A really complex narrative that twisted and turned. The drama and the darkness were great. I do think marketing it as "Black Swan meets Paranormal Activity" was a mistake. It set expectations too high for what the story turned out to be.

I'll look forward to reading other works by Berube.

-3.5/5 stars-
The Dark Beneath the Ice is a Young Adult horror based on a girl, Marianne, who is going through a rough stage in her life where she has just given up dancing and her parents are going through a divorce. On top of this she is also trying to deal with a paranormal force that seems to be haunting her, causing many more problems. This book is given the description of "Black Swan meets Paranormal Activity".
Overall this book was a great YA horror read! The whole book was very intense and I often found it very hard to put the book down most times telling myself the usual, "just one more chapter!” I found that the writing of the author was great, truly horrifying at times and captivating how the possession/paranormal aspects were portrayed. The pacing of the book was neither fast nor slow. I really loved this about the books as I was never waiting for something to happen and then things did not end up blowing over too fast either, I always wanted the book in hand to carry on the story!
The romantic relationship of the main character and Rhiannon was very well portrayed (a nice touch to the story line) and seemed to be talked of a lot more than Marianne and her past experiences. I would have liked to hear more about the main characters past, especially within her dancing as some things seemed to just be skipped and missed out.
I am not too sure how I really feel about the ending, the reveal was not in any way what I thought it would be and to me didn’t add up too much with some of the events that happened within the book. It did not satisfy me as such, although it was a very smart and different route to go down!
I would recommend this book to anyone that is interested in paranormal books as even though I do not think the main character was explored very well and the ending did not blow me away, I still thoroughly enjoyed the book and my whole experience of reading it!

This was a pleasantly spooky surprise. I think it'd be a perfect Halloween read, when the trees are turning, and there's a crispness to the air, and the days get shorter. I sped through his like it was a 100 meter dash.

Marianne was a very real character to me, fleshed out and flawed while also being deeply relatable. I genuinely worried about her and, while I knew what was plaguing her early on, I wanted to know how she would overcome it. Her unreliability as a narrator made the story all the more tense.

The Dark Beneath the Ice has a lot of layers to it, not just a suspenseful popcorn read. It's a story about a girl's relationship with her mother, her growing feelings for another girl, her insecurities about herself and her self-worth. It resonated with me and I'm really glad I had the opportunity to read it early.

I'm not sure I entirely agree with the comparisons between Black Swan and Paranormal Activity. It was far more atmospheric and internalized than anything and wasn't necessarily what I would consider horror.

I definitely recommend it for fans of Maggie Stiefvater's flare of magic and eeriness. Overall I give The Dark Beneath the Ice four stars.

Thanks to Sourcebooks Fire for taking a chance on a little book blog and giving me an ARC.

I’ve been watching loads of horror movies lately, but recently I realised I haven’t actually read a huge amount of YA horror…so I decided to fix that. Luckily this book was up for request on NetGalley and sounded pretty cool so I decided to give it a go – the comparison to Paranormal Activity got me intrigued.

I like the Paranormal Activity franchise, OK? (But don’t talk to me about PA: The Ghost Dimension…)

But anyway. I got stuck into this YA debut pretty easily. It starts off intriguingly enough – Marianne, our protagonist, is caught in the middle of her parents’ separation. She’s struggling with her emotions and soon strange things start happening – she’s losing time, getting odd messages, finding herself unable to recall certain events. The family drama is very effectively done – her father’s gone off by himself and her mother has checked herself into a hospital, and Marianne is now staying with her aunt Jen, who tries to convince her that everything will be OK. Marianne is also weighed down by the fact that she no longer loves dancing and her parents found out that she’d been skipping classes, which she thinks contributed to the family drama. Her friend has also moved away, so she feels even lonelier – but soon the strange occurrences in her life lead her to get closer to the school’s resident “weird girl”, Rhiannon (better known as Ron), whose mother is a psychic who may be key in understanding just what is going on with Marianne.

I thought the queer rep in this novel was pretty good – it’s not central to the story (the haunting and family drama is the main plot) but it remains important to Marianne’s character. So thumbs up for that.

