Shallow River by H. D. Carlton

Shallow Hill is where souls suffer slow and miserable deaths.

When River McAllister escaped from Shallow Hill, she left her innocence behind--and some of her sanity, too. Now she's rebuilding her life with her dream man and life couldn't be better.

Ryan Fitzgerald is everything you'd want in a man. Attractive, rich, an aspiring lawyer, and would do anything to keep River. But that's not the only thing that attracts her. It's his attentiveness, his possessiveness... maybe not so much his temper.

When her relationship takes a dark turn, Ryan's estranged brother, Mako, is the only one who sees it. He knows exactly what Ryan is capable of, and it's not the first time he had to be a knight in shining armor.

River came from Shallow Hill, though. She's never needed saving before. What Mako doesn't see, is that River is perfectly capable of taking care of herself.

The only one who should be scared is Ryan.

Trigger Warning: Shallow River is a dark romance that contains domestic violence, rape, violence, and sexual situations.

HD Carlton is always a favorite of mine. I LOVE that we are given strong female leads. These women have their flaws and own them. And the men are always swoon worth and hot as hell. I'd give this 5 stars for the dirty talk alone.

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥

𝐃𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 ↴

“For the vulnerable. For the strong.

For the survivors. For the warriors.”

𝐌𝐲 𝐓𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 ↴

I don’t know why it took me so long to pick this book back up. I put my big girl pants on and stuck to it. This book had me so angry.

𝐌𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬 ↴

I hate to say it but River pissed me off at times. She took so much mental, physical, and sexual abuse from men for YEARS, from a very young age but being CHEATED ON is where she drew the line and finally decided to do something about her situation… I was baffled.

Mako was PERFECT! That’s it.

𝐒𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬 ↴

I loved Amelia! She was such a great friend to River, she was refreshing.

Alison… Ryan’s (River’s current boyfriend and abuser) ex-victim… I’m very glad she did not decide to stay quiet and decided to warn River, however, I was very confused by that one sex scene with her… One minute River is confessing she killed Ryan and the next they’re stripping each other down. Hot but so totally confusing lol.

I HATED RYAN, I think he got exactly what he deserved and I refused to feel bad for what happened to him as a kid. Did he deserve it? No. But that did not give him the right to do the things he did to his girlfriends.

Barbie (River’s mother) & Billy (River’s long-time abuser) both deserve to rot in hell. The things they put that girl through are shocking. And yes I say “they” because Barbie just watched as those men beat and raped her daughter. Disgusting excuse of a woman and mother.

“Do what you need to do, but I’m not leaving you alone.”

Amar was cool, based on the little he did have on-page. A cop turning a blind eye to let a victim deal with her abuser is always a cool dude in my book.

That plot twist was… certainly unexpected and made things grosser than they already were.

I could not have chosen a better ending for Mako and River. I’m giving this five stars because although it did have me pissed off for more than half of it, I enjoyed seeing River handle her business (better late than never) and again Mako is PERFECT, so there’s that. It was a great read, you know once I put my big girl pants on and restarted it. There’s a lot of rape (I’m going to say the FMC was raped every time her POV came around), not explicitly detailed but it’s there so keep that in mind.

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ 𝐁𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐃𝐞𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐬 ✎

𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐫 𝐑𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 ⇝ ★★★★★

𝐏𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 ⇝ 428

𝐅𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐭 ⇝ e-Book | Physical | Audiobook

𝐑𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐞 ⇝ Nov. 1, 2020

𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐓𝐨 𝐄𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭 ↴

💀 HEA

🔪 Revenge

💀 Forbidden

🔪 Emotional Scars

💀 Boyfriend’s Brother

𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 ↴

mention of rape • mention of drug use • mention of prostitution • mention of child rape • domestic violence • mention of drugging • mention of child trafficking • serial killer • mention of torture

🫧 𝐇𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐲 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 📖