Title: Bad River

Author: Ken Brosky

Release date: July 31st, 2024

*Huge thanks to Ken for sending me a digital ARC of this one!*

Man, am I ever a sucker for a creature-in-the-woods story! I could be CLOSED for reviews permanently and if someone messaged me to see if I’d take a look at their upcoming CinW’s book, I’d be like ‘HELL TO THE YES!’ and off we’d go. As many of you know, to me, there is NOTHING and I repeat NOTHING more terrifying than something lurking in the darkness of the trees and with ‘Bad River,’ Brosky utilizes that aspect to magnify the situation a thousand-fold, and does so with gusto.

What I liked: The story is broken into two seemingly unrelated aspects that merge together perfectly. The first follows young farmer, Eli. His father has died, leaving him to run the farm – and somehow manage the overwhelming amount of debt left behind – by himself. His normal order of operations have started to come undone – the company that usually brings him calves hasn’t in months – and now they’re weeks behind in delivering hay. As if that’s not enough, he’s grown apart from his friends, his joys in life and now, it appears as though something has emerged from the forest and killed one of his cows.

The other aspect of this, is the discovery of dead animals and a few humans. A wildlife researcher is called in and, at first, Mackenzie isn’t so sure what they’re dealing with, but she’s certain it involves the disease she’s been focused on, a central nervous system wasting that takes over the animals brain and slowly erodes everything.

When the two cross paths and both begin to realize that it might be something more than a random black bear or a rogue wolf, they work together to try and discover what it is, all while Eli focuses on saving the farm and a massive storm begins to head directly towards them.

Brosky quickly introduces us to the main players and the secondary ones, having us feel like we’ve known these folks our entire lives right away. It makes us care for them and root for them as the shit hits the fan and the blood begins to spill. We also get introduced to the area, which gives us a great sense of the ‘where’ as the storm arrives and the river threatens to breach its banks. The inclusion of the local folklore sets things up nicely and when we get to a particular scene where Mackenzie’s phone pings as trail cams send her images is particularly unnerving and highlights the hold Brosky has on the reader.

The ending was spot on and gave us closure across almost every question Brosky had introduced. The singular few not answered are, in the epilogue, and in this case it is spot on and doesn’t feel forced.

What I didn’t like: Remaining spoiler free here, I didn’t fully see the connection between our massive beast and an apparition. It makes sense, don’t get me wrong, but for me, I just didn’t understand the ‘why’ of it and that connection. Sounds ridiculously vague, I know, but in order to not ruin anything, that’s all I can say!

Why you should buy this: Fans of wilderness, small town horror are in for a treat and, if you’re like me and what I said WAAAAAAAY back up at the top there, this is a really well done, and frantically paced CitW’s story.

Brosky has hit a home run here!

5/5