The Girl at the Lake House Inn

Nell Ferris thought the lake was behind her. Twelve winters later, it is waiting in a register she never filled in. Night clerk at a half-closed inn, Nell has one job: sign in guests, lock up, forget. But on her third shift she finds a Polaroid of herself asleep at the desk, and a room booked in cash by a man who has been dead for twelve years. Then a stranger arrives in the storm asking for Nell by the name she buried in foster care. Because someone was at the lake that night, and she has been telling the same tidy story for long enough that even she believes it. This winter, the ice comes off, and what is underneath is not the version Nell has been selling. An absolutely unputdownable psychological thriller about the stories we repeat until they feel like memory.