Body of Water by Adam Godfrey

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✦ BLURB ✦

Don't let the water drag you down...

It's been six years since Glen Masters lost his wife in a tragic accident. In hopes of reconnecting with his grieving teenage daughter, Lauren, he decides to take her on a road trip through the Appalachian mountains, where he has fond memories of their past as a family. But what was supposed to be a quick diner pit stop suddenly transforms into a nightmare when armed men stumble in, ranting about a mysterious and deadly "living water" that attacked several people up the road. The story the men spin seems to be the rantings of drunken lunatics, but soon Glen, his daughter, and the other diners find themselves hostages to both the gunmen and the inexplicably terrifying entity.

Because there's truly something wrong with the water, and it has no mercy.

Panic grows as the diners play witness to a nature-defying being that seeks only to swallow everything in its path. With help nowhere in sight, the group of strangers must work together to devise an escape, and ultimately, Glen will have to face his worst fears to reconcile with the past or risk losing everything.

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Small towns, grief, and a monster with a thirst

PRE-READING THOUGHTS
A claustrophobic Appalachian setting, a grief-stricken father trying to connect with his teenage daughter, and a diner siege? I expected locked-room horror with a folkloric twist - maybe even Appalachian cryptids lurking in the background.

POST-READING
✨ As I thought… claustrophobic dread, tense human drama, and a grief story braided through the horror. That was spot on and kept me hooked.
✨ It surprised me by… doing a complete pivot near the end into a totally different subgenre. The monster and the tension worked brilliantly until then, but the final act felt like a different novel had wandered in and sat down at the counter.

MUSIC PAIRING
🎵 Featured Song: “Bodies of Water” by The Decemberists - haunting, folky, and unsettling in all the right ways.
🎶 Vibe Album: Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? by of Montreal - a chaotic, spiraling soundtrack for a story that doesn’t stay in one lane.

VIBE CHECK
🎨 Colour Palette: dark green, muddy brown, oil-slick black
🎼 Soundtrack: violins that scrape like rusted pipes underwater
🍂 Season: late autumn, when rivers run high
😨 Mood: suffocation
💧 Scent: algae, gun oil, and burnt diner coffee

TAROT PULL
🌙 The Moon (Transient Light Tarot) - illusions ripple beneath the surface; beware what the water hides.
The Moon speaks of uncertainty, disorientation, and things that aren’t what they first appear to be. It mirrors both the unknowable, shifting horror at the story’s core and the way the book itself changes shape by the end. The Moon warns us that what lies beneath the surface—whether grief, fear, or something inhuman—isn’t easily defined, and can pull us under before we realize.

FOR FANS OF
📚 The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones
📺 The Mist (the TV series, not just the King novella)

🃏 The deck had opinions: [Six of Swords] — [Are you kidding me? it's about healing by moving OVER WATER!]

🌀