River of Ashes by Alexandrea Weis & Lucas
by Austin Camacho
If your tastes run to psychological thrillers filled with chills, plot twists, and rising body counts, you’ll want to pick up RIVER OF ASHES from Alexandrea Weis and Lucas Astor.
This novel shows us that an idyllic Louisiana river town can harbor dark secrets. The story revolves around Beau Devereaux, the only child of a powerful family. He is popular and admired, but he is not who he appears to be. Unlike most thrillers, the lead character here is no hero, although he would consider himself one.
“His ego could never let him see himself in any other light,” says Weis. “He’s narcissistic to a fault. At a cocktail party, he would present himself as the intelligent, handsome, and well-mannered young man who is the golden boy of St. Benedict. But that’s not the real Beau. It’s a mask. The sadistic monster lurking beneath is every parent’s nightmare. With psychopathic tendencies and a love for inflicting pain, he is the boy next door gone horribly wrong.”
So Beau might present as the perfect pupil and president of the student council, but the authors call him a classic “never judge a book by its cover” character. How bad is he? Well, murder is the ultimate act of violence, but Beau goes beyond that—he revels in inflicting pain.