For the horror aspect…well, the first half of this book was really effectively creepy and well-done. I felt worried for Marianne as she slowly came to realise that maybe her mother did actually see something terrifying before she checked into hospital and wasn’t just hallucinating. I find that the trope of “character doesn’t realise something horrifying happened until they play back a tape/video/recording” always makes my blood run cold, and I thought it was really effectively used here when Marianne and Ron get too close to the thing that’s haunting Marianne.

But, uh, the second half. I wasn’t a fan of the explanation for what was going on – I appreciate that the author was trying to be a bit more original, but this is one of those rare cases where I wish she’d gone down the more generic route for her explanation of events. It’s incredibly hard to make horror endings satisfying (just look at most of Stephen King’s novels – a lot of them run out of steam by the end), and this one just didn’t do anything for me. As soon as the reasons were explained, it stopped being creepy – it just made me a bit confused and unsatisfied. I do give it props for being an example of a very atmospheric, emotional horror novel, but there were too many things that the author was trying to tie together with the “big reveal” and in my opinion, it just didn’t work, and it didn’t freak me out either.

I thought this was a decent novel with some original elements and great characterisation and drama, but as a horror it fell a bit short for me. I’d be interested to see the author’s next book – I can’t deny that it was an enjoyable read.

Frightening and riveting!
Thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire for the opportunity to read and review The Dark Beneath the Ice by Amelinda Berube!
Marianne is staying with her Aunt Jen until her mother straightens some things out. Marianne’s parents are split up, but her parents leave her in the dark. Marianne breaks and throws chalk during her math class when the teacher asks her to solve an equation at the board but she has no recollection of that. Her parents keep reassuring her that their separation is not her fault. This makes me wonder about the situation they were in and what is going on with Marianne. While living at Aunt Jen’s, Marianne makes a new friend, a helpful friend in Rhiannon, who prefers to be called Ron. Together they try to get to the bottom of Marianne’s struggles. During an experiment with Marianne, something frightens Ron terribly and she runs away and leaves Marianne on the beach where Marianne had an episode and Ron recorded the audio part of it. Frightening and riveting! I didn’t want to put the book down. This creepy, supernatural read gave me chills and food for thought- we all have to fight our own personal demons. 5 stars!

A paranormal thriller, The Dark Beneath the Ice is a mystery with high stakes. Marianne has just been told her parents are getting a divorce, and her Mom then checked herself into the hospital for emotional problems. Just as her life is falling apart around her, paranormal things start happening to her. She starts loosing time, having dreams about drowning in a deep ice water lake, breaking lights and mirrors around her and seeing ominous writings on the surfaces around her. Whatever is happening is getting worse, and she has to navigate her life and family problems, all while going crazy and facing off against the powerful and paranormal.
It was fine. The Dark Beneath the Ice was okay, but right at the end it had a random lesbian relationship that came out of nowhere and didn't feel appropriate to the pacing. It felt quite abrupt and didn't really fit, being thrown in within the last couple pages. The story was very family and individually focused, which was fascinating, but then in the last pages changed to a romance, which felt very unearned. Besides that, the story before then was very interesting as it was written in a way that you could imagine that the story was not a paranormal thriller, but the story of a mentally ill young girl who is seeing the outcome of bottling up trauma and extreme emotions. It was fairly interesting in that way. All it all, The Dark Beneath the Ice was fine and I give it the rating of THREE AND A HALF STARS OUT OF FIVE!!!

The Dark Beneath the Ice is the debut novel for Amelinda Berube. The story follows Marianne, a high school age girl suffering an identity crisis. Marianne’s parents are in the middle of a charged separation. Marianne’s mother seems to suffer from a history of emotional disturbances and decides that it is best for Marianne to stay with her aunt while she works through the divorce.

Soon after Marianne relocated to her Aunt’s, mysterious occurrences start to happen to Marianne. Unexplainable things that make Marianne think she has truly lost her mind. Not knowing what to do, Marianne starts seeing a therapist and starts taking medication designed to make her brain operate correctly.

