Rachel runs a true crime podcast that became increasingly popular after setting an innocent man free. Now in her third season of the podcast, she travels to a small coastal town to cover a rape trial in progress annd allowing her listeners to decide for themselves: guilty or not guilty?
Used to being recognized for her voice not her face, Rachel is shocked to find a letter addressed to her pinned to her windshield shortly after reaching Neapolis. The sister of a supposed drowning victim claims that it was murder. As more letters are delivered anonymously to Rachel sharing details of Jenny's murder, she begins to investigate this past crime while continuing her coverage of the present rape case.
As the book went on, I found myself, like Rachel, more interested in Hannah and Jenny's story than Kelly's rape case. I couldn’t wait for the next letter to be delivered to read the next part of the story. Great plot twist in this interesting story.
I received a complimentary copy of this book through Netgalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Oh my WOW! I usually don’t like courtroom stories too much, I feel like they can be very dry. This story, however, that was not the case! It tied together a court case podcaster with a 25 year old supposed drowning accident and a current day rape case. I have never seen something so complicated done so masterfully! The author wove all of these stories together like an incredible tapestry. The characters had realistic and power, and the narratives had me feeling like I was right there through it all. I never saw the twist coming, it had me absolutely electrified! I found myself sneaking off to the locker room at work to keep reading so I could figure out who-dunit! Stellarly written, this book should definitely be on your list. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for my free ARC in exchange for my honest opinion!

Great book where the past meets the present! Told from the point of view of a Podcaster and it kept me guessing. I couldn't put the book down! Would love to see Megan Goldin write follow up books with the same main character. Highly recommend reading this!

Rachel travels to Neapolis to cover a court case for her true crime podcast. In the midst of the trial, she keeps getting letters from Hannah. Hannah wants Rachel to investigate her sister’s death that happened 25 years ago.

This was a thrilling read - I had a hard time putting it down. The author keeps the momentum with telling the story of the court case, Rachel’s podcast and Hannah’s story.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC. I was pleasantly surprised by this book. I read Goldin's debut novel, The Escape Room, last year and did not love it, so I was a bit hesitant to pick up this novel. However, I ended up really loving it. The true crime podcast angle was interesting and I loved the main character. I also think the author did an excellent job covering an intensely difficult and triggering topic in rape and sexual assault. I will definitely recommend this book to my bookish friends and family.

My thanks to St. Martin's Press, and Netgalley. This was my first time reading one of Megan Goldins books. I was not disappointed. 5 Star thriller, predictable but entertaining.

The protagonist, Rachel, is a crime story podcaster. The author included the podcasts as chapters, which made it unusual reading for me. However, after reading two of them, I figured it out. Rachel has traveled to a small town on the Outer Banks of North Carolina to attend and report on a rape trial. The town's hero is a swimmer hoping to make the Olympic team. He has been accused of rape. The accuser is the teenage daughter of a successful boat tour operator. The town has taken sides making for a tense trial. Anyone familiar with a small, southern town can relate. To add to the interest of the story, Rachel is being contacted secretly by a woman whose sister died twenty-five years ago and wants Rachel to investigate it as a murder. I can't go farther without spoilers.
The author does an excellent job of pulling it all together, adding enough twists and turns to keep the pages turning. For a story with a dynamic female protagonist, this one is it. Good reading.

COULD NOT PUT THIS BOOK DOWN!!!!!! A twisty, turny story that keeps you on the edge of your seat. Two girls, two rapes 25 years apart. The search for justice and truth in a small town that has always supported the privileged and influential members while casting out the outliers . This story will suck you in. Highly recommend.

As the author of the Escape Room Megan Goldin captured my interest with her suspenseful novel and I was eager to read more and this novel made me a believer. Rachel Krall is a well known name as a true crime podcaster who worked to set an innocent man free. This time Rachel is in the small town of Neapolis covering the trial of a golden boy swimmer and rape suspect. As she works to uncover the story behind the rape and someone is following her and leaving strange notes about a unsolved murder decades ago. The writer of the notes, Hannah implores Rachel to uncover the mystery behind her sister Jenny’s suspicious drowning years before. Ms. Goldin deftly weaves the two mysteries together as Rachel tries to cover the current rape trial as well as uncover the mystery of Jenny’s drowning. Some of the chapters are a bit slower than others as you read about the trial and if you have ever been a victim of rape may be difficult to read as the accuser goes through such a difficult time having to relive the rape in public. I found the trial chapters to be very interesting and moving and found this book to be suspenseful and emotional with a very satisfactory ending.

