The Drowning Kind

“In the water, dark and deep

Where she waits, fast asleep

All alone, pale and cold

Don’t wake her up, or she’ll catch hold”

If your deepest wishes could be granted but you would have to pay a price, would you still make your wish? 

Be careful what you wish for.

Jennifer McMahon's upcoming book, The Drowning Kind, is a gothic mystery with a sinister story connected to a freshwater spring that feeds into a dark and murky pool. This pool is on the grounds where a former grand hotel once stood, and an old family mansion now resides. Many locals claim this water has magical healing powers but while the water gives, it also takes. 

Told in alternating timelines and POVs (Ethel Montrose in 1929 and Jax in 2019), this atmospheric read with its supernatural element and unreliable characters gave me chills and I loved the tension and mystery surrounding of the powers of the water. Part of me wishes that readers are given more information about the why's and how's of the water's supernatural powers, but perhaps not knowing makes the story even more ominous.

This is an engaging mystery read with a healthy dose of family dysfunction, but it is the supernatural elements and the foreboding feel that will give you goosebumps and may make you rethink dipping into your pool at night.

Disclaimer: My sincere thanks to Gallery Books for my advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

My Rating: 4 stars

Author: Jennifer McMahon

Genre: Gothic, Suspense

Type and Source: advanced eBook copy from publisher via NetGalley

Publisher: Gallery Books - Simon and Schuster Canada

First Published: April 6, 2021

Opening Line: The dead have nothing to fear," Lexie said.

Book Description from GoodReads: 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.