as much effort as went into the cover

There's something about the cover of this which shouts both "charity shop" and "holiday rental premises bookshelf". The last time I tried to read a book off a shelf in some holiday premises was when I was driven to take down some form of Ian Rankin thing when I was in a bunkhouse on Tyree waiting for a bloke to bring round and rent us some surfing equipment. It was fairly swiftly returned to the shelf to join the small list of books I have voluntarily left unfinished. The Lake looks like it might be some sort of horror-type thing. I have several proper books on my own shelves which I need to get round to reading before starting on anything optional like this.