and Officer Clair Mundy, a local police officer investigating human remains found in the swamp by Jane’s granddaughters. The book mixes gothic lake legend, buried crime, family trauma, class resentment, female friendship, and intergenerational reckoning.

The novel opens with the legend of the Lady of the Lake, a woman associated with loons, mist, grief, revenge, and drowned secrets. The old people say she appears first as a loon, then as a woman in white. She may be searching for her lost young, avenging destroyed eggs, mourning her mate, or haunting the lake until her own death is avenged. The prologue is narrated by this ghostly presence, who asks whether anyone can hear her call.

In the present, Jane is at Emerald Lodge for Thanksgiving with her daughter Jordan, Jordan’s awful husband Nate, their twin daughters Emma and Erin, and Jane’s lifelong friend Grace Colbert. Jane has been preparing to tell her family that she is gravely ill, but before she can speak, the twins return from Loon Cove with what looks like a bone. Nate, who once did two years of medical school and never lets anyone forget it, says it is human. The girls say they found more bones in the swamp. Jane instantly understands that the past has surfaced. She admits privately to the reader that she killed someone long ago and has no regrets.