Riverkeep by Martin Stewart

The Danek is a wild, treacherous river, and the Fobisher family has tended it for generations--clearing it of ice and week, making sure boats can get through, and fishing corpses from its bleak depths. Wulliam's father, the current Riverkeep, is proud of this work. Wull dreads it. And in one week, when he comes of age, he will have to take it over.

Then, the unthinkable happens While recovering a drowned man, Wull's father is pulled under--and when he emerges, he is no longer himself. A dark spirit possess him, devouring him from the inside. In an instant, Wull is Riverkeep. And he must care for his father, too. 

When he hears that a cure for his father lurks in the belly of a great sea-dwelling beast known as the mormorach, he embarks on an epic journey down the river that his family has so long protected--but never explored. Along the way, he faces death in any number of ways, meets people and creatures touched by magic and madness and alchemy, and finds courage he never knew he possessed.

So, my first impression of this book, not far at all into it, is this book is definitely weird, but I wasn't yet sure if it was going to be a good kind of weird or creepy weird or just...weird, weird. But it also starts off a bit slow, and a bit sad, and I just wasn't sure how much I was going to like it...

About 50 pages in, the humor picks up, and the rest of the book ends up have some pretty funny stuff sprinkled among the strangeness. This is when my impression of the book started getting a lot better, and it kept getting better from there. It's definitely a good kind of weird.

This book was really quite good! The author did a great job at telling the story in a way that things don't quite make sense all the time as you read, but by the end, everything is brought together in an awesome way.

I really enjoyed this easy read, and if you like things a little weird, you will too!

I received a copy of this book from the publishers, via First to Read, in exchange for an honest review.