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  • Stillhouse Lake

  • Stillhouse Lake, Book 1
  • Written by: Rachel Caine
  • Narrated by: Emily Sutton-Smith
  • Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
  • 4.3 out of 5 stars (240 ratings)

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Stillhouse Lake cover art

Stillhouse Lake

Written by: Rachel Caine
Narrated by: Emily Sutton-Smith
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Publisher's Summary

An Amazon Charts and USA Today bestseller.

Gina Royal is the definition of average—a shy Midwestern housewife with a happy marriage and two adorable children. But when a car accident reveals her husband’s secret life as a serial killer, she must remake herself as Gwen Proctor—the ultimate warrior mom.

With her ex now in prison, Gwen has finally found refuge in a new home on remote Stillhouse Lake. Though still the target of stalkers and Internet trolls who think she had something to do with her husband’s crimes, Gwen dares to think her kids can finally grow up in peace.

But just when she’s starting to feel at ease in her new identity, a body turns up in the lake—and threatening letters start arriving from an all-too-familiar address. Gwen Proctor must keep friends close and enemies at bay to avoid being exposed—or watch her kids fall victim to a killer who takes pleasure in tormenting her. One thing is certain: she’s learned how to fight evil. And she’ll never stop.

©2017 Rachel Caine LLC (P)2017 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved

What the critics say

A Goodreads Choice Award Finalist, Mystery & Thriller

"In this rapid-fire thriller...Caine spins a powerful story of maternal love and individual self-realization."—Publishers Weekly

"Stillhouse Lake is a true nail-biter right up to the end."—Fresh Fiction

What listeners say about Stillhouse Lake

Average Customer Ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
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    127
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    29
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Performance
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Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Great Read

Really enjoyed this book. Had a few twists and turns that I did not see coming. Great stand-alone book but I definitely look forward to listening to the second one. Very excited to see where these characters go from the ending of this great novel.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Fantastic!

Love love love this series!
From the very first chapter you are absolutely immersed in this intense thriller!
Be sure to grab the sequel, Killman Creek as well.
Wishing this would be a tv series!
#Audible1

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Bad reading or bad sound editing?

Loved the story! Kept me interested right to the end. The narrator sound like it was read more from some artificial intelligence or text to speech software. It was a tone that would be hard to do so I suspect it may be just some bad sound editing. The other bad thing was it was written in first person so it was never very clear what was being spoken and what was being thought.

But overall, I found it a very good listen and I look forward to listening to the next novel. Hopefully the narration will be better.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Very Robotic narration

I struggled to keep listening. The narrator was very robotic. Thought I was listening to Alexa reading the book. The story was good, but didn't like that the whole book was told by the Main character.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Great Listen

If you like the genre this is an easy, quick listen. I was totally absorbed in the story and can’t wait to move on to the next book. Narrator was crisp and moved through characters flawlessly. The only thing that bugged me was when Gina/Gwen would use the term ‘baby’ when speaking to her kids, I think with the narrator’s proper-ish tone it didn’t really feel quite right, I guess it could be considered more of a pet peeve type thing for me and so I didn’t dock a star.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
  • SYL
  • 2018-05-26

good read

very twisted story but entertaining....
too much development of the 1st character, all the action is at the end

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Enjoyable

Enjoyed the story- solid crime/detective aspects. The narrator was VERY articulate, sometimes causing her to sound a bit robotic at times which was distracting.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars

good read

Very good story, opens your eyes to how little chance anyone has in getting off the grid these days with the power of internet

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Superb storyline

This book is my favourite listen this year. I ate out of the authors hand, I was always a step behind.

The character development was wonderfully crafted.

Narration was perfection.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars
  • K
  • 2023-06-06

Great book

I really enjoyed this. I didn’t find it had a big twist which was disappointing but it was still a really good book. I would listen again.

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  • shelley
  • 2017-07-02

Outstanding book! A must for suspense lovers...

This is an excellent book. The suspense is palpable and the build up is superb. This story is so realistic and so believable and so frustrating! My heart goes out to this woman even knowing that she is only a figment of the author's imagination.
Here she is happily going about her life not knowing that her husband is a serial killer. When the truth comes out accidentally she is called his helper and put on trial as an accomplice. She is acquitted but it doesn't matter to the townspeople or the internet stalkers, all those who believe she truly is guilty.
She changes her name, learns how to handle a gun and begins moving from place to place trying to stay anonymous. Somehow she keeps being tracked down and her ex husband continues to send her letters from behind bars.
When first one then a second body turns up at the lake she is living on, she once again finds herself the center of attention and a suspect in the murders.
This is an author I will definitely watch for new books.
Emily Sutton-Smith does a fabulous job narrating.
This book has my HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION!
If you found this review helpful please indicate so.
Thank You.