The story is well written and seems realistic for a teen suffering from angst and familial issues. The book has lots of vivid imagery. Novel touches on a few different issues that a budding teen trying to find where they fit in the world might deal with. Storyline is kinda built up as a ghost story, but it definitely ends up heading in a different direction. It’s a quick, short read, easy to get through, and mostly enjoyable to read.

Dark Beneath The Ice follows Marianne after she’s just quit ballet which has taken up her entire life and caused a tremendous amount of stress for her and her family. She starts experiencing strange things, first some objects being moved, and eventually a voice. And she wonders who, or what could be haunting her.

I was really excited to start reading this as soon as I got it. It’s described as The Black Swan meets Paranormal Activity and as a former ballerina dancer, and someone who also quite enjoys horror movies, I thought this would fit me to a T. But, the book just didn’t follow through. Dark Beneath The Ice really is The Black Swan meets Paranormal Activity when you really think about it, but with less thrills and suspense. And I think that’s the reason the book fell flat. It needed a few more jump scares, and also the writing was too “pretty” at times and not creepy enough.

Something I really enjoyed was the family dynamic, and the main character. Marianne is a former dancer, but she’s also struggling to share with her friends that she’s into girls. In addition, she’s also dealing with the divorce of her parents, her mom dealing with a potential disorder of some kind, and learning to live with a relative she’s not super close with thanks to her parents’ divorce. I really liked that even in a thriller/horror novel, the main character had real-life issues.

Overall, I’m giving this one three stars, mostly because it just wasn’t creepy enough. Also, I wish the author had come back to the psychic reading at the end.

The Dark Beneath the Ice is an unputdownable YA queer thriller that I encourage everyone to read. It's been blurbed as Paranormal Activity meets Black Swan and I completely agree.

I'm going to say it right out: this book is scary as hell. Oh my gosh, I was terrified and I'm not someone who gets scared easily. The paranormal elements were mixed perfectly with tension to create such a frightening reading experience.

The main character, Marianne, was a very intriguing character. Her self-hatred was heartbreaking to read but it also felt very real, and I felt as though I could connect with her. I was also fascinated by her relationship with her mother -- which revealed another intriguing layer to The Dark Beneath the Ice.

I absolutely adored the romance, which is something I didn't think I'd say in a horror novel. It's an f/f romance, which I'm so thankful for (!!), and it's such a wonderful slow burn. You really become invested. M

The Dark Beneath the Ice was truly a unnerving story with a well-planned plot, characters and motivated storyline. I haven’t enjoyed reading a scary book in a long time, which says a lot because I read a great deal of horror and zombie books. I was spellbound by the story this author has created and look forward to reading and reviewing more of her books.

The Dark Beneath the Ice took me a little while to get through. The book wasn't particularly long and I didn't particularly dislike it, but it was a little slow for me for a couple reasons in particular. First, Marianne, the narrator, was unreliable and I had a difficult time sticking with her. Marianne's mother commits herself to a hospital and Marianne goes to live with her aunt in who's house she begins to see and hear horrific things. This leads to the second thing I didn't like, which was how short-lived the creep-factor was. It was great and fun but it didn't last and it really slowed down.

My favorite part of the book was probably the character Ron. She was a great secondary character to Marianne and her personality was just fantastic.

Overall The Dark Beneath the Ice wasn't all that I wanted it to be but it was all right. The cover is also a big draw-in and talks about mental health and LGBTQ are pretty good.

