The Lodge is a wintery romance, but it only works if you don’t think about it too much. I enjoyed the book but found the plot too unlikely. I couldn’t buy that the story could unfold the way it did.
Alix Morgan is an entertainment journalist who just landed the job that is sure to launch her career–she’s going to ghost-write the memoir for former boy band turned solo artist Sebastian Green. Sebastian belonged to a popular five member boy band called True North.
True North fell apart eight years prior when member (and allegedly Sebastian’s rival) Jett Beckett disappeared. The police investigated and determined he chose to vanish (versus foul play). Not only is the ghost writing job super lucrative, but it also gives Alix an unusual opportunity to try and understand the dynamics between Sebastian and Jett that would have caused Jett to willfully disappear.
So anyway, Alix has a tight deadline for the book so they can release it for the holiday.
Her sister is currently living with her in her smallish Brooklyn apartment and interrupting her all the time so Sebastian pays for her to spend a month in a penthouse in a luxury resort in Vermont.
I haven’t actually written any celebrity memoirs, but I find it kinda hard to believe that the solution to “my adult sister is annoying me in the apartment which I lease” is “luxury Vermont condo.” But whatever.
So Alix heads to Vermont for some writing time and it turns out her neighbor is this handsome ski instructor named Tyler Fox. Alix takes some ski lessons with him (girl, you’re supposed to be writing), and there’s an attraction between them that eventually leads to romance.
If you like wintery, kinda forced proximity romance, this might work for you. If, like me, you’re constantly wondering when the fuck that memoir is getting done. Okay, yes, Alix talks about writing, but she spends a lot of time either with Tyler or on the phone talking her sister down from her latest problem – a sister who is going to get Alix kicked out of her apartment because she’s so immature.
Then we get to the big plot reveal and the rest of this review has to be spoilery. You probably already guessed it but…
Tyler is Jett. That’s right, the famous boy band member who disappeared eight years ago has been hanging out in this popular resort in Vermont and no one has figured it out. Sebastian doesn’t even know, he booked the place in a big ‘ol coinky dink.
At one point Alix realizes Tyler is Jett because he’s not wearing his colored contact lenses. That’s it. His eye color changed.
HIS ENTIRE ORIGINAL FACE IS STILL THERE.
Like he changed his hair and eye color and that’s it. Oh and he got older. And no one fucking noticed.
Tyler/Jett didn’t have plastic surgery or anything. He looks different now because he’s aged eight years, but he still looked the same when he originally moved to the resort to get away. Even with the aging thing you cannot tell me some diehard fan wouldn’t have the software to age him up like they do with missing kids.
Apparently every single person who took ski lessons from him has face blindness because I cannot fathom how a missing boy band member–which would have spawned podcasts and Tik Tok sleuths and maybe the Swifites would have helped–would not be recognized on day two.
Alix is writing a book about his bandmate and spent how many hours researching these guys and she doesn’t pick up on it? Did he change all his mannerisms? The way he walks? Does he have a monocle and a fake British accent now?
IS HE WEARING A SILLY MUSTACHE?
So yes, if you read the spoiler bit then you can see how weird and enraging this particular aspect of the plot is. If you haven’t, trust me that you’ll enter WTF land somewhere around the 50% mark. The Lodge has an interesting idea, but I can’t come up with any way for the plot to work believably for me.
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I’m sorry, I can’t take an MC named Alix Morgan seriously. Clearly, the author has never heard of soccer player Alex Morgan before, but I sure have. But I guess in the author’s world, changing one letter constitutes a worthy celebrity disguise?
Thanks for the great rant! I was looking forward to this one but shall give it a pass.
I live resort-town adjacent so I’m astonished by the budget this memoir must have to pay the author AND pay for a penthouse in a resort. I would have got stuck there as “too unrealistic” 😀
The only thing I can say is that wearing a bunch of ski gear (helmet, goggles) would help camouflage a person’s face. But bottom line, it does seem rather implausible.
Oh, hoo boy
<> – I’m an entertainment journalist and the second I read this I said ‘what’ aloud. Ghostwriters do not attain any level of fame for ghostwriting; the point of ghostwriting is to be so utterly unobtrusive when translating your subject’s voice that you do not exist. Ghostwriters can get undercover fame within the genre so they can bounce between projects, but not mainstream.
The plot twist caused me physical pain, literally what!?
Was he wearing glasses?
@Jen that was my immediate thought. Like, what does Alex Morgan have to do with this? Then I tried to figure out if it could be Real-Person fanfic somehow, but it does seem to be an odd coincidence. Of which there are many in this book.
@DonnaMaire, am now picturing him wearing a Groucho nose ‘n’ glasses combo. Rawrrr.
Oh man I totally don’t want to read this as it’s not my jam at all, but I will try to check it out from the library just to see how it gets reconciled because while I figured out the spoiler too it sounds bananas. Does she tell Tyler what she’s writing about and do we get his POV at all? Elyse did you finish it? I couldn’t tell from your wrap up if you did or just threw the book at a wall… 🙂
!!!!
This is hilarious. I can usually suspend disbelief but this plot is too ridiculous.
Thanks for the giggles
@DonnaMarie, @Empress of Blandings
Ski Goggles, that’s the ticket! He hasn’t taken them off in eight years, night or day. Like that guy in the bar at night in his tinted aviators, too cool fer school, amirite? Perfect disguise for a teen idol.
Ok if anyone is returning back to this post, I did check this out from the library and kinda skimmed to see how the resolution came about, but it ended up actually being pretty basic and meh so I’d like to rant a bit about something else (not really a spoiler as it’s just about sex and the HEA/epilogue, but just in case as I do refer to one thing in the spoiler part from Elyse):
What I thought I put spoiler tags and saw them there before I hit submit; sorry everyone but I guess you can all read my rant unless someone comes and fixes it.
@spinsterrevival: All set! The spoiler tag goes in brackets like this (remove the asterisks): [*spoiler]Text here[*/spoiler]