Deborah Lawrenson

Rich with description, this is not a book to be rushed; it is to be slowly savored. Reading The Lantern is like being immersed in a Alfred Hitchcock movie, a psychological mystery dark with secrets and evil undercurrents. There are 2 interwoven stories being told: Dom and Eve who buy a decaying farmhouse in Provence and begin restoring it and the other is the history of the family who once lived there; as seen through the eyes of one of the daughters, Benedictine. Dom and Eve are newly in show more love and are content to isolate themselves on the land, enjoying each other and the quiet which gives them time to indulge their talents; his as a musician and hers as a writer. As the year progresses and their relationship deepens, Eve begins to wonder why Dom won’t share his past with her. A chance meeting with a woman in town brings another level of mystery about Dom’s past and the questionable history of the farm.

The depth of the atmosphere Deborah Lawrenson created is almost a character in its self—the house as a living being. I read it at the end of the summer—during a muggy thunder and lightening storm that kept knocking out the electricity; my own experience pulling me deeply into their story and adding another layer of tension. Read an Advanced Reader Edition through Amazon Vine. Excellent 5 stars. show less

Every now and again you read a book and think, wow . . . excellent writing, realistic and incredible characters, wonderful settings and a great plot. Don't get me wrong, there are great books written and read every day. But there are also plenty of good books and not so good books as well. The Lantern by Deborah Lawrenson is one of the great books.

The writing is not only beautiful but beautifully evocative. Ms. Lawrenson paints pictures with words that capture the imagination and allow the show more reader to step inside of the story and walk alongside the characters. And we step inside the present with the story of Eve and Dom, and then we step into the past with Benedicte. Eve is a French to English translator. She falls in love with Dom and they relocate from the UK to France, pastoral northern France. Dom is, apparently, independently wealthy and they purchase and rehabilitate a farmhouse. Benedicte was born and raised in this farmhouse and the reader is invited to see the past through her story and memories. Eve isn't exactly naive but she does have a certain sense of naïveté about her, especially when it comes to Dom. She has the sense that something from his past is haunting his present and that it most likely is related to his ex-wife, Rachel. It doesn't help that the local realtor evidently met Rachel and suspects that something untoward happened to her. Her fears overshadow Eve's love and longing to build a life with Dom.

Benedicte is a typical farm girl. Although she longs for more, she knows that she must stay to help her family, especially since her older sister is blind and no longer living at home and their brother cannot be relied upon to help out. Over the years Benedicte has worked the land and kept up the farm/estate as best as she can but she has also suffered major disappointments (hopes for a career that never came to fruition and a lover that . . . disappointed her). In her old age, she reminisces and fears that she is losing her mind as ghostly visages torment her. She questions what really happened to her sister and why has she deserted her?

The Lantern is filled with psychological horror that gradually builds throughout the story. The reader and characters begin to question what is and isn't real, and suspect what has and hasn't happened to people from the past. As I've previously stated, the writing is truly beautiful and captures the reader from beginning to end. If you can appreciate beautiful prose, great scenery, and credible characters accompanied by subtle psychological horror, then The Lantern is just the book for you. show less

Rating: 3.875* of five

The Publisher Says: A modern gothic novel of love, secrets, and murder—set against thelush backdrop of Provence

Meeting Dom was the most incredible thing that had ever happened to me. When Eve falls for the secretive, charming Dom in Switzerland, their whirlwind relationship leads them to Les Genévriers, an abandoned house set among the fragrant lavender fields of the South of France. Each enchanting day delivers happy discoveries: hidden chambers, secret vaults, a show more beautiful wrought-iron lantern. Deeply in love and surrounded by music, books, and the heady summer scents of the French countryside, Eve has never felt more alive.

But with autumn’s arrival the days begin to cool, and so, too, does Dom. Though Eve knows he bears the emotional scars of a failed marriage—one he refuses to talk about—his silence arouses suspicion and uncertainty. The more reticent Dom is to explain, the more Eve becomes obsessed with finding answers—and with unraveling the mystery of his absent, beautiful ex-wife, Rachel.

Like its owner, Les Genévriers is also changing. Bright, warm rooms have turned cold and uninviting; shadows now fall unexpectedly; and Eve senses a presence moving through the garden. Is it a ghost from the past or a manifestation of her current troubles with Dom? Can she trust Dom, or could her life be in danger?

Eve does not know that Les Genévriers has been haunted before. Bénédicte Lincel, the house’s former owner, thrived as a young girl within the rich elements of the landscape: the violets hidden in the woodland, the warm wind through the almond trees. She knew the bitter taste of heartbreak and tragedy—long-buried family secrets and evil deeds that, once unearthed, will hold shocking and unexpected consequences for Eve.

My Review: Nameless Narratrix tells us the tale of woe of loving a man who did Something Awful. She tells us this while living in his Provencal hameau, which is haunted by some dead French people as well as a few living ones. The hameau is crumbling, with plaster and masonry all falling at random times and in random places. The house gives the new couple a gift or two, including an old iron lantern that figures into the sad life story of the last French proprietrix of the hameau. (Have you gone and looked up hameau yet, so I can stop typing the itals?)

There's an absent, though not known to be dead, wife; there's a tale of Love Gone Wrong; there's a lot of carryins-on about people disappearin' right left and through the middle for at least 40 years; there's misunderstanding piled onto miscommunication via idiotic refusals to ask or answer simple, direct, interrogative English-language sentences.

It's Rebecca meets The Horseman on the Roof set in modern times. I found it unspooky in the extreme. I also found it lushly beautifully crafted, line by line. It's gloriously good at evoking Provence, its people, and its tourist-based economy that replaced actual work producing actual, tangible objects. And it should be read with a glass of young and hearty red wine, a plate of orange-butter-herbes-de-Provence Christmas cookies, and a lover of one's preferred configuration at the ready to sate the appetites the book will awake.


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. show less

I love finding a novel that focuses on an aspect of World War II that I am not familiar with. In the present timeline, Nathan enlists the help of a reporter to delve into the mystery surrounding his adoption as a child. The World War II timeline centers on Portugal as the last refuge for Jews and citizens of neutral countries fleeing in advance of the German Army. Do you remember that Lisbon was the desired destination of all the characters in the movie Casablanca? Yes, there is mystery, show more there is romance, there is history, and of course, there are also spies! The story drew me in from the beginning, and I'm eager to read another book by Lawrenson. show less