2016 Book Review #60: River Road

This book caught my eye because of the title.  I power walk along a bike trail/nature path that  goes along River Road here in town.  When I started reading about the author, I was hooked!  She is a professor down at SUNY New Paltz about an hour south of us in the Catskills along the Hudson River.

STORY SUMMARY

Ms. Nan Lewis is a creative writing professor at a small university in the Hudson Valley of New York State, called SUNY Acheron. (fictional name)

One evening, she is driving home from a faculty Christmas party, thinking about why she was denied tenure.  All of a sudden, not far from her home, she has to hit her brakes but hits a deer.  It is snowing out and she leaves her car to go look for the deer.  Not finding it, she makes her way up her driveway, as her car is stuck, and heads to bed.

The next morning, the police are at her door with some horrible news.  One of her favorite students, a young girl named Leia Dawson, has been killed by a hit and run driver down on the River Road.  Because Nan's car has some major damage, she is now a suspect.

Nan soon becomes involved in trying to solve the mystery of why and how Leia was killed.  Nan is soon released from being a suspect when the investigation does indeed confirm her story that she hit a deer.  So just who DID kill Leia...and why did they run??

The difficult thing for Nan to cope with, is that Leia has been hit right where Nan's 4 year old daughter was killed by a drunk driver six years before.  She has always blamed herself for little Emmy's death and because of the death of her precious daughter, her marriage to Evan ended in divorce.

She soon discovers little tokens related to Emmy's death at the scene of Leia's!!  

Are these two accidents connected???  and if so, by what...or whom??

MY THOUGHTS

This is another great story!  I've been fortunate this summer and autumn to have found some great books at our town library!

Like I mentioned above, I was attracted to the book because of the title and also because it is set in the area just south of us here in the Capital Region of NYS along the Hudson River and the Catskill mountains.

It's a fast-paced, "can't put this book down" kind of a story.  The plot moves very quickly and you can start to guess which character in the story might be the possible killer.  (I guessed correctly but the ending turned out differently than I had thought it would).

The setting is very well done as is the character development.  

This book touches on drug addictions among college students, as well as alcoholism in adults who are trying to deal with loss and grief issues.

I liked the air of mystique that the author played with in the setting of the swirling snow in the woods.....the description put me right in the mountains at wintertime.  

I plan on looking for more of this author's books as the back jacket says she has written 14 novels.  I love discovering new authors!!

In my opinion, this book is appropriate for ages 17 and older (due to some content regarding drugs, alcohol).

On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the highest, I rate this a 10.