Blackwater Val
William Gorman
Crystal Lake Publishing
April, 2016
Reviewed by Jess Landry
Richard Franklin has left his Midwestern roots behind to live on the coast of Maine with his family. But in the autumn of the year 2000, he must return to his Illinois birthplace on a sorrowful journey. His wife Michelle has been killed in New England by a hit-and-run driver who is never found, so back home he comes with her cremated remains, to fulfill a final wish and on her birthday scatter her ashes in the park along the river in Blackwater Valley—simply Blackwater Val to locals—the small town where they both grew up and fell in love.
With him he brings his six-year-old daughter Katie who still grieves for her lost mother: Katie, who can sometimes guess who’s going to be on the phone before it rings. Who can stop all the clocks in the house, and break up clouds in the sky with her mind, and heal sicknesses, and who sometimes sees things that aren’t there . . . people who are no longer alive. All gifts she inherited from her mother.
Only something isn’t quite right in the Val.
Sinkholes are opening up, revealing the plague pits the sleepy hamlet was built over in the 1830s, when malaria and cholera outbreaks ran riot. Mysterious bird and fish die-offs begin to occur, and Katie can see ghosts of the dead gathering all around. But what she can’t see is the charred, centuries-old malevolence which has been waiting for her, and wants her for its very own. Or the pale Sallow Man who haunts the town’s nighttime streets . . . or the river witch—another Blackwater Val, of sorts—each of whom will be drawn one by one into the nightmarish bloodletting about to take place.
There’s a great mystery afoot in Blackwater Valley, and that mystery is what makes this novel such a compelling read. From the first pages about Nazi gold, to the unfolding story set in the 00’s of Richard and his daughter Katie – how everything links together is what you’ll be trying to figure out before the final pages come about.
It helps that author William Gorman has great skill as a storyteller – he effortlessly takes readers through multiple complex narratives, from Richard to Katie, and everyone (and everything) in between. His ability to bounce back and forth between the POV of his characters contributes greatly to the novel’s overall success.
Filled with well fleshed out characters and chock full of supernatural thrills, Blackwater Val hits the mark.