The Dark Beneath the Ice is a paranormal thriller that’ll keep you on the edge of your seat from start to finish. It’s described as being Black Swan meets Paranormal Activity. Admittedly I haven’t seen either of those, so I can’t really comment too much; but I will say that based on the trailers alone that’s a pretty decent description of the feeling and mode of this novel. It’s dark, eerie, and chaotic at times (as only a paranormal event can be), but it’s also full of raw emotion, determination, and perseverance. In short, it’s a wonderful blend and a fascinating story.
Warnings first: I’d say that this novel is pretty safe on the whole. There are a couple of characters that question their mental stability throughout the book (which will make sense when you start reading it, I promise) and they seek various levels of care.
I’ll be honest with you here, I went into this novel expecting one thing, and I ended up getting something completely different. I don’t know if I absolutely loved what I got, but I really did enjoy all the twists and surprises throughout.
I devoured this book. Once I got started the plot just grabbed me and I absolutely had to know what was happening and what the cause was behind everything. I just couldn’t get to the ending fast enough. I sincerely think I may have finished this book in one sitting. Actually, I know I did. And then once I finished I sat there staring at it for a good fifteen minutes, trying to process the emotional roller coaster this book just threw me aboard.
I’ll admit that I was a little disappointed with the revelation at the end. I think there’s more she could have done with it, some smoothing over or something to make it feel less…sudden. Still, getting us from point a to point b will extremely interesting, so I’m happy with having put aside the time to read this one.
This is Amelinda Berube’s first novel (that I can see listed on Goodreads at least) and I have to say that I’m exceptionally impressed. She came out of the gate swinging, so to speak. And she certainly made an impression on me. I do know that her next novel is titled Here There Are Monsters, which already sounds fantastic. I can’t wait to get my hands on it!

Although this is a YA with a flair of the paranormal, I do think how a reader experiences the read depends on the perspective you have on the story. If you completely eliminate the paranormal and ghostly element of the story ask yourself what you’re left with. You are left with the internal emotional turmoil of a teenager, which manifests itself in physical reactions, blackouts and auditory hallucinations.

The stress of feeling inadequate and not being able to live up to expectations in regards to her dancing. The fear of being rejected for her sexuality and not feeling as if she can be true to her inner desires, and the distress of being a pawn in the middle of a battle between her mother and father. All of those things throw Marianne into a tailspin and threaten to completely destroy her sanity.

Bérubé takes all of those elements and covers them with thin dark veil of a dangerous paranormal presence. Something waiting to consume Marianne when she lets her guard down. To drag her under the icy water and take the life she knows away from her.

Marianne and her new friend Ron set out to discover who or what is threatening both of them, and unfortunately they underestimate the power behind the mysterious presence. The truth is something neither of them can really comprehend.

It’s a tale of teenage distress, pain and fear. When you take the simple paranormal structure away – what remains is a heartbreaking story of a breakdown and a cry for help, albeit a subconscious one. The author writes it in a very lyrical and haunting way. The dark presence haunts, taunts and scares the girl, and ultimately tries to destroy her. It’s a fascinating combination of a psychological premise combined with a paranormal flair. It’s understated and yet extremely powerful at the same time.

Chilling, unsettling, and tense, Amelinda Bérubé’s debut novel The Dark Beneath The Ice relentlessly submerges the reader into the broken, detached world of former dancer Marianne. The lines between crushing mental illness and supernatural possession are blurred, and Marianne’s own attempts to distinguish between the two are in equal parts exasperating and intriguing.

Ambiguity runs deep throughout the story, and plays a significant part in the development of a protagonist who often deliberately avoids learning new information, in fear of shattering her already fragile state of mind. In most cases this would be a frustrating character flaw, but in The Dark Beneath The Ice we are similarly torn between our craving for knowledge, and our desire for Marianne’s safety.

As she loses control, we lose control with her. Each time she learns something new, we use that to desperately try to solve the mystery for her. By the end of the novel, the attachment we form with Marianne is not just one of an outside observer—we become Marianne, slipping into her skin as easily as the ghost.

It is clear on a surface level that Marianne’s possession is a metaphor for her coming of age. Its timing is no coincidence, as it falls directly within that period of life where we realise how little agency we truly have over our world. Parents separating, losing old friends, discovering one’s sexuality, giving up on childhood dreams—for those without an outlet, these frustrations build up and spill out in outbursts of rage. Then when our head clears, we look back and wonder what pushed us to act so out of character. Bérubé effectively applies a paranormal, psychological filter to this common experience, so that when the supernatural happenings start to creep into Marianne’s life they feel all too familiar.

