Learning how to love your family, love yourself, and love the people right in front of you...
The second instalment in the Shimmering Lake Summer Camp series, Lured to the Lake follows Ava and Sid as they attend the second session of camp, one year after Ronnie and Morgan did, as camp counselors Shebal and Jason are joined by previous camper Abigail in their struggle to balance running the camp effectively while exposing the campers to the truth about Silent Woods.
Ava and her siblings, Gwen and Henry, have lived a long life of hardship. Even now that they're living happily with their adoptive family, they struggle to handle the way life has treated them. Ava feels she will never be free of the shadow of their father, with Henry mirroring him more and more every day. When even the camp proves to not be a safe escape for her, it takes a lot, from love to magic, for her to feel safe again. But at the end of the summer, she discovers she is more than a scared little girl.
Meanwhile, Sid finds himself caught in this strange world. He thinks he's falling in love with a fellow camper, Hafsa, who can turn into a lion. He's trying to wrangle Gwen as she creeps around in the swamp on cryptic missions. He's not even able to sleep through the night with the mourning wailing of a kelpie— not just any kelpie, but his glittering white stallion— floating through his head like a magical song. He's not sure why, but he might be falling in love with him, too.
But they're not the only thing lurking in the waters of Shimmering Lake, and a love triangle is the least of Sid's problems...
Trigger warnings for this book include: physical assault (on screen), child abuse, parent death, grandparent death, animal death (on screen), animal sickness (on screen), bullying (on screen), racism, transphobia, homophobia, animal attack (on screen), near drowning (on screen), mental health struggles.