Win has had a difficult time over the last few years. Her much-loved brother died and her marriage fell apart. Her career has been little more than treading water, but it’s one of the few stable things she has left to cling to. She just wants her world to be normal again.

Pia, on the other hand, has never led a so-called normal life. She is tall, athletic and an adrenalin junkie, all the things that Win and her friends, Sandra and Rachel, are not. Pia has big plans for her next thrill and she is going to drag the others along kicking and screaming if necessary. She has found an isolated section of river where they can white-water raft on a private leasehold run by a father-and-son operation. They will have the whole place to themselves and their guide will be Rory, the owner’s son.

As the women head further up-country into Maine, looking for the Winnegosset River on which they will be rafting, the locals add not only colour to the experience but also a deeper sense of discomfort and foreboding. The four women find themselves confronted by the lifestyle and backwoods manners of those around them. The hunters and landholders don’t like visitors coming into their part of the world and judging them for the way they live.

As the inexperienced women face the difficulties and dangers of the river, it doesn’t take long before the elements and the locals become a threat. But they must start working together rather than blaming each other for the situation they now find themselves in.

There is much to enjoy in this book, which owes a great deal to James Dickey’s 1972 novel Deliverance. The pacing and the delivery through Win’s perspective provide an immersive sense of the dangers of the trip that keep the reader engaged until the end.