The House By The Lake, Carey - C

                                               This novel slips back and forth the between the late 1930's and 2010. The narrator's 94-year old grandfather is the common thread, as he asks her to return to the home he grew up in just east of Berlin and recover the engagement ring he was never able to give to his beloved.  I felt as if I was reading a young adult iteration of a love story, and the war that intruded. How an editor could allow three references to the Russians coming to Schloss Siegel in 1940, and then, later have them coming after the war is beyond comprehension.  The only saving grace is the half of the story tied into Marthe de Florian's apartment in Paris. The true story of the apartment and Marthe play a role in the novel. A few years ago after the death of Marthe's granddaughter, the apartment was opened.  It had been decorated during the Belle Epoque and untouched since 1939.