I'd heard through the book vine that Lost Lake was one of Allen's weaker offerings, but its synopsis pulled me in more than The Peach Keeper's and it was the only one my library had.
Reading it, I can understand the meh reactions; emotionally, the book doesn't have much of a build-up of tension. But I read First Frost and compared to that one, this was (sorry Ms. Allen) stellar. I really liked Eby and Kate... I pretty much liked all the characters. Even Selma, and I think that went a long way towards offsetting the lack of dramatic arc. Lisette did get on my nerves a tiny bit, but wasn't so bad that she overshadowed the rest. I loved Billy. Like the apple tree in Garden Spells, Billy was my favourite of this book.
The climax of the story line between Kate and her mother-in-law Cricket ended weirdly: very much with a whimper instead of the bang I was expecting, although Cricket's disappearance for the second half of the book didn't feel odd except in hindsight. I thought it was refreshing to have two main characters that were not emotionally damaged or needed fixing; bad things happened to them but they pulled themselves up instead of running to someone else.
Overall, I just enjoyed the book. I didn't love it like The Girl Who Chased the Moon or Garden Spells but I did like it enough to lose myself in the story.