How a Woman Becomes a Lake by Marjorie Celona

☆☆☆☆
ebook, 345 pages
Expected publication: March 3rd 2020 by Penguin Random House Canada and Hamish Hamilton
About the Book:
It's New Year's Day and the residents of a small fishing town are ready to start their lives anew. Leo takes his two young sons out to the lake to write resolutions on paper boats. That same frigid morning, Vera sets out for a walk with her dog along the lake, leaving her husband in bed with a hangover. But she never returns. She places a call to the police saying she's found a boy in the woods, but the call is cut short by a muffled cry. Did one of Leo's sons see Vera? What are they hiding from the police? And why are they so scared of their own father? In the months ahead, Vera's absence sets off a chain of reverberating events in Whale Bay. Her apathetic husband succumbs to grief. Leo heads south and remarries. And the cop investigating the case falls for Leo's ex-wife but finds himself slipping further away from the truth.

I'm not sure I've read any other book with such a spot-on appropriate title. The beauty of Miss Celona's novel is that while the circumstances might seem extraordinary, the characters are so utterly usual as to make them all believable. The true beauty of this novel is in its psychological pacing and character interactions.

This book is exquisite. It draws you in and takes you on the most incredible, extraordinary journey. Celona not only paints the lake, she makes you hear it, smell it and feel it. I felt so many emotions as I read through this book, it breaks your heart a bit and then heals it too. I swallowed it up in one sitting.

Thank you NetGalley, Marjorie Celona, Penguin Random House Canada and Hamish Hamilton for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an impartial review; all opinions are my own.

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