by Vanessa McCausland
Publisher: Harper Collins Australia 2024
Review
by Jennifer Cameron-Smith
The death of Paige White, social influencer, makes national news and brings Jane Masters reluctantly home from Sydney. Paige and Jane were school friends. Jane left The Lakes, their small lakeside town to pursue a career in journalism while Paige married and had a daughter. Paige, her husband Andy, and daughter Viv were living with Paige’s parents. Every morning, Paige kayaked across the lake. And while Paige had thousands of followers on Instagram, and more than one person watching her kayak each morning, it is not clear whether her death was accidental. Especially given the picture she posted not long before she died.
The story unfolds with four distinct voices. The first is Paige before her death, reflecting on choices, life, and mistakes she has made. And then, in italics, are the thoughts of someone not identified who is watching Paige. The other voices belong to Jane, and to another school friend, Audrey.
There are several secrets contained within this story, and the past is not a comfortable space for Jane. But what happened to Paige? Can Jane reconcile her professional and personal lives?
I thought I had it all figured out towards the end of the story, but I was totally wrong. I was captured in the landscape Ms McCausland describes, caught up in memories of life as a teenager, wondering about some of Paige’s choices, and feeling the pain experienced by both Audrey and Jane as teenagers because of parental choices. I may also have been distracted by a red herring (or two) in my rush to solve the primary mystery.
Yes, there is more than one mystery to solve as the story weaves between past and present, childhood and adult lives. How reliable is Jane as a narrator? You’ll need to decide for yourself.
The ending was tragically perfect.
Publisher’s blurb
Paige White kayaked across the lake each morning at dawn. Someone was watching her. Many someones watched her online. But was anyone with her the day she was found?
Paige White’s beautiful life is documented closely for her thousands of followers: lakeside picnics with her daughter, sunny afternoons in the family van, and romantic dinners with her husband. So when she posts an ominous image, and her body is shortly after discovered in the lake, everyone immediately wonders – suicide or foul play?
Paige finds herself suspended in a strange, idyllic place that resembles her most ‘liked’ Instagram post, forced to watch as life continues without her.
When Paige’s death makes national news, Jane Masters, a journalist who was close to Paige in childhood, reluctantly travels home. Struggling with the morality of covering her friend’s death, Jane will confront the town she left behind and the dark undercurrents that she’s always known run underneath.