Name: The Secret of Moon Lake
ISBN: 9780578599441

Sofia Nova

When fourteen-year-old Sam Lawrence stumbles across a magical medallion, eerie things begin to happen in the city of Moon Lake... Sam realizes that the legends might actually be true when he discovers Aurelia, a mysterious mermaid who has been trapped in the lake for 300 years. As Sam's friendship with the mermaid increases, so does the power of the medallion. He slowly begins to understand that the medallion is even more powerful... and he loves it. But could the medallion's revealing power become more dangerous than he thinks?

The Secret of Moon Lake

Nicole Lambert

First, I would like to start off by saying yes, I know Sofia Nova IS Gloria Tesch. Yes, I came with the Maradonia crowd after stumbling upon that saga years ago. No, I do not know the author personally, and this review has not been altered in any way.

But here's the thing. I actually sort of liked this book. Crazy, I know, considering what a dumpster fire Maradonia was. I will admit I am not the intended audience for this book; though there were a few age discrepancies (i.e. characters acting older or younger than their age) and a little bit of YA crossover, I would classify this as more of an MG fantasy.

I would also like to note I do not agree with Tesch/Nova's way of advertising at all. As someone who has frequented many book and writing communities, it is so easy to garner legitimate reviews, and a lot of the time, though some reviewers do charge a fee, you don't even have to pay for them. Likewise, Tesch in the past claiming she was the "world's youngest published author" always struck a nerve with me, and though I won't go into details as to why this claim is false (others before me have already done so), I will say this. I knew someone in middle school who self-published a book at age thirteen. From what I've read, and I could be wrong, even though Tesch started writing Maradonia when she was ten, she didn't self-publish it until she was thirteen as well. By that logic, wouldn't that mean there are two "world's youngest published authors"? And that doesn't even account for the fact that I also once stumbled upon another self-published author years ago on Figment who also published her debut novel at age thirteen.

With that being said, this was a definite improvement from Maradonia. The writing, in all honesty, wasn't terrible and, dare I say it, good. Yes, there were typos, but I've read a lot of self-published AND traditionally published books that also had typos. There were also some content discrepancies, such as when Mr. Brown begins to tell the story of Moon Lake, he mentions it began a thousand years ago when the Vikings first settled the town. However, Aurelia, who was alive during when the Vikings first came, or so I was led to believe, is only three-hundred years old.

However, and I also know this might strike a chord with some people, I didn't find a problem with Sam falling in love with Aurelia despite the age gap, especially since everything was explained in the end. Certainly mentioning the age gap in the book itself didn't help the book's cause, but immortality is very different from mortality. Yes, Aurelia is three-hundred years old, but the book also states she is trapped in a sixteen-year-old's body, which technically is only a two-year difference from Sam's age of fourteen. So was Edward Cullen in Twilight, who was forever trapped at age seventeen, even though he was way older than the teenage love interest, Bella Swan. And also, I find it weird people would have more of an issue with an immortal and a mortal falling in love than with, say, Dimitri Belikov in Vampire Academy, a twenty-four-year-old mortal man, falling in love with seventeen-year-old Rose Hathaway.

I also still think Maradonia was a good premise despite its similarities to Narnia (though honestly, every idea has been done at least once, so you can't have a completely original idea anymore), despite the fact the execution was atrocious. And I honestly don't have a problem with Gloria Tesch rebranding herself to Sofia Nova. After all, I myself have also rebranded to N. M. Lambert instead of Nicole Lambert in order to set myself apart from the other two Nicole Lamberts who write books in French.

Overall, I really liked this book, and I do think this is a prime example of how someone's writing can drastically improve with age.

The Secret of Moon Lake

Reviews

Highlights