Lake County: A Novel

4.1 | 717 ratings

Price: 4.99

Last update: 05-18-2024

About this item

Set in the 1950s, this thriller by Edgar Award–winning author Lori Roy reimagines the life of Marilyn Monroe, tying her fate to a dreamy teenager whose boyfriend runs afoul of the mob.

Desperate to break free of small-town Florida, Addie Anne Buckley dreams of following in the path of her glamorous aunt Jean—known to the world as Marilyn Monroe. When Aunt Jean plans a trip to Hollywood for Addie’s eighteenth birthday, Addie sees her chance to escape.

One thing stands in her way: her boyfriend. Truitt Holt is Addie’s first and only love and will be joining her in California. But days before Addie’s due to leave, Truitt does an about-face and gives her a painful ultimatum: stay and marry him, or they’re through. Addie chooses her dream.

Hurt and angry, Truitt unwittingly exposes the illegal bolita game he’s been running in mob territory. Now the Tampa Mafia is after him, and he has until midnight to cut a deal that will save his life and Addie’s. What he doesn’t know…his trouble with the mob has already found Addie and her family. She’s already in a fight for her life.

From the Publisher

Top reviews from the United States

Debbie Brooks

Such a great book! Highly recommend.

Reviewed in the United States on May 9, 2024

The book drew me right in from the start. The characters were so well described, I felt like I could actually know them.
The story was exciting and bittersweet at the same time. I was disappointed when it ended, because it kept me so entertained.

Penny J.

Kept my interest

Reviewed in the United States on May 7, 2024

I felt the book was slow at first but then i got hooked. It was a good story line and I felt like I wanted it to be true.

A. Sumner

meh

Reviewed in the United States on May 15, 2024

I mean, parts of this were hard to accept, and if you read as I do, critically, you’ll see what I mean.
Well-written and sometimes very suspenseful, this book was Meh to me.

Bethany T.

Well crafted timeline, could use a better conclusion

Reviewed in the United States on May 10, 2024

Very interesting and well crafted story. Its got a lot of action and many dire incidents stacking within a tightly choreographed timeline. Lots of deep insights. Sadly, there are a few problems within this novel. There's a repeated theme about changing a flat tire. Obviously the author writes about something she hasn't experienced first hand. In reality, the lug nuts need to be loosened before jacking up the car or else the tire is just going to spin. Yes, you do jump on the lug wrench to do this, all of it was correct except the sequence of events would probably be impossible to complete with a manual lug wrench as it was written. Also, there's quite a bit of explicit language, particularly the f-word. In the 1950s in the South especially, use of that word doesn't support the overall way that Wiley was characterized. That would have been very shocking language for the time and place, and rarely used by upstanding elected members of society (LBJ perhaps was a notable exception, but typically people would have been shocked and offended by that word).

The biggest issue is both the strength and weakness of this book: basing a fictional novel on a real celebrity. The novel is generally more engrossing and interesting because the reader already knows about Marilyn Monroe, how she looked, the sound of her voice...perhaps knows more sordid details of her life and death. So this character is already developed quite solidly in the mind of the reader, and the author does a lovely job of depicting her nuances and instabilities. Something feels generally disrespectful about taking a real person and writing a fiction about her being involved in a murder. It was also an interesting choice to have the mafia so involved in the storyline, yet without fictional Marilyn being connected in any facet with this fictional mob. Also, despite the author clearly relying on readers familiarity with Monroe...there is no August 5th in the fictional calendar. Too many books these days have nice tidy happy endings, with epilogues spanning years, even decades. A stronger ending would not break from the timeline of the body of the work; a stronger ending might even be abrupt in a phase of transition (think Steinbeck, although many many authors in the early to mid century used this style). An appropriate ending would not rewrite history in the way it was done here. It's one thing to take license with details of a few days in the life of a celebrity, it's another thing entirely to take license with their death, especially when that death falls well outside of the timeframe for the body of the narrative.

I will still give this 5 stars for being such a well crafted and insightful book. It was good reading. Horrible conclusion, and a few minor issues, but overall excellent.

Mike

Good Read!!

Reviewed in the United States on May 12, 2024

Good Read!!

Klapaucjusz

What could have happened to Marilyn Monroe.

Reviewed in the United States on May 4, 2024

The action takes place in 1950s in a small Florida town. The main heroine is 18 years old Adi who dreams of following in the steps of her famous aunt. And the aunt is…. Marilyn Monroe. I have to make it clear at this point that all events happening to Marilyn Monroe in this story are the work of fiction. But description of her unique personality seems real and it is fascinating to see how the life of Marilyn could be different from the real one.
There is plenty of colorful characters in the story and plot has many layers, it involves a romance, a murder, a mafia, a family and friendship interconnections and secrets.

What I loved about this book is that all the above elements are in perfect mixture and are not overdone. The romance is not too cheesy, the descriptions of murders are not too gory and, despite multiple problems, the characters do not indulge in navel gazing.

It is a perfect adventure book which kept me glued to the pages from the beginning to the end. And I loved the ending.

Kindle Customer

A great story -- and beautiful idea of what might have been

Reviewed in the United States on May 15, 2024

Ms Roy takes the little we know of M
arilyn Monroe's back-story and weaves a great read -- with romance, drama and mystery.

Sandy K

A fast paced mystery that will keep you reading warp-speed!

Reviewed in the United States on May 12, 2024

Thoroughly enjoyed this “hard to put down” fictional story of a Hollywood starlet & her life both in the fast lane & and in a slow paced town in Florida. The story line involving the gangster presence in Tampa at the time of this setting was realistic & pretty much reflected stories I’ve heard since moving to the area of over 50 years ago. Well done Ms Roy????????????

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