Customer Reviews

The Pond

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
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The death of then eight-year-old Carl Weber in an icy cold pond twenty-five years earlier was a tragedy that left the mansion on Gray's pond vacant until now. In this novel a descendant of the deceased boy move to the mansion where once lived. Exploring his past as his wife and daughter get to know the odd old couple next door, Michael Adams, and his family begin to encounter strange unexplainable happenings that eventually cannot be ignored. In this thriller, Author Tamera Lawrence leads you on a tale of uncovering the sometimes-unpleasant truth. Was the death of Carl Weber and accident or was there something more sinister going on? An enjoyable relaxed read that will you have you guessing as the characters discover the truth will keep you turning the pages. Mystery and paranormal lovers will enjoy this book as well as those who enjoy a good story about a family discovering it's past and all the secrets that go with it. Recommended for young adult and up.

Tonya Thul-Theis
Reviewer

First-time author and mystery/thriller aficionado Tamera Lawrence has taken a true story told to her by her mother and put her own spin on it.

A boy drowns in a pond near his home in rural Pennsylvania--an innocent, nearly friendless boy. Twenty-five years later the first chapter begins across the road when the drowned boy's only friend returns to the area with his wife and seven-year-old daughter to live in the house he grew up in.

It's a grand old estate. His mother died there and left it to him, her only child. His wife has put her own personal stamp on it which meets with everyone's approval--or maybe not. Things swiftly turn creepy when objects fall, break, move, or splatter for no apparent reason. It might just be overactive imaginations triggered by the silence or the emptiness of the countryside. Incidents come and go and the pleasant family dynamics unfurl between this small-town dentist husband and his loving, helpful wife and daughter as they try to get comfortable with rural life and their neighbors.

The neighbors across the way are friendly, particularly Fanny, who Mike has known from boyhood and who is the area's premiere pie-baker. Everyone knows Fanny and her husband for her pies and hard work and for their outreach as foster parents during the time Mike was a boy. One of his old friends, and now dental patient, was one of the children they fostered.

As in any good story, the plot starts twisting. Things pop up in attics, and bedrooms, and barns. People aren't always as they appear to be. A clue is uncovered here, a voice may heard there, and the chills begin to roll. You turn the lights up brighter if you're home alone and reading in the dark.

Tamera Lawrence has spun a prickly and entertaining tale. She's pulled the reader in to her native state and introduced them to a sparse, but diverse cast of characters and events that evokes a sense of dread and hoped-for resolve. The Pond is a good first effort.

What a wonderful, engaging novel by Tammy Lawrence--"The Pond" is a fast-moving,edge-of-your-seat mystery with lots of dialogue and family dynamics to add to the tension. I couldn't help but think of various theories of my own to solve the mystery of what REALLY happened at the pond, and was engaged all the way through to the end. I think you will be surprised with the ending, too!

Eight-year-old Carl Weber met his untimely death twenty-five years earlier when he fell through the ice of a winter pond one fateful winter evening. Mystery and strange happenings still shroud his tragic death. Mike Adams, his wife, and seven-year-old daughter inherit the beautiful estate across the street from the pond and it doesn't take long for strange and unsettling events to begin to happen. There are family secrets that don't seem to want to stay hidden. The odd elderly couple that reside in the farmhouse across the street seem to be mixed up somehow in the paranormal events and ghostly apparitions now plaguing the Adams family.

"The Pond" is an engaging mystery that weaves a wonderful balance of mystery, suspense, paranormal occurrences, and hidden family secrets. There is a wonderful array of characters that breathes depth and realism to help keep the reader completely caught up in the story. I really felt at times that I was almost a part of the family.

All of the unsettling events ultimately take you on a ghostly and chilling ride right up to the end. Lawrence writes a solid story that mystery and paranormal fans will love. I highly recommend this book for anyone looking for a great and entertaining read. I can't wait to for Lawrence's next book.

-Jennifer Chase, author of thriller Compulsion

Something strange is going on in the Adams' family home! Michael Adams and his wife and daughter move back to his childhood home - an old home in a rural area with odd neighbors across the street where a young boy had drowned many years ago. Unexplainable things begin to happen around the house, such as a grandfather clock being overturned in a room by itself, objects getting broken or moved and strange appearances of frogs. Donna Adams finds herself investigating these occurrences to get to the bottom of what is happening to her family, and find out what really happened to Carl Weber that day.

The Pond is a suspenseful thriller, sure to keep you interested until the very end.

What a great story with all the mystery and paranormal you could want! Loved It!

I am not a usually a reader of mystery novels, "The Pond" may have changed my reading habits. This book
just had such an easy flow and I just could not stop reading...Each page consisted of a new mystery that made you go "how?", "why", and "what"? The story was not confusing and an easy read for all mystery readers and those, like me, that are not usually interested in these types of books.

To show you how this book has affected me...Last night a neighbor of mine brought me over a homemade pie that smelled so good...I looked at the pie and said nope not for me. I could not touch it. This comes from reading "The Pond". See I had helped a neighbor with something and she sent over the pie as a thank you for some help I gave her. That was very nice. I sat and thought hmmmmm, have not received a pie before from a neighbor and I do not really know her that well... I do not think I will be eating pie for a long time. To find out what I mean, you must read the book. I bought the book and the kindle format...I knew once I lended out the book I would never see it again.

Tamera a really great job and I will be on the lookout for your next book!

A small boy drowns in a Pennsylvania pond, enters the ranks of the ghostly and seemingly returns
decades later to haunt the family indirectly responsible for his demise.
The following plot disclosure gives nothing away, as it happens in the prologue--Carl Weber, a poor
boy dropped off across town at the palatial estate of a wealthy playmate, drowns in a private pond adjacent
to the property. The rest of the novel follows Michael Adams--the wealthy playmate in question--who, a
few decades later, is well into a robust dental practice. Mike is married to the extra-loyal Donna and is the
happy father of seven-year-old Kim, when his fairly wicked mother passes away and leaves him the estate.
He soon learns the difficulties of mansion ownership--updating the kitchen, removing the thick, dust-covered drapes and dealing with Kim's
invisible and slightly aggrieved new undead playmate. Lawrence mixes things up with a particularly un-neighborly and meddlesome next-door
couple, yet the plot holds few surprises. The author is a step ahead of her peers when evoking the daily routines of rural life, and there's
potential in the material, especially in the forking paths taken by Rich Mike and Poor Carl.
A few good ingredients in an undercooked ghost story. Kirkus Discoveries May 2009