Also by this author: Nine, Millie Maven and the Bronze Medallion, Millie Maven and the Golden Vial, Millie Maven and the White Sword, Millie Maven, And They Found Dragons
Published by Tyndale on July 3, 2018
Genres: Fiction, Christian, Suspense, Speculative
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Alicen McAffery finally has the life her mother always dreamed for her: beautiful home in Santa Monica, successful husband, adorable daughter. Then tragedy blows her carefully assembled facade to pieces. Worse yet--Alicen feels solely responsible. At rock bottom, she decides to accompany a childhood friend back to Red Lodge, Montana, where they spent summers together as kids.
The peaceful mountain landscape, accented with lush forests and small-town charm, brings back happy memories of time spent with her beloved, eccentric Grandma Josephine. Alicen begins to hope that perhaps things could be different here. Perhaps the oppressive guilt will lift--if only for a moment.
But when Alicen starts hearing voices and seeing mysterious figures near the river in the woods, she begins to fear she's completely lost her sanity, as it's rumored her grandmother did. Or might there be more to Red Lodge than meets the eye? Could the voices and visions be real--and her only means of finding the healing she so desperately needs? Or will they prove to be her final undoing?
When Through Deep Waters | Rachelle Dekker
In a moment, everything changes. Just a moment away. Just a minute around the corner. Just like a thousand times before. But this time, her child drowned. Four months later, Alicen is still dealing with the aftermath – as anyone would be. Her husband has left her. Her sanity might be following. So she follows a friend back to Red Lodge, where she spent summers as a kid and where she can get some counseling and psychiatric care.
But moving back to Red Lodge dredges up a whole host of memories, both internally and externally. Alicen is reminded of her Grandma Joe, perhaps the only happy moments of her childhood. And Alicen is confronted with the physical presence of her mother, responsible for all the other moments.
The longer she spends in Red Lodge, the worse (or better?) Alicen becomes. She’s hearing things, seeing things – children – in the river near the woods. Being with her mom forces her to explore her past and she discovers that her beloved Grandma Joe may have suffered the same thing she’s going through right now. Alicen must determine which reality is real and whether or not the voices in her head are angels, demons, or the product of her own insanity.
With When Through Deep Waters, Rachelle Dekker tells an intensely dark, yet redemptive story. Dekker doesn’t shy away from painting evil in the blackest of strokes. It’s disturbing, unsettling, and leaves you not quite sure what the next step is. Which is absolutely perfect. Alicen’s mental state leaves you wondering if she’s an unreliable narrator just in the times she realizes it, or even when she doesn’t. You’re never quite sure what the truth is, until the very end, and even then it’s not an easy step into faith.
It is an immersive story of letting go and finding faith, of dealing with tragedy and loss, of overcoming generational sin and hurt, and of trusting in God to shroud you through the valley of the shadow of death.
In her first book after her Seer series, Dekker really hits her stride and her genre. She absolutely shines in this type of psychological thriller.
