Lost Lake by Sarah Addison Allen was recommended by a friend and I'm glad; I might not have picked up this book otherwise. (It is the novel that follows WAKING KATE, a prequel ebook. I gave both 4 of 5 stars.)

This story fed my nostalgia for the days of resort "lake camps" nestled near small, friendly towns. I'd love to find this sort of place today. The novel is about relationships--among family, sweethearts, neighbors, and the people we might only see year after year at our favorite "lake camp." It's also about releasing the pain of the past in order to heal the present and create a promising future.

Kate Pheris comes from a long line of women who love too deeply in a co-dependent sort of way. But she is about to break that chain, in the same way her aunt broke it years ago. She doesn't yet realize this is the case, though her young daughter Devin does, nor does she realize her great-aunt Eby has succeeded in breaking that chain; Kate doesn't have a sense of family with her father dying when she was young and her mother never really recovering. For as long as she can remember it was the three of them, then just she and her mother, then she and her husband.

But he died exactly a year ago and Kate has been living in a fog, barely taking care of her very creative 8-year-old daughter with the help of Cricket, Kate's mother-in-law. She's allowed Cricket to talk Kate into moving in with her and helping in her successful real estate business. She's pliant, barely hearing the memory of how her husband had disliked his mother's "emotional tugs" used to close real estate deals. Devin has been holding onto her creativity as her grandmother tries to snap her out of it with the structure of a private school and the expectations of the life she raised her son in. So, when Devin finds an old postcard from Kate's long-lost great-aunt during the packing and moving, they decide to make a quick visit. Kate isn't even sure the Lost Lake resort is still around.

But they find it, almost by accident. Her Aunt Eby is in the process of retiring and seeking a buyer. Though she's canceled the summer's reservations, the old regulars show up for a final "goodbye" summer. In the midst of this, Kate reconnects with a boy, Wes, she had met on the one visit her family had made to Lost Lake, the summer before her father died. For both of them, the past needs to be healed and that healing is somehow tied with the present and Eby's plans to sell Lost Lake to a developer, Wes's uncle. But Devin's imaginary friend--a lake alligator--and the stories he occupies her with, point to events that happened the summer Wes and Kate became friends and the sad events that marred Wes's life afterward.

Everyone is working through the past--even the guests who arrive for their "goodbye" summer, who try to convince Eby to keep the place open. This summer at Lost Lake is becoming a last chance to heal broken hearts and relationships and move on to to better futures. Devin and her imaginary friend seem to hold the key not only for Wes and Kate, but for Eby, her partner in the camp, Lisette, and several of the guests.

This novel is beautifully written and incredibly engaging in a very different sort of way. The weaving of Eby and Lisette's past into the present tumultuous summer combine with the risks Kate is willing to make to set herself free, despite the painful realization of her relationships with both her mother and her husband and the desire to finally live her life for herself and with Devin's best interests at heart. Definitely read WAKING KATE first, then prepare to get caught up in a final situ met at LOST LAKE.