Jane Hudson never thought she would return to Heart Lake. Her years there as a scholarship girl ended in a double tragedy. Now she is back, struggling to adjust to her new life teaching Latin and as a single mother. But the events that haunted her memories for so many years begin to recur in front of her eyes. It seems she alone can see what is happening, and only she will be able to prevent a second catastrophe. Surrounded by the lake that gives the school its name, steeped in history and overflowing with the emotions of teenage girls, Heart Lake guards its past - but cannot keep it hidden.

reserved for everybook vbb

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sent to Nikel27

Sorry that it took me long, but I wasn't able to read the BC-ID.

update:
Great read, thanks for sharing with me.

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Happy Birthday, enjoy the book plus exta's

Thanks so much Nikel for this special (and highly unexpected!) birthday present! I'm looking forward to trying the chocolate bars too. Yum! Thanks again! :)

Jane Hudson returns to teach Latin at her old high school, Heart Lake. Heart Lake is an all girls school set on a lake that has tales of drowning and suicide going back fifty years. When one of Jane's student tries to commit suicide, Jane starts seeing striking similarities between the students she is teaching and her own set of friends when she was in school. Twenty years ago, Jane's two roommates and one of her roommate's brother committed suicide. Jane starts to re-live this as the school tries to figure out why Jane's student tried to commit suicide.

The book reminds me of The Secret History by Donna Tartt. They both have school-based mysteries where not everything is as it seems. It is pretty easy to guess what is going on in this book, but it is quite a page turner as the reader tries to figure out why there were suicides 20 years ago, and why history is repeating itself.

I really hated two characters in this book: Domina Chambers, who I thought acted completely inappropriately as a teacher, and Dr. Lockheart who was a complete bitch. Even though it's hard to relate to the kids, and even to Jane, you can still keep enough of a connection with these characters to want to learn what happens to them.

The writing between the past and the present was pretty seamless and the descriptions used created quite a vivid picture. I'd be interested in reading more of Goodman's works.

I'm adding this to my birthday partner's birthday package!

Ahhh! Sorry Lauren! I haven't mad a journal entry yet. Thank you so much for the birthday package.

=]

Finished this last night. I actually quite liked it. It had slow moments, but there were a lot of aspects to Goodman's story that I appreciated, like is references to classic literature. I definitely could tell how the ending was going to be about halfway through, but I wasn't sure how Goodman would arrive to it. If you can push through some of the books dry spells, its definitely worth the read.