Thanks to Netgalley for an ARC of this book, in return for a fair and honest review.

I enjoyed Ms. Goldin's first book, [book:The Escape Room|41150380], for the pure adrenaline rush and action. That one was easy, at least in theory, since it wasn't hard to decide who was in the wrong. This book also had an interesting plot and was certainly a page turner, but, once again, it was clear from the very beginning who was in the wrong.

Don't get me wrong - I am not craving a book in which the accused rapist is portrayed as a sympathetic character! But here, because of the structure of the book (a podcast journalist purporting to give an even-handed account of the trial of the accused rapist), I thought I was going to have to make some tough calls about who I believed, whether the accused was being "railroaded," etc. On the contrary, it was very clear all along what had happened. And the podcast journalist, in her preferred role as "super crime sleuth" certainly got involved in gathering evidence and such.

While she's doing this, she's also being dragged into investigating a 25 year old murder case that was previously swept under the rug. That case also involved rape and the vilification of the victim.

Don't expect a book that will lead you to think about difficult questions regarding rape, the treatment of rape victims, and whether there is any possibility that the rape allegations are untrue. And that's okay - as I said above, I'm not really looking right now for a case depicting the alleged rapist as a victim of circumstances. The book is interesting, the action is interesting, and the parallels of the current case and the old case are interesting, as are the entangled and intertwined characters.

Good escapist reading, especially if you don't really feel up to dealing with ethical/philosophical dilemmas right now!

Trigger warnings— detailed rape scenes
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What I liked: I loved the podcast implantation in the novel. It helped describe courtroom scenes and other key factors of the trial. The author is really good at bringing in a past trauma to a present— just like she did in her previous novel!
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What I didn’t- this is a mystery and not a thriller as said. Also, again with the duel timelines. I promise that mysteries and thrillers can survive without this story telling technique.

This book disturbed me. I don’t want to say in a good way- bc that sounds weird- but in a necessary way, I guess. The protagonist is a former journalist, current true crime podcast host that is covering a rape trail. When she arrives to the beach city where it’s all going down- she gets some mysterious letters from a local person asking to help her with a rape, possible murder case from years ago that was swept under the rug as an accident. While the two separate rape occurrences weren’t described in super vivid detail- you definitely get the point. The reason I think this book is important is bc it shows how much damage sexual assault can do. Not to just the individual but to a whole family and to some extent a community. Even though this particular story was fiction, I can guarantee these situations happen all too often. What really bothered me was the additional victim blaming and “Slut shaming”. It’s inexcusable- and yet we know it happens. I liked the way the author divided the story into different segments of Rachel’s own story, letters from Hannah, the girl trying to solve her sister’s murder and with episodes of her podcast. The ending was satisfying even though I wanted a little more suffering for the bad guys.

Megan Goldin has done again! This is a thrilling novel of suspense that keeps a reader engaged the entire time. Goldin is slowly becoming one of my favorite mystery authors.

Great one! A very enjoyable thriller that made me want to read more about this author which I haven't read before. I like discovering new author!

“When it comes to rape, it seems to me “if only” is used all the time. Never about the man. Nobody ever says “if only” he hadn’t raped her. It’s always about the woman. If only...”

Megan Goldin writes a compelling novel that simultaneously covers two different crimes from two different times. Rachel is the host of a popular podcast, “Guilty or Not Guilty,” and has decided for the third season she wants to cover something more controversial than a cold case to bump her ratings. She wants to follow a rape trial in real time, allowing the audience to understand what is happening in the court room with the “he said, she said” that occurs when rape is debated. She finds the perfect case in Neapolis where Scott Blair (think real life Brock Turner) has been accused of raping a young high school student, Kelly. As she follows the trial, she is pulled into the hidden mysteries in the town. She receives continuous correspondence from Hannah Sills, who has returned to town seeking the truth about her sister Jenny’s death years ago. Hannah is an avid fan of the podcast and knows that if she is ever to uncover the truth about that fateful night, she needs Rachel’s help to do so.