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373 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars
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  • Patti L
  • 2017-07-18

Too much

Too much goriness
Too much repetition
Leaves you hanging at the end ( sounds like the start of a series)
And did I say too much repetition of the same gory scene description.

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280 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars
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  • shopinshop
  • 2017-07-13

Am I the only one...?

After reading the reviews I decided to use a very precious credit for this book. In particular, several reviewers commented positively on the narrator. Am I the only that struggled with the narration? Ms. Sutton-Smith's voice is good, but the cadence felt all wrong to me. Certain sentences, or sometimes just words spoken too slowly and with a sharp enunciation that felt robotic. It just felt odd that it would randomly happen. I found it distracting to the story. Perhaps it was due to editing more than the narrator?
The story itself was decent and the characters were believable. The heroine was a strong woman and a helluva mother. The family dynamics rang true and the author definitely did well there.
Well played plot twists, and nice suspense.
Overall, a decent use of a credit.

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194 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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  • Jennifer Toney
  • 2017-09-22

Boring. dumb. Sooooo drawn out save your money

This book was insanely boring. Not only was the narrator completely monotone for 13 hours the story kept repeating itself. Every chapter was the same paranoid character talking about saving her kids and hiding. There was zero drama, very little plot and incredibly repetitive dialogue. I kept waiting for it to get better and it came up beyond short. Definitely NOT recommending.

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188 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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  • friendlykitty
  • 2017-09-20

imagine Capt. Kirk as a cheerleader

Struggled to finish. The narrator sounded like a female Captain Kirk. The main character spent the whole book talking herself up while making unrealistic and often stupid decisions.

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142 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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  • marchon
  • 2017-10-19

How does this book have so many stars?

After reading many of the positive reviews I decided to purchase and listen to Stillhouse Lake. I was so excited with the Summary being right up my alley. Wish I could take that back, I am so disappointed! I feel like the narrator didn't have much to work with, the story was ridiculous, I almost stopped listening half way through but decided to push on hoping it would get better. It dragged on and on until, FINALLY, something happened and then left us at a cliff hanger..... The author did not use the intro to really introduce anything and the middle was so boring only the end did anything really happen and then she left us on a cliff hanger? CMON this boring book does not need to be stretched into two! One instance I can remember rolling my eyes is when the main character all worked up asked the man she was sorta dating if he had a gun and to watch her kids. She had initially met this character at a shooting range and knew he was ex military.... like hello yes he has a gun am I the only one keeping up? It felt so forced to me, the whole book. Felt like the author forced an awkward love interest into the book; and that she did little to no research on guns the way she kept repeating the same safety rule like a broken record. Seriously she explained that a gun had to be facing away with the chamber up probably 4 times throughout the book. Save your credit this is not a psychological suspense thriller.

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122 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars
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  • Julie
  • 2017-07-29

Like listening to Siri reading a book to you.

What did you like best about Stillhouse Lake? What did you like least?

I almost returned this book immediately, but I was on a road trip and had nothing else to listen to. The narrator talks in a monotone. It's like listening to Siri reading a book to you. It's hard to see past the terrible performance, but really the story wasn't very good either. None of the characters were believable, and there was no suspense. How is this a best seller?

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85 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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  • Wayne
  • 2017-07-04

Incredible level of sustained suspense!

For those who like psychological suspense thrillers Stillhouse Lake is a must listen. The book was a Kindle First choice for May 2017. I read it then and anxiously awaited the audio book. Rachel Caine has been writing books for nearly two decades. Stillhouse Lake is the first novel of hers that I have enjoyed. Emily Sutton-Smith's narration is flawless.

I repeat, this novel is and outstanding psychological thriller with lots of action and sustained suspense so strong as to be incredible. It is also a great mystery novel. It is a MUST LISTEN NOVEL.

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62 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars
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  • Chip Atkinson
  • 2017-07-17

Fast Paced Thriller, Ingenious Web of Deceit

The wife and children of a serial killer find themselves on the run after he is discovered and arrested. It seems no one believes his wife is innocent, including police, familes of the victims, the media and, most dangerous of all, hackers.

This is a fast paced suspense novel with ingenious twists. The characters are well developed and the plot is well conceived.

Emily Sutton-Smith is excellent.

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58 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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  • Annie Detroit, Kindle Customer
  • 2017-07-01

Wow! I LOVED this book and audio book!

With my long time love, Patricia Cornwell, of Scarpetta fame, struggling to get back on her feet after a couple yawners, I was thrilled to find Rachel Caine's pistol packin' Mama blast onto the literary scene, with kids and dog in tow . Emily Sutton Smith is a great addition to the written work, and not wanting to spoil anything, I'll just say, "Read it, you'll LOVE it!"

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38 people found this helpful