#bookreview: The Ghost at Retreat Lake by Dan Rix

The Ghost At Retreat Lake by Dan Rix
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Fresh out of the crazy, unnerving, time looping events in A Strange Machine, Iris, Cory and Noah watch with horror as a future Iris Strasser crawls out of the machine and dies in front of their eyes.
Still, Cory Holland, like the annoying prick he is, insists that they go for the senior class lake retreat, because... it will be extremely fun.

Except it's not. A series of close calls and strange happenings further unnerve Iris Strasser, and it's all she can do to convince Cory to stop ogling girls and flirting to listen to her concerns. However, Cory's not as clueless as he pretends to be - even whilst he's enjoying himself zip-lining and swimming (and annoying Iris), he's also trying to work through the events to figure out just what's happening with the Chronos and the strange codes he's found.
Getting the two of them to work together is a huge problem - one that may end up in both of their deaths. But that's not enough. If they don't get Anneliese Faye's cooperation, they may never solve the mystery of the ghost at retreat lake.

Reading The Ghost at Retreat Lake had me confused at times - it honestly felt as if there were dual story lines, or at least dual versions of Cory in the book. Part of it, I suppose, was because of the extremely opposite viewpoints used - between Iris' perception of Cory and his own perception of himself, I was beginning to wonder whether the timeloop had created another version of Cory! There didn't seem to be a similar duality with Iris though. Maybe because Iris sees herself more clearly than Cory does?

Rix again shows his mastery at meshing seemingly random and unrelated events and story lines so that they begin to make sense - and he addresses at least one concern I had from the first book - Edgar Faye. (One thing I'm hoping very hard does not happen though is this burgeoning "romance" thing between Cory and Iris. It's just no no no no no, you are NOT right for each other.)

Of course, he just *has* to end at a cliff hanger and ask you to wait for book three...

I received a pre-release copy of this book in exchange for an honest review


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