Filled with romance, intrigue, revenge, and salvation, Lake News, the latest novel by best-selling author Barbara Delinsky, is a gripping tale sure to please her legions of loyal fans and earn her quite a few new ones.
Lily Blake is a quiet young woman leading a quiet life in Boston. She teaches music appreciation at a private academy, but her real love in life is playing piano and singing the old favorites at the Essex, an exclusive dining club which boasts among its members the newly installed Cardinal Fran Rossetti. Having known the cleric all her adult life, Lily considers the Cardinal one of her closest friends and advisors. But when Terry Sullivan, a devious newspaper reporter with a secret agenda, accuses her of having an affair with her dear friend, Lily becomes a pariah overnight.
Lily finds herself unable to return to her Boston apartment, where reporters are permanently camped out. Embarrassed by the false revelations, friends, neighbors, and employers begin to shun Lily, and she soon realizes she has no alternative but to escape to her hometown of Lake Henry. Vulnerable and wary, she makes the trip home. Once there, she must dodge sneaky reporters and confront old demons in the face of a cold and unloving mother and a town still whispering gossip about her youthful indiscretions.
John Kipling, the editor of the Lake News, knows all about the emotional trauma Lily Blake is going through. He used to be one of those rumor-mongering reporters in the big city himself, until one day it just got to be too much and he too retreated homeward, with trust issues and family problems of his own. But John knows just what to do to help Lily exact her revenge on the reporter who ruined her life and, in the process, gets a little redemption himself. He just didn’t plan on falling in love with Lily along the way.
Lake News has just enough mystery to keep readers on the edges of their seats, and just enough romance to make them all sigh.
Sharon Galligar Chance is senior book reviewer at the Times Record News in Wichita Falls, Texas.
