Vengeance by Megan Miranda (ARC)

Vengeance (Fractured, #2)
Megan Miranda
Pub: February 13, 2004

Falcon Lake wants vengeance. And so, it seems, does someone else... An intense, heart-rending psychological thriller to accompany the chilling and seductive Fracture

When Decker drags his best friend Delaney’s lifeless body out of the frozen lake, he makes a deal: Anyone but her. Everyone but her. The lake releases her. It takes another...

All their friends blame Delaney for Carson’s death. But Decker knows the truth: Delaney is drawn to those who are dying, and she would have tried to help Carson.

Or so Decker believes until a body lies in front of him in a pool of water on his kitchen floor. Until he sees in Delaney’s eyes that she knew this would happen too – and she said nothing. Until he realizes it isn’t the lake that is looking for revenge – Delaney is part of someone else’s plan.

See my review of Fracture (#1) here.

 

This picks up a few months after when Fractured left off and this time, we get Decker's point of view throughout. This small group of friends has had its fair share of death, and they find themselves dealing with one more - Decker's dad. Bad part is, Decker feels betrayed, because there's no way Megan didn't see it coming, nor did she warn him. Her admission solidifies their breakup and Decker's left to mourn and suffer alone. But he soon finds his house vandalized and uninhabitable, and he and his mom move in with Megan's family next door while the renovations are going on.

 

Though they may be broken up, their friends won't allow anyone to be shunned. Their group actually kind of reminds me of Friends, and how no matter who dates who and breaks up with another, as a group, they won't allow anyone to be left behind. Though it's difficult, Decker and Megan try to move forward with as little interaction as possible, but soon Megan's house is vandalized too, leaving them to suspect that what happened at Falcon Lake had to be the connection. Forced to work together to figure out what the hell is going on, they fear they're cursed for saving Megan from the lake the day it tried to take her life, and now it's threatening to collect another in her place.

 

Vengeance can be a little weird for some, because most people aren't going to be able to believe that a lake is cursed and finding ways to torment those who saved Megan. Decker's house gets massively flooded, the smashed windows through Megan's house resembles shards of ice, Kevin's engine gets flooded with water and Justin's lungs get flooded with lake water when forced in by a stupid alumni prank. But when Tara falls and knocks herself unconscious and is pulled all the way to the lake to let it claim her, it's clear that maybe an actual person is helping the lake to reclaim what was unrightfully taken away. Problem is, no one outside their group knows their secrets, nor their true fears of the lake, so the only possible suspects come from their very own limited pool. Is it really one of their own, or has someone infiltrated their group just to take them down for some unknown reason?



ARC provided by Bloomsbury Children's for honest review.