One significant piece of imagery that plague’s Marianne’s mind is the icy, bottomless lake, threatening to crack and pull her under whenever she loses consciousness. At other times, Marianne finds herself watching her possessed body from the outside, with the world around her appearing dark and lifeless. Much like the sunken place from Jordan Peele’s 2017 horror film Get Out, this realm is a place where Marianne is a passive observer, unable to interact with anyone or anything. Here, she is helpless against the force that is taking over her body.

Although this imagery is beautifully effective, The Dark Beneath The Ice unfortunately suffers from inconsistent pacing throughout its narrative. The story barely gives enough time for the reader to adjust to the setting before the supernatural activity is introduced, making its initial appearance not particularly surprising or unsettling. When the ghostly apparition finally manifests, its frequent battles with Marianne’s power of will often crop up at awkward points without sufficient build up, sometimes dragging on for so long that each one feels like the final confrontation. As a result the real, final face-off between Marianne and the ghost, while providing a satisfying resolution, does not feel as intense as those that came before.

Where Bérubé excels, however, is in her ability to imbue each character with a tragic sense of authenticity. Rhiannon, Marianne’s parents, Aunt Jen, and even Ingrid each feel like individuals who, just like Marianne, conceal parts of themselves they are ashamed of. Most of the time we never really get to find out what these are, and yet these hidden secrets further isolate us from the world in which Marianne feels like such an outsider. By gradually cutting off her closest ties, the tension slowly turns up until we too are suffocating, leaving us to grab at any sliver of hope—hope that is often tantalisingly dangled in front of our faces, only for us to see it cruelly snatched away.

The Dark Beneath The Ice is a refreshingly original blend of the paranormal and coming-of-age genres that dispenses with common young adult fiction tropes, and instead deals with adolescent issues in a more serious light. Although the uneven pacing occasionally throws the narrative off course, it rarely lasts long enough to distract from Bérubé’s enthralling characters and eloquent imagery. Her debut as a novelist displays a great deal confidence and intelligence, demonstrating a flair for delving into supernatural and psychological realms that will surely continue to captivate readers.

Title: The Dark Beneath the Ice
Author: Amelinda Berube
Genre: YA, thriller
Rating: 3 out of 5

Marianne’s parents have split up—she doesn’t know why—and her mother won’t stop crying before dropping her off to stay with her aunt. Her aunt won’t say, either. So, Marianne tries to make sense of the world, which hasn’t felt right since she stopped dancing.

But Marianne’s losing time. She does things but doesn’t remember doing them. Her mom is in the hospital because of something that happened on a night Marianna can’t remember. Things break around her, and she’s drawn to the cold, dark, icy river that threatens to overflow its banks.

Something is after her, and now she has its full attention—and its rage. It wants back what she stole from it, but Marianna has no idea what that is.

This book creeped me out a bit—in a bad-horror-movie-way (Why yes, I know something is chasing me, but I think I’ll go out into the night all alone!)—but that was its strong point. I wasn’t too invested in any of the characters, or what was going on. It was a decent read, but not something I’d pick up again. (I don’t really read horror much anymore, though, so my reaction could have been linked to that.)

Amelinda Berube lives and writes in Canada. The Dark Beneath the Ice is her new novel.

(Galley provided by Sourcebooks Fire in exchange for an honest review.)

I was so excited to receive The Dark Beneath the Ice and loved the idea of a story with supernatural, horror, unreliable narrators, ghost stories ... I loved the beginning of the story, but as the writing became less poetic and the plot became painfully obvious, I just lost interest. It didn't even feel supernatural at all towards the end.

I was disappointed that the story became less of a supernatural / dark story and more of a coming of age type thing that abruptly switched styles. I am trying to avoid spoilers. I feel like the writer had an incredibly creative idea that started out strong, but somewhere towards the end the "point" stared to overwhelm the writing style and flow.

I would definitely read this author again based entirely on the beginning of this book.

I was given this book in exchange for an honest review.

