"A gripping, gritty and award-winning coming-of-age novel for young adult readers."

"A gripping, gritty and award-winning coming-of-age novel for young adult readers. When Te Arepa Santos is dragged into the river by a giant eel, something happens that will change the course of his whole life. The boy who struggles to the bank is not the same one who plunged in, moments earlier. He has brushed against the spirit world, and there is a price to be paid; an utu (revenge) to be exacted. Years later, far from the protection of whanau (family) and ancestral land, he finds new enemies. This time, with no one to save him, there is a decision to be made- he can wait on the bank, or leap forward into the river. At the 2013 NZ Post Childrens Book Awards Into the River was judged the Margaret Mahy Book of the Year. It also won the Young Adult Fiction category of the awards. An engaging coming-of-age novel, it follows its main protagonist from his childhood in small-town rural New Zealand to an elite Auckland boarding school, where he must forge his own way including battling with his cultural identity. This prequel to Ted Dawe's award-winning novel Thunder Road is gritty, provocative, at times shocking, but always real and true. The awards' chief