Review: Drowning in the Dark by Allison Karras

Title: Drowning in the Dark

By: Allison Karras

Publication Date: Feb 11th, 2011

BookWhisperer Rating:

About the book:

There’s a demon walking the streets of Freeport. And only teenager Samantha Carver can stop it.
It’s hard to outrun your past. But that’s what Sam thought she could do. After moving to a sleepy town on the Oregon coast to live with relatives, she thought she was safe. She thought she could be someone different. She thought she could be a normal teenage girl.
However, the quiet coastal town of Freeport is no refuge. After a girl at the high school is brutally murdered, the police believe Samantha’s cousin and best friend, Terry, is responsible.
But Samantha knows what her friends, teachers, and the police don’t. The murderer isn’t human. Samantha has seen this before. Too many times. She has witnessed the dead rise from their graves and do unspeakable things. She carries the scars on her skin and the sorrow in her soul to prove it.
The evil that she thought she had left behind in the rotting graveyards of her past is still stalking her.
Will Samantha be able to save Terry, Freeport, and herself from the malevolent power that threatens to rip her world apart? Or will she succumb under a surging tide of evil and drown in the growing darkness that surrounds her?

Allison Karras debut novel was a gruesome and horrifying experience. Sam is a innocent girl with a very dangerous and terrifying job. To watch this young girl tring to protect the world is terrifying. Drowning in the Dark is not your typical heroic young girl kicking butt and taking names, but rather a child struggling to destroy things that go bump in the night.  As a reader I seem to struggle with Zombies as not being plausable in their storylines, but in this incredibly short story they were no problem at all. It is effortless to follow Sam and Terry through the pages of this story. I believe the simplicity comes from the detailed Demon/Zombie theory. Although, I was mildly uncertain of the Samantha and Terry relationship throughout the story. It appears as though the interest of these two characters carries further than brotherly or sisterly. I understand from the start Sam declares the relation is not blood, but this still seemed somewhat odd. The conclusion offers a fresh new twist that left me with more questions than answers. The future of Samantha, Terry, and Shane is wide open, and I am anxious to see what this author has instore. Karras debut novel is a wonderful display of her talent that promises more to come.