Wow, this popcorn-thriller did not disappoint!! It was compulsive and I could not put it down. I loved the concept of the podcast. This is the second book I have read featuring a podcast and I loved that one too.

I enjoyed how the chapters flipped between present time Rachel at the rape trial for a young girl in a little seaside community, Rachel’s podcast, also covering current events, and letters from a young girl, Hannah, who wants Rachel to look into her sister’s death 16 years prior in the same town.

I couldn’t put it down. Thank you, NetGalley, for the advance copy!

Evocative and thought-provoking.

Being placed alongside the jurors and hearing testimony and the cross-examination brought a new light to what rape victims must endure. It brought up a host of conflicting emotions in me.

It affected me and made me think. The legal tape that surrounds a rape trial is something we never truly think about, or at least I didn’t. Not only do these victims have to testify and go through an invasive body search for evidence, they must also endure and suffer through a cross examination. An examination that must, by nature, disprove what the victim went through. That in some way, must also demean her and everything she has gone through in order to free the defendant. This story touched upon that only briefly, but stayed with me long after.

There is also a part in the book where Rachel describes a rustling of wild grass and correlates it to what K heard when she walked through it that fateful night. It gave me shivers and put me in this victim’s shoes if only just for a few brief moments.

There is mounting tension throughout the book. It was also gripping. My eyes and attention stayed glued to my ipad while reading. I needed to know what happened and how it would end. I wanted all the answers instantaneously but didn’t want the story to end.

The ending itself is bittersweet but fitting. At the end of the day, there are no heros in this story. Only flawed humans doing