Red River Seven

• Author: A.J. Ryan
• Genre: Horror
• Publication Date: October 10, 2023
• Publisher: Orbit

Thank you to Orbit and Angela Man for sending me an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

CONTENT WARNING: blood, gore, suicide, gun violence, homophobia, grief

SEVEN STRANGERS. ONE MISSION. INFINITE HORROR.

Internationally bestselling author Anthony Ryan—writing as A.J. Ryan—delivers a nerve-shredding thriller in which seven strangers must undertake a terrifying journey into the unknown.

A man awakes on a boat at sea with no memory of who or where he is. He’s not alone—there are six others, each with a unique set of skills. None of them can remember their names. Each of them possesses a gun. 

When a message appears on the onboard computer—“Proceeding to Point A”—the group agrees to work together to survive whatever is coming.

But as the boat moves through the mist-shrouded waters, divisions begin to form. Who is directing them and to what purpose? Why can’t they remember anything? 

And what are the screams they can hear beyond the mist?

I’ve only recently become a fan of Anthony Ryan, and I was curious to see what he could do with the horror genre, so I started this one right on Halloween. Luckily, this one wasn’t too scary, but it was pretty creepy, and heavy on the gore.

It starts out with one man waking up on a boat with amnesia. He only discovers what to call himself because a name, Huxley, is tattooed on the inside of his wrist. Having woken up to a gunshot, he’s immediately alert, and this obviously grabbed my attention quickly. Huxley discovers that he’s on a boat with six other people, all of whom have amnesia as well, and have a different skill set that appears to be important to whatever they’re supposed to do.

The people on the boat receive cryptic instructions periodically throughout the book, none of which clarify who they are or why they are on this boat. It didn’t make it any clearer to the reader either, and the presence of a mysterious mist that obscures their view of anything outside the immediate vicinity makes it hard to figure out what the screams are, and who … or what, they are coming from. Naturally, all of this creates discord between the people on the boat. They break off into smaller groups, and start to question why they are there.

I couldn’t help but think, as I read, that this book would make an incredible video game or movie. There’s lots of action, and the mystery behind what was going on kept me in suspense for much of the read. I really liked getting to know the characters, even though we only get to know them in limited depth, since they don’t know much about themselves, although we get to watch them discover aspects about their personality as they are put into different situations. The pacing wasn’t consistent throughout, but there was a lot of action in the story, so I didn’t really mind the slower parts. Overall, this was a fantastic read that showed Ryan’s talent in whatever genre he puts his brilliant mind to.