Black River by Ruby Jean Cottle
Blurb:
JUST ONE TASTE CAN CHANGE EVERYTHING.
All seventeen-year-old Dusty wants is to escape into books and the Adirondack wilderness that surrounds her small town. But in the dead of night, strange things have been happening in Black River.
Animals are being ravaged by something unnatural. And Dusty wakes up one day with dirt on her feet, changed and starving. When new kid Will arrives, Dusty feels an attraction unlike anything she’s felt before. She wants him . . . or she wants his blood. As Dusty realizes she’s transforming into something she can’t control, she reluctantly
turns to the only person she somehow knows will understand: the annoyingly attractive Eli Blake.
Together, Dusty and Eli must uncover the mystery of their town and their new, insatiable desires. Have they become vampires or some other kind of monster?
Whatever they are, they’re not the only ones.
An irresistible blend of suspense and romance, this paranormal small town mystery is perfect for fans of Stephanie Meyers and Tigest Girma.
Review:
Dusty simply wants to escape into books, the Adirondack wilderness, and abandon the stuffiness of her hometown. But strange things are happening in Black River, and nighttime is more dangerous than it might seem. With animals being ravaged by something unnatural, and people threatening to come next, Dusty doesn’t expect to one day wake up in the middle of the woods, bloody, changed, and starving.
Trying to cobble her life into a semblance of what it once was, her ordinary world is further upended by the arrival of a new kid named Will. Attracted to him for reasons she cannot explain, she discovers she wants him deeply…or she at least wants him blood. As she realizes she’s transforming into something terrifying, something she cannot control on her own, she turns to the only person who can help her figure out what’s going on with her: the obnoxious but attractive Eli Blake.
An unlikely pairing, Dusty and Eli work together to uncover the mystery of their home town’s ravaged people and animals, and their new, insatiable hunger for human blood. Determined to figure out what they are—vampires, monsters—and how they became that way, they discover they’re not the only ones in Black River. Nor are they the most dangerous of the lot.
Oh. My. Gosh. I am absolutely obsessed with this novel. As someone who’s very picky about vampires (I fell into the Twilight Phase and was worried I’d never recover) and reading books that revolve around any blood-sucking creature, as the tropes and mechanisms can be so easily repeated across stories, I’m always thoroughly impressed when I find something that stun and astounds me in equal measure.
Black River is unlike your ordinary vampire-centric novel. It’s deep, it’s vivid, and its focus on marginalized voices truly has the capacity to inspire readers to read more widely and diversely. The characters are raw and distraught, and the way they struggle with their vampirism and potential immortality—as well as the hunger that has them hurting others at inopportune times—is truly relatable on a fundamental level.
Dusty, in particular, was quite interesting to me. She wanted more while also preferring her books and her solitude, and the vampirism she experiences makes her dreams both possible and impossible at once. The challenges she faces in the book bring up the intriguing question of what, exactly, makes a monster, and if we all have something monstrous within us.
The action, also, was quite notable and enjoyable in this novel—which was a perk I wasn’t expecting for an urban fantasy with vampires! I’m a sucker for excellent action sequences, and Jean Cottle truly delivers in how she writes high-tension, fast-paced scenes that will have readers gripping the edge of their seats for dear life.
The simple but impactful prose makes this novel ideal for all readers and is perfect for those who adore vampires in fiction and who long for a fresh take. This novel is A TEMPEST OF TEA by Hafsah Faizal meets IMMORTAL DARK by Tigest Germa, combining aspects of tension and action with deep characterization and a confined setting beautifully.
