Stillhouse Lake (Book 1) – Rachel Caine

There’s “my husband’s kind of a jerk,” and then there’s “a drunk driver just crashed into our garage and revealed my husband’s secret murder lab.” Gina Royal, bless her heart, was living the Pinterest mom dream — two kids, a nice house, a husband who liked woodworking. Except the “projects” in his “garage” were corpses.

So yeah. That’ll ruin your week.

Turns out Melvin Royal is a full-blown serial killer who’s been using the family garage as his kill zone. Gina, completely unaware, gets arrested because her gossiping neighbor claims she saw her “carrying a body.” She didn’t. But justice moves slower than dial-up, so Gina spends time being interrogated and publicly shredded before she’s finally acquitted.

Now free but infamous, she uses the money Melvin conveniently hid away (ew) to start over with her kids, Brady and Lily — now renamed Connor and Lanny — because apparently witness protection wasn’t hiring. They move constantly to escape internet trolls and victim families who think she was in on it. Imagine trying to do school drop-off when half the internet wants you dead.

By the time we meet her again, she’s Gwen Proctor, living at the deceptively peaceful Stillhouse Lake. A small-town dream… if you ignore the trauma, paranoia, and the fact that the local police think she’s one Google search away from snapping.

Then chaos resumes. Atlanta (Lanny) gets suspended. Connor “loses” his phone. A local cop named Officer Graham conveniently “finds” it (red flag, party of one). Soon after, a body surfaces in the lake. And because Gwen can’t catch a break, she gets creepy letters from her prison-bound ex — letters that prove he knows exactly where she is.

The summer spirals fast:

• Gwen and Sam (the mysterious but kind neighbor) start to bond. He helps build a deck with Connor; Gwen considers trusting someone again. Progress!
• Then another letter arrives, confirming Melvin knows their location. Cue Gwen’s first visit to prison, where she threatens to have him handled if he comes near her family again. Queen behavior.
• She gets home to find the cops circling. She lies low, but one detective (and his fake warrant) try to frame her for the lake murder. Meanwhile, Sam gets arrested — turns out his sister was one of Melvin’s victims. Yikes.

The situation goes nuclear: neighbors turn on her, trolls become real-life mobs, and suddenly Gwen’s family home is being surrounded. She crashes her car through their blockade like an unhinged Fast & Furious mom. Connor calls the cops, who arrive just in time to find yet another body in the lake. Because of course there is.

Enter Officer Kezia, one of the few people who actually believes Gwen. She agrees to help watch the house. But while Gwen’s at the gun range (therapy), someone lures Kezia away with a fake “officer down” call — which, shocker, is a setup to kidnap the kids.

Cue full panic mode. Gwen, Kezia, and Sam race home to find blood everywhere. The kids are gone. Then Officer Graham offers Gwen a ride to the “search site.” She accepts, because exhaustion is powerful, but quickly realizes he’s acting weird and his car smells like an episode of Criminal Minds.

Turns out Graham is a fanboy copycat killer working with Melvin’s prison buddy Absalom. (I swear, this woman has trauma coming out of her pores.) She fights him — wins, obviously — then joins Kezia and Sam to find her kids. They discover them hidden in a basement, alive but shaken. Connor confesses the safe room code was saved on his stolen phone (remember that?), which is how the Graham boys got in.

Gwen gets her kids back, but the final page twists the knife: news breaks that Melvin and several other inmates have escaped prison.

Because of course they have.

🗝️ Final Thoughts:
Stillhouse Lake is what happens when motherhood, trauma, and pure survival instincts collide. Gwen Proctor is a masterclass in resilience — part detective, part action hero, full-time exhausted mom just trying to keep her kids alive while dodging psychos.

The pacing? Relentless. The atmosphere? Thick enough to choke on. The ending? Infuriatingly brilliant. You’ll finish it and immediately want to grab book two, because this series doesn’t end so much as escalate.

My Rating: ⭐ 4.8 / 5

👉 Click here to grab Stillhouse Lake on Amazon.