A review by amylferg
Shallow River by H.D. Carlton

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

More like 3.5 ⭐️
With a ton of spice 

Listen, I am a big lover of HD Carlton’s books and it took me a minute to understand where this fell flat.

You have this strong, resilient FMC who continuously claims she takes no shit. She’s obviously grown up in these horrible conditions and everything about that made my heart break for her. I truly believed her strength. 

BUT then you see she finds herself in one of the most volatile DV situations I’ve ever read. And I won’t even begin to pretend that I would know how to handle that situation but I think my confusion came from how unestablished her “love” for Ryan felt. 

The timeline goes: 

River mentions a crush on Ryan, finds out he’s recently single and mentions maybe pursuing him. 

You jump 2 years and they’re already in a fully established relationship, deeply in love. River briefly mentions how she ended up pursuing him but that’s really it. 

You don’t get to see their relationship and love build at all. In fact, the 2 year jump immediately brings you into the very early stages of Ryan’s abuse so you have no time to form any good connection with him. 

So that being said, for the majority of the book, I could not understand in any capacity why River stayed/goes back. I kept thinking she had an ulterior motive and we were all going to be shocked that she’s had this master plan the entire time but after a while it became clear I was wrong. 

The subplot of the serial killer/childhood tormentor and Mako really brought the story back but I just personally wish River & Ryan’s relationship was established more before everything started to fall apart so I could feel more connected to Rivers mindset. 
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