The River at Night

ERICA FERENCIK

Synopsis from Goodreads: Winifred Allen needs a vacation.

Stifled by a soul-crushing job, devastated by the death of her beloved brother, and lonely after the end of a fifteen-year marriage, Wini is feeling vulnerable. So when her three best friends insist on a high-octane getaway for their annual girls’ trip, she signs on, despite her misgivings.

What starts out as an invigorating hiking and rafting excursion in the remote Allagash Wilderness soon becomes an all-too-real nightmare; a freak accident leaves the women stranded, separating them from their raft and everything they need to survive. When night descends, a fire on the mountainside lures them to a ramshackle camp that appears to be their lifeline. But as Wini and her friends grasp the true intent of their supposed saviors, long buried secrets emerge and lifelong allegiances are put to the test. To survive, Wini must reach beyond the world she knows to harness an inner strength she never knew she possessed.

With intimately observed characters and visceral prose, The River at Night “will leave you gasping, your heart racing, eyes peering over your shoulder to see what follows from behind” (Mary Kubica, New York Times bestselling author). This is a dark exploration of creatures—both friend and foe—that you won’t soon forget. 

Stats for my copy: Trade paperback, Gallery/Scout Press, 2017.

How acquired: Bought.

First line: Early one morning in late March, Pia forced my hand.

My thoughts: I don't even know where to start. I'm not an outdoorsy person. I have a phobia of water that is over my head. I can't swim. I have no desire to camp out or commune with nature. I would never in a million years even consider going white water rafting. I would never survive in the wilderness. And this book just reinforced and justified all of that. But I do love to read survival stories, and this one is absolutely gripping. Not just the story, though. I loved the author's voice, her evocative way with words.

The hunter took us in one by one, as if we were words in a sentence he was trying to understand.

The narration is in first person POV by Wini, the most reluctant member of the trip. She'd much prefer to bask on a beach in the sun somewhere, but Pia, the natural leader of the group, enthusiastically drags them all to Maine, where they meet up with their guide for the trip. All four of the women are beautifully written, as are the descriptions of the terrain over which they must first hike, and of course the main character of the story, the vast, tumbling river.

In the distance, our destination: smoke-blue mountains obscured and then revealed by morning fog. I felt equally pulled and repelled. What did the mountains care about our plan to climb them, rafting the waters that divided them? They had eternity before us, and eternity after us. We were nothing to them.

The river isn't the only danger the group faces over three long days. But I feel like anything else I say would be a potential spoiler. So I'll just say this book is terrifyingly terrific.