NetGalley | The Orphanage by the Lake

I received  a free digital ARC from the pubisher in exchange for an honest review.

Rating | 0 Stars forever and ever

Initial thoughts upon finishing this dumpster fire: Such a gorgeously gothic cover deserves a better plot, better writing, a better main character, and a twist that's actually a twist. Had the villains figured out pretty early on. Further confirmation that men can't write female leads.

But now, after sitting with this for a couple of days?

I am pissed as fuck. Truly, completely, irrevocably DISGUSTED that this was ever published. There will probably be spoilers because I am so angry as I type this, that I don't even care.

Long story short, Hazel is a 30-year-old PI down on her luck and months away from her business folding. Then one day filthy rich Madeline Hemsley breezes into Hazel's office and wants her to find a missing teen who disappeared from a local orphanage. Chaos ensues in the form of terrible writing, I was correct about the villains, there are obscene amounts of references to sexual violence at the end when all is 'revealed'. and basically I want to vomit.

Hazel was written so poorly and made to be SO insufferable - and top of THAT we get this thinly-veiled gross Asian-fetish-extremely-offensive representation bullshit happening. It's no wonder that her business is failing - she's a mess, is repeatedly unprofessional, complains about having no money and little income but is always late to meet with Madeline, and seems to lack any kind of expertise in her chosen field. She makes stupid mistakes, acts impulsively, and is irresponsible. Madeline gives her a week to solve the case with the promise of a huge payday if she does so, yet Hazel takes time out of her "busy" sleuthing schedule for dates with a dude she just met and she does not at all question how he just happened to pop up in her life when he did.

On top of all of that, she does literally nothing to protect herself while she is investigating, and is saved at the end only because her male roommate really did call the police when he didn't hear from her, something she told him to do kind of as a joke as she was leaving.

Seriously, when we first meet Hazel, she has an angry client who refuses to believe the evidence that his wife is cheating, and threatens Hazel over it. Then as she investigates the disappearance for Madeline, she is followed and accosted by two men with a knife, and she still just wanders around outside like a weirdo. No mace, no knife of her own, no gun, no apparent training of any kind to protect herself.

My biggest issue, however, is a man writing from the point of view of a woman, relaying HER experience being sexually assaulted.

ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NOT.

EVER.

Not only has Hazel experienced this trauma in her past, she shares it with with her new man, the one who she just happened to meet while she was poorly trying to sleuth at a fancy rich-people event. If your alarm bells are not yet ringing, you might be braindead.

BECAUSE, it turns out, he is (one of) THE BAD GUY(s) and is fully ready to assault her at the end when she has walked right into the lion's den and had no idea that's what she was really doing. It was one of the worst things I have ever read in my life and all the violence on top of the completely juvenile writing just made it The. Worst.

I can not understand how this book is rated so highly. I will never read another book by this man and I highly recommend you do not, either.