When Owen Saddler’s younger sister, Lori, drowns in mysterious fashion while scuba diving in a lake in remote Ontario, unusual things begin to happen to Owen. A strange man at his job site utters something to Owen that he couldn’t have possibly known. Or did he? Owen is attacked in his bathtub and almost drowns by a man that seems oddly familiar. Or didn’t he? Confused and unable to determine how much is real and how much might be hallucination, Owen is drawn to Chapel Lake, where his sister drowned and 30 years ago the lake was created by the construction of a hydroelectric dam that floods the valley and the town of Peace Falls. What was his sister looking for while diving into the flooded underwater town? He must find answers to his haunted questions, even if those answers are that he’s losing his mind.
Salvage is an interesting read by Duncan Ralston that uses a unique location for his ghost story. It mixes corrupted religion with mental illness to weave a hazy read that keeps the reader turning the pages. Owen is an odd duck in that always seems to be one step behind the reader at guessing what’s going on. It can be frustrating, at times, because he doesn’t ask the questions to people that you want him to ask. He seems to be ok with only knowing part of the story from a conversation and having to put himself in harms way to fill in the holes, instead of simply asking more questions. The atmosphere is unique and eerie and Ralston does a nice job painting a realistic setting that you can see vividly in your mind. The ending loosely ties things together that I couldn’t quite buy into and the fact that Owen could have all of these supernatural things happen to him and he simply shrugs it off as business as usual was hard for me to buy into. But, all in all, it was a fun read that kept me turning the pages to see what happens next.
4 underwater churches out of 5
** This ARC was provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
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Into The Macabre 