I stumbled across Dark River at Half Price Books and knew nothing about it, but it sounded interesting. The cover asked, What deadly secrets does the river hold?
Ronnie’s parents move her to a small, rural-ish town in Oregon so they can run a country inn. Her dad is a former attorney who doesn’t miss it, and Ronnie is a former city girl who does. Her mom cooks exotic stuff to make people feel better, being a former TV cooking show star. Ronnie’s a little lonely and has just one friend who works at the inn, Gretchen, and a guy at school she has a crush on, though that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. She also befriends a young girl named Karen, who she babysits.
The river is basically a moody character in the story, setting the entire tone of the book. Ronnie is a little fascinated by it, as well as the rest of nature that she’s getting acquainted with. She watches everything during her long runs out on the country roads. But her comfortable world is rocked when she finds Karen’s body at the river while on one of her runs. At first, it seems not surprising that the volatile river would take a life.
But things get more complicated when it turns out that Karen didn’t drown accidentally. And a warning from the sheriff to Ronnie about Gretchen seems like nothing but eventually turns out to be a harbinger of some really dreadful things. The world is not as Ronnie sees it—it’s much darker and she has to come face to face with it.
She sense of foreboding is there throughout the novel so that you know something is going to happen, but I for one had no idea what it was going to be. And it’s interesting and relevant. Overall, a good read, and relatively short if you’re not in the mood for a something lengthy (though it’s emotionally hefty, for sure).
Buy Dark River