Black River Lantern - A Review

POSSIBLE SPOILERS

I won a book. On Goodreads. It came last week and even had a signature on the title page and a letter inside. A personal touch. It was nice. I finally got the chance to read it and I'm still reeling a bit.

A voice commands thee

In your forgetting moments

Yet the vessel remembers

After the voice leaves

Do you know my name?

I am spoken memory

I am infinite sadness

The atom within

Alex Grass's Black River Lantern follows Doc, Eddie Marivicos, Papa Marivicos, Lexi, and Clara on various journeys in the small town of Kayjigville. I'm not sure where the small town is, but there's water nearby and it seems that it might be somewhere north of Mississippi and toward the west. The imagery scattered throughout the book is amazing. You can really visualize the town and people.

In this supernatural tale, Eddie Marivicos is the star of Papa's Carnival. Why? Because he has second sight. He can hear what others are thinking, really. But then it becomes more. Strange things begin to happen and Eddie's only respite is with Lexi. Lexi whose thoughts he cannot hear. She also gifts him a lantern that he becomes drawn to and that seems to dull the voices, too.

Papa is the villain in this story. He hates Eddie, really. Eddie is his cash-cow, but he doesn't mean anything else. Especially since Eddie's mom left them. Papa is...something. You'd have to really read the book to understand. There's not much I can do to describe this rotten man.

I'll admit that the switches to the various characters could throw me off a little, but what was strangest and the most difficult to get past was going from third-person to first-person with Doc. Was Doc the hero? He didn't seem to be. Eddie seemed to be the hero and maybe Lexi and Doc for their part. It just didn't seem right to me.

Still, the book was one I didn't like putting down for very long. Of course, as a mom, I had to. Something else - there might be a sequel! Or that's how I feel after that ending.