Title: Kill River

Author: Cameron Roubique

Release date: August 1st, 2015

Man, I’ve had this languishing on my Kindle for far too long.

David Sodergren has told me to read Roubique a million times. LJ Dougherty has told me read Roubique a million times. When I was on a podcast with Cameron, David and LJ, everyone insisted I read Cameron. So, I’m happy to report – I’ve finally got to the book one of the Kill River series.

I went in completely blind other than knowing it was a slasher novel involving teenagers and a water park.

What I liked: Because I went into this one completely blind, it made for a very odd opening when we get to meet our four main teens – Stacy, Cyndi, Brad and Zach as they arrive at summer camp. Cyndi is the new girl in the group, the other three having been there previously, but is quickly welcomed as part of their friendship. After some things go down, they decide to escape and go home late one night, only to get lost and end up at an abandoned water park.

It’s here, at the water park that the slasher aspect arrives and it becomes a story of survival and just who will survive. The action is fast and furious and the teens struggle to survive and make it out alive.

It was great to see the strong female characters in Stacy and Cyndi, all too often in slashers are the girls there to just be killed after showing their boobs, but this went the opposite direction and we got to see them stand up for themselves and each other and do what needed to be done to survive.

The ending works well to have this as a one off or for the reader to continue on and see what happens in the second novel. I really enjoy when an author sets things up like that as it give the reader the control over whether they want to continue.

What I didn’t like: This was a novel of two different halves. The first half was actually a really engaging summer camp story, of these four teens connecting and bonding and helping Cyndi come out of her shell. I would’ve been delighted if the novel would’ve stayed at that location and the slasher aspect arrived there. But what really threw me for a loop, was that they leave, get lost, find this abandoned waterpark and instead of trying to continue on and find help, they decided to remain all day and use the rides and have fun. It was hard to wrap my head around that decision.

Additionally, we only got a singular paragraph even discussing the ‘why’ of what happened with the waterpark and being abandoned. I’m in the camp where I think if the novel would’ve started at that water park and stayed at the water park, we would’ve had more pages to learn the horrors that await. The two distinct locations I think was a bit of a lost opportunity to expand upon one or the other.

Why you should buy this: If you like slashers, 80s-slashers, teens surviving in slashers or just straight-up action-packed novels where the characters have to survive against the hardest of odds, then this one is for you. Roubique has an easy way of getting the reader into his writing almost immediately and you’ll feel like the characters were people you know in your day-to-day life.

This was a fun one and definitely one for folks who dig the retro-horror-slasher genre!

4/5