Ever watch those miracle cures on tv or popping up on your Facebook feed and think–hmmm? I wonder if it works? In The Drowning Kind there is a magical pool of water that smells terrible but cures people of all their ills. This story is a mystery with a strong paranormal element including creepy little drowned girls and a hundred years of malevolence around this water. After reading this, you’ll think twice about swimming in a lake or pond!
About The Drowning Kind
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Invited and The Winter People comes a chilling new novel about a woman who returns to the old family home after her sister mysteriously drowns in its swimming pool…but she’s not the pool’s only victim.
Be careful what you wish for.
When social worker Jax receives nine missed calls from her older sister, Lexie, she assumes that it’s just another one of her sister’s episodes. Manic and increasingly out of touch with reality, Lexie has pushed Jax away for over a year. But the next day, Lexie is dead: drowned in the pool at their grandmother’s estate. When Jax arrives at the house to go through her sister’s things, she learns that Lexie was researching the history of their family and the property. And as she dives deeper into the research herself, she discovers that the land holds a far darker past than she could have ever imagined.
In 1929, thirty-seven-year-old newlywed Ethel Monroe hopes desperately for a baby. In an effort to distract her, her husband whisks her away on a trip to Vermont, where a natural spring is showcased by the newest and most modern hotel in the Northeast. Once there, Ethel learns that the water is rumored to grant wishes, never suspecting that the spring takes in equal measure to what it gives.
A haunting, twisty, and compulsively readable thrill ride from the author who Chris Bohjalian has dubbed the “literary descendant of Shirley Jackson,” The Drowning Kind is a modern-day ghost story that illuminates how the past, though sometimes forgotten, is never really far behind us.
My Review
This is a story told in two time periods about a pool of magic water that can heal people and make sick babies well. But, the miracles come with a price. In the modern day story we have Jax, a social worker and her sister Lexi, the creative sister, who suffers from mood swings and never quite makes it as a functioning adult. Lexi is found drowned in the pool, but she isn’t the only one. The author lets us in on a long history of drownings going back to the twenties when a hotel was built as a refuge for those seeking healing waters. I enjoyed both stories and getting into the head of Jax, a character who feels guilty for ignoring her sister in her final days. The supernatural element of the book is outstanding and the ending will get you!
I received this book from Net Galley and have left an honest review.
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