Review: Still Waters by Emma Carlson Berne

Title: Still Waters
Author: Emma Carlson Berne
Publisher: SimonPulse
Age Group: Young Adult
Category:  Thriller/ Mystery
Release date: December 20th, 2011
Pages: 215 (ebook)
Rating: 4 out of 5
Source: Pulse It

Hannah can't wait to sneak off for a romantic weekend with her boyfriend, Colin. He’s leaving for college soon, and Hannah wants their trip to the lake house to be one they’ll never forget.

But once Hannah and Colin get there, things start to seem a bit...off. They can't find the town on any map. The house they are staying in looks as if someone's been living there, even though it's been deserted for years. And Colin doesn’t seem quite himself. As he grows more unstable, Hannah worries about Colin’s dark side, and her own safety.

Nothing is as perfect as it seems, and what lies beneath may haunt her forever.

After a year of being together, Colin expects Hannah to be ready to say the "L" word.  Love.  He's said it to her time and time again, hoping that she would soon return the feeling.  It's not often that you read about a female character that's not willing to let these three little words rush out her her mouth the first chance she gets.  Instead, Hannah plans a surprise vacation to the cabin that Colin's family owned.  Colin doesn't seem too eager, especially when she spills where they're going while they're more than half way to the Pine House.  Something doesn't seem quite right when they can't even locate the cabin on Google Maps.

Deep inside the woods, the cabin sits aside a large lake and to their surprise, the door is unlocked when they reach to open it.  Though you can tell the no one's been here for years, it does look as though Colin's family had left in a hurry.  Colin's mood transformed into something actually enjoyable once they set foot in the musty old place.

I have to say that I enjoyed the relationship between the two.  Though he was leaving for college at the end of the summer, they seemed like the type of couple that would last.  Soon, the trip that Hannah wanted to make their last hurrah turned into a disaster.  The closest town was about 25 miles away and everything was eerily deserted other than an old diner where the locals stared at Colin as if they knew something Hannah didn't.  Perhaps the cabin had something to do with the death of Colin's older brother after all...

The weird thing is that Colin isn't quite acting right.  He'd have episodes, as if he were sleepwalking during the day.  Hannah knew something was off, but she's known him for a year.  He's just going through something.  Not sleeping well, perhaps.  After the huge storm is when everything changes completely.  Colin turns into her worst nightmare and she's trapped at the cabin without a phone and a way to get out.

Seriously, I shouldn't have read the last half of this book at 5:30 in the morning in the darkness.  Emma Carlson Berne really knows how to get your imagination working with the descriptions she uses to explain what's going on with Colin.  I don't think I've ever been so creeped out reading a book, but I loved those creepy parts the most.  The book was enjoyable because no matter how much I tried to guess what was going to happen at the end, I was never able to.  This is definitely a book you want to dig into.