An excellent book, especially for a first collection. Ballingrud writes in the weird tradition, and while some stories feature his take on stock horror monsters, others are wholly original. Regardless of whether he is writing a devastating vampire tale ("Sunbleached") or turning the idea of the ghost story on its head ("The Way Station"), the core of each story is interpersonal relationships, and often how they are shaped by longing, anger, guilt, and shame.

I had read one of these stories before: "The Crevasse" (written with Dale Bailey) appeared in Ellen Datlow's great LOVECRAFT UNBOUND anthology. It retained its intensity a second time around, even when I remembered what was coming. As good as the reprinted stories are - and they are very, very good - the most flat-out horrifying story (for me at least) was the one original to this collection. "The Good Husband" evolves from melancholy to skin-crawling creepiness at an expert pace. It is one of those stories that upon finishing it, you need to take a little breather before doing anything else.

You can read two of these stories online for free. "Sunbleached" appeared on Nightmare Magazine (March, 2014), and the title story "North American Lake Monsters" appeared on Weird Fiction Review (October, 2013). Give one (or both) a read, and I'll bet you end up buying this book.