Blog Tour – Lakesedge

Hello hello and welcome or welcome back to my little bookish corner of the internet. Today sees the start of the blog tour for Lakesedge, the perfect read for October with all the creepy vibes. To find the whole schedule with selection of posts and links to different bloggers, click here. I’m feeling really lucky to be helping kick off the tour with my interview of author Lyndall Clipstone; a big thanks to her for her time, and to TBR and Beyond Tours for all their hard work as ever.

Synopsis
Content Warnings: Emotional and physical abuse by a parent, Body horror, Gore and blood (including description of wounds), Emesis, Discussions of death and grief (no on-page deaths), Descriptions of drowning and deep water, Drowning-related imagery Self-injury (in the context of a curse that requires regular physical sacrifices), suicidal ideation

There are monsters in the world.

When Violeta Graceling arrives at haunted Lakesedge estate, she expects to find a monster. She knows the terrifying rumors about Rowan Sylvanan, who drowned his entire family when he was a boy. But neither the estate nor the monster are what they seem.

There are monsters in the woods.

As Leta falls for Rowan, she discovers he is bound to the Lord Under, the sinister death god lurking in the black waters of the lake. A creature to whom Leta is inexplicably drawn…

There’s a monster in the shadows, and now it knows my name.

Now, to save Rowan—and herself—Leta must confront the darkness in her past, including unraveling the mystery of her connection to the Lord Under.

Hi Lyndall, thanks for taking the time to talk to me about your new book, Lakesedge. How are you feeling about its release?
Very emotional! It’s so surreal that a story which has belonged only to me will now be out in the world, in the hands of readers. But I am so excited to see this end result of many, many years of work. Sometimes I think about how my teenage self would be so proud to know she had become an author!

We’re seeing a real return of gothic literature, which personally, I think is wonderful! What do you think makes Lakesedge stand out from the crowd?
My background is an obsession with 1990s movies like Labyrinth, Willow, and The Secret Garden; love of Australian YA authors like Margo Lanagan and Sonya Hartnett, who wrote very dark, literary stories; and a degree in English Literature which specialised in the Gothic. So to me, the end result is that Lakesedge feels very distinctively voicey, with a fun blend of literary and commercial style, and has a very 1990s pulp horror vibe. Also there are two monster boys which is always a fun time in gothic romance!

Heroines trapped in tricky situations with beautiful dresses? Yes please! Where did you take your inspiration from?
I wanted to write the type of book that I loved to read as a teenager. Lush and romantic, and filled with gorgeous atmosphere. My main inspiration was “what if The Secret Garden was a gothic romance”, and it could best be summed up as Wintersong meets Crimson Peak. 

When you write, are you the kind of person who plots out every detail, or the type who starts typing and sees what happens?
A little of both. Lakesedge was the first book I’ve ever written, so I did kind of just “type and see what happened” – but when working on Forestfall (my second book), I was more intentional. I usually start with a rough synopsis and outline, so I know the basic shape of the story from start to end. But as I draft and revise, I often find sections that just “feel” wrong, so I will pull back and look at what needs to be changed in order to make it work. It’s a very chaotic process that relies a lot on gut instinct, but it works well for me.

If you’re not writing, what do you spend your time doing? 
I have two children, so a lot of my life is balanced between writing and being a mum. In my free time I love to read (my two favourite genres outside of YA are dark academia and romance), play video games like Dragon Age, Witcher, Fire Emblem and Hades, and visit art galleries or botanical gardens.

How would you describe Lakesedge in three words?
Lush, romantic, atmospheric

Book Links
Good Reads
Amazon US / Amazon UK
Barnes & Noble
Book Depository
Indigo
IndieBound

About the Author
Lyndall Clipstone writes about monsters and the girls who like to kiss them. A former youth librarian who grew up running wild in the Barossa Ranges of South Australia, she currently lives in Adelaide, where she tends her own indoor secret garden. She has a Bachelors in Creative Writing and a Graduate Diploma in Library and Information Management.

Her debut novel, LAKESEDGE, will be published by Henry Holt, Titan UK and Pan Macmillan Australia in Fall 2021 with a sequel, FORESTFALL, to publish in Fall 2022.

Author Links
Website
Twitter
Instagram
GoodReads
Spotify

Thank you for stopping by for the start of this blog tour, and be sure to keep an eye on the rest of the posts that will be popping up over the course of the tour for this fabulous book, and for my own review which I’ll be sharing soon.