Amy's View: Dead River by Cyn Balog

Dead River by Cyn Balog
♦publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers
♦release date: April 9th, 2013
♦hardcover, 256 pages
♦intended audience: Young adult
♦stand-alone
♦source: from publisher for honest review

My friends and I are spending prom weekend at a remote wooded cabin on the Dead. The Dead River.

I thought it was going to be just us.

I was wrong. 
Nothing is what it seems in this creepy paranormal thriller by Cyn Balog.

Review:

Creepy, raw and terrifying. A ghost story that winds you through a ghostly tale of destiny and fighting for where you belong.

Spending a weekend rafting on the Dead River, instead of prom, leaves Kiandra with more to worry about than just hiding the trip’s whereabouts from her father. Convincing herself this is just the weekend getaway she needs, ends up turning fatally wrong.   

Kiandra has spent her life trying not to think about what goes through a person’s mind before they plunge themselves in a river, to never be heard from again. Her life was happy and surreal spending her days on the river as a child fishing in the best spot on the Delaware, until the fateful day her mother waded into the river to end her life. Kiandra’s life was uprooted instantly, leaving everything she has behind at a moment’s notice, starting a new life away from the water’s edge.

Soon she feels the call of the water, pulling her towards it just as it did for her mother. Even with the precautions her father took to protect her, the tragedies that lay in the undercurrent of her family history, has no match for the pull of destiny.

The moment Kiandra arrives at the Dead River the water beckons her, calling to her as if it was a sweet lullaby.  Lulling her to be pulled underneath into its angry, unforgiving wrath, spinning promises like a delicate web.  Only after it’s too late, does she discover that the Dead River is unrelenting and unwavering in its deceit, unable to deliver on its promise.

With Kiandra’s freak accident, the Dead River changes everything. Destiny is finally able to present itself, where she can discover who and what is most important in her life as well as the truth behind her mother’s suicide.

Constant brushes with death add to the paranormal level of this thriller. Chapter after chapter, life and death resonate through the ghostly beings presented throughout the storyline, with each of their personal stories being brought to life in a captivating way.

This is an amazing ghost story, unlike any other traditional ghost stories that are told. A story that legends are created from, and destined to be campfire stories for years to come. Hang on while the undercurrent catches you unaware through the build up and the twists and turns. For in the end, you will lay there washed up in its wake, amazed at the story that lay before you.

This genre of book is where the author Cyn Balog should have been the whole time. Horror fans, open your door whole heartily and welcome her in, you will not be disappointed.

Find Cyn Balog online:  Website  •  Twitter  •  Facebook

Purchase Dead River:  Amazon  •  BookDepository  •  Indiebound