The River

The River is a short horror fiction novel by American authors Scarlett Lautner and Luke Evansdale. The book was published as a children's horror novel on July 18, 2007.

Plot
A little girl and her brother travel down to a small river flowing near where they're hiking. They see a strange fish surface and eat a deer. They tell their parents, who catch the incident on video. The fish then suddenly reproduces asexually, sending some of it's babies over to eat the family. The father pulls out the gun he had in his pocket for safety, and tries to shoot the fish, but they realize the fish is really an alien, and that it is also invincible. They run away from the fish, but, since they are miles from their vehicle, they soon become tired, and the fish catches them and eats them.

Background
The main idea for the book was originally suggested by one of Scarlett's classmates in school. Scarlett said she never intended to write scary books, but, upon writing it, she stated that she thought that writing horror literature was actually in a way, better than writing other genres. Her father, Ian Lautner, helped her write it, and went uncredited. Scarlett wrote the book over 7 weeks, as she wrote it simultaneously with several other books.

Publication
The book was first published in paperback on July 18, 2007. The hardcover edition was made available to the public on December 15, 2007. When asked where she was going to do her book signings, she said she was going to have a party in celebration of the event on Liberty Island near the Statue of Liberty. The signing lasted three days. When she first heard of the Kindle, she asked Amazon to make the book available for download on it. Barnes & Noble later made it available for it's Nook Tablet. Despite it's popularity on tablets such as the Kindle and Nook, the book wasn't officially made into an eBook until November 11, 2012.

Comic Book
The book was made available as a comic book as part of the Lautner Graphix series on August 1, 2013.

Television Miniseries
An episode of the television miniseries "Lautner Stories" focused on the book. Numerous elements of the story were added, due to the book's short length. The episode premeired on August 15, 2013, and was an hour long.