A ghost story that is genuinely spooky is a rarity. This one delivers all the chills. I was immediately engaged in Marianne's life, her typical teenager drama compounded by POSSIBLY BEING POSSESSED!!! At one point I thought I had figured out what was going on and shortly after Marianne herself wonders about the same theory. She questions her mother who quickly puts it to rest. I was so wrong and the story continued to keep me guessing right until the end. I absolutely loved the friendship developing into romance. I was shipping them from early on! I am generally not a big fan of romance in thrillers but in this case it worked for me. It didn't distract at all from the plot and it wasn't overdone and sappy. Quite the opposite actually.

I devoured this book in a few sittings. I was dying to see what would happen next and to figure out the mystery. (The mini cliff hanger where Marianne doesn't listen to the audio tape right away was a killer. You could not have pried the book from my hands at that point!) I'm surprised that this is by a first time author because she nailed it. With YA horror it is difficult not to veer into cliche or campiness. "The Dark Beneath the Ice" is a serious horror novel and I can't wait to see where this author takes us next!

Thank you to Sourcebooks Fire for providing an Electronic Advance Reader Copy via NetGalley for review.

Things are not going well for Marianne as of late. She is losing chunks of time, doing things that she can’t remember, and alienating friends and family members in the process. When she meets Rhiannon (Ron to her friends), Marianne wonders if maybe she has finally found someone who can help her understand what’s been happening to her. The two girls develop a complex relationship that vacillates between troubled friendship and romantic entanglement. By working together, they search for whatever ghost or supernatural force may be haunting Marianne and everyone around her. The trouble is, without knowing what it is that the entity wants, there seems to be no possibility for a solution. Bérubé’s debut novel is a sinister exploration of self-doubt, internalized hatred, trust, and a romantic awakening. Though the ending wraps up a bit quickly and the explanation for the supernatural elements could have been more deeply explored, the novel is nevertheless well crafted and unsettling, making it ideal for teenage fans of supernatural thrillers.

The Dark Beneath the Ice was one of my most-anticipated releases of 2018, so I had pretty high hopes. And while the story delivered on some aspects for me, there were certainly parts that just kind of fell...flat.

I really enjoyed the whole storyline centering around possession and the weird things that went alongside it, and that definitely added to the atmospheric quality of the book. Bérubé did a phenomenal job with world building and giving readers a dark and moody book, and that was probably my favorite aspect. From the beginning, Marianne notices something is completely off, especially when strange and disturbing things happen only around her. No one else but her seems to notice (or otherwise care), and it quickly becomes the sole focus of her life — figure out why and what is making these things happen and why it’s happening to her.

My main problem with this book is I wanted to be scared. I wanted to be creeped out, I wanted to feel unsettled, disturbed, freaked out, and in the end, I didn’t feel much of any of those things, and I fully expected to being that this is labeled as ‘horror’ (which perhaps isn’t the fault of the book itself, but the fault of myself, the reader, for being well and above the target age group.) I may not have found it all that spooky, but I’m sure there are plenty of teens that will. Unless said teens are similar to me, where they dove straight in to adult horror in their preteens :-)

The characters were another favorite aspect in this book and I loved the fact that the main character, Marianne, wasn’t straight. The relationship between her and Rhiannon was super sweet, realistic, and really quite lovely, and I’d definitely recommend this book on the relationship alone. Slowly but surely, YA is getting more and more books without the typical straight boys and girls, and it’s about time. The Dark Beneath the Ice has fantastic f/f representation, but don’t expect the romance to be front and center. This isn’t a romance book, it’s a book *with* romance.

Bottom line — this was an enjoyable read in the end, even if it left me feeling unfulfilled on the horror front. That can probably be directly chalked up to my age versus the target age, as I’m certainly no longer a teenager. I’m sure there will be plenty of teens that will enjoy this one, and it’s still one I’d recommend for both teens and lovers of horror-lite.

*eARC received via NetGalley.

The Dark Beneath the Ice was truly a spooky story with a well planned plot and driven storyline. I haven't been that creeped out reading a book in a long time, which says a lot because I read a great deal of horror and zombie books. I was captivated by the tale this author has crafted and look forward to reading more of her work.