The book switches back and forth from the trial, Rachel’s interactions in Neapolis, and flashbacks courtesy of Hannah’s letters. Rachel is pulled into both cases and seeks to find the truth with Hannah, while still following Kelly’s rape case. It becomes apparent throughout the book that no one is who they appear to be and their secrets can’t be buried long.

I enjoyed this read and couldn’t wait to see what happened next. I love podcasts so I loved imagining how it was unfolding. I also loved the important conversation it brings up about rape. The quote I used in the beginning is SO TRUE. There are always a million “if only” questions surrounding a woman’s actions- if only she didn’t drink so much, or go out, or wear that shirt, or talk to that guy... it’s never WHAT IF we teach young men it’s wrong to rape women? What if we just teach them respect to begin with? I think this is important to think about and I think the book approached that well. My only complaint is that with the back and forth between the main story and the side story (Hannah), it felt like neither one was as impactful as they could be. I wasn’t sure which one to be more caught up on or how they may tie together in the end. But all in all, compelling read!

Thank you @netgalley for my advanced reading copy! Well done, Megan Goldin!

I loved the structure of this book: each chapter alternated among present-day Rachel (the podcaster), Hannah (a woman leaving Rachel letters begging for her to look into her sister's murder), and Rachel's podcast called Guilty or Not Guilty. For Rachel's latest podcast, she is following a rape trial in a small town. While she is doing so, one of Rachel's listeners, Hannah, follows her around town and leaves her letters regarding her sister's unsolved murder, so there are two story lines running parallel that eventually converge into an explosive conclusion. While I was able to guess who Hannah's sister's killer was halfway into the book, it did not take away from my enjoyment of it.

In the podcast chapters, Rachel explores why rape is such a deeply divided crime that rarely results in convictions. She also describes the utter brutality that victims have to endure should they choose to press charges and testify in court, which is partly why rape is a shockingly underreported crime. She also speaks briefly about what is involved when victims undergo a rape kit. In summary, these chapters were eye-opening to say the least, and it makes me question the way the legal system works for sexual assault victims. I don't believe the way it is currently set up helps victims to get justice in an easy way; the path to justice for rape victims is utterly gruelling and frankly unfair.

Overall, The Night Swim is a great thriller, and I thought it was a terrific idea that it was structured the way it was. I really appreciated the sentiments that were shared regarding rape and sexual assault.

As with The Escape Room, Goldin's previous thriller, this novel was a definite page-turner. She knows how to keep readers engaged in the story and invested in the characters. And just as she held us in suspense by keeping 2 storylines going at once in her earlier novel, she does a similar feat here: keeping 2 mysteries alive, although separated by 25 years.

While one mystery had an obvious conclusion, the other was much more elastic in its possibilities and that was the heartbreaking one. I truly felt for the character of Jenny and the horrors she endured.

I would love to see Goldin return with another novel featuring Rachel and her podcast! That was a brilliant framing device and Rachel herself is a character I would love to know more about.

Thanks to Netgalley for the arc to review.

Compelling read!

I was excited to read this as I enjoyed Megan Goldin’s first book. A warning for some…the subject matter was disturbing at times. However, it made the reader highly invested in the outcome. The juxtaposition between the modern setting of a podcast with the earlier, stark and impoverished setting gave the story two distinct voices. The author did an excellent job of tying both storylines together.

I would definitely read this author again.

I enjoyed this book, but I wouldn’t call it a thriller. It was more of a crime fiction novel. I any event, it had some good twists

I enjoyed this book. In essence the book is about a rape trial. It is interesting but sad to see both aspects of a rape trial, what is involved on the side of the victim etc. The main character in the book is covering the trial for a podcast. She updates her listeners on what happens every day of the trial, giving background so that readers can pretend to be the jury and decide whether the person accused of rape is guilty or not. A good plot with an interesting side story and a few twists to keep everyone guessing.