Rachelle Dekker: When Through Waters Deep

By Kelly Bridgewater

Alicen McCaffrey 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 façade 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?

From Amazon

My Thoughts:

I have read the Seer series by Rachelle Dekker, and I really enjoyed the first two books, but the third one kind of fell flat for me. So when I heard Dekker wrote a new book, When Through Waters Deep, I read the synopsis and was interested to read the book. The story is lumped in the Psychological Thriller genre. Dekker does a wonderful job at diving deep into the emotions and delusions of Alicen. I believe this is the strongest part of the novel. As for the thriller aspect, I really didn't see that coming. I don't even lump this story into that genre until the end of the book suggested it. It started more like a speculative novel, than ended with a thriller ending. The first seventy-five percent of the book doesn't read like a thriller should. There should have been more external danger to Alicen, but the only danger occurs right about ninety percent into the book. So I don't think it is a suspense novel either.

Overall, Through Waters Deep by Rachelle Dekker is a truly unique story with a wonderful crafted 

dive into the world of someone's mind, but to place this book in a psychological thriller genre seems way too wrong for the actual plot. I believe fans of James Rubart, Amanda Stevens, and Ted Dekker might enjoy this novel. 

I received a complimentary copy of When Through Waters Deep by Rachelle Dekker from Tyndale Publishing, but the opinions stated are all my own.

My Rating:  3.5 out of 5 stars