Review: Savage Lake

Savage Lake by Nick Medina
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Thanks to Netgalley and Berkley for the pre-release copy of Nick Medina's Savage Lake. Below is my honest review.

Trauma has this way of infecting places, and the brutal events of Nell Marin's young-adulthood definitely changed Torchlight Lake for her. She swore she'd never go back, but she's taken her teenaged son there to the dilapidated cabin that her parents left her, so they can get it ready and sell it.

But things take a turn, as the places seems to drain the life and energy out of her.

We follow Oscar, her son, as he tries to take care of her and figure out what the mysteries of this place mean to her and to him as history decides its going to rear its violent and ugly head.

While we are in the head of the teenager, this definitely isn't a YA book. It's brutal and dark and full of trauma, and it's absolutely delicious in the way that only seeing someone else's darkness on the page can be. As the past begins to intertwine with the present, we get to see Oscar discover the things that bind his family's history, and he's racing against time to understand it.

Highly recommended for fans of isolated settings, family/generational trauma, dual timelines, and twists and turns. Oh, and horror movies, because there are a LOT of references to so many good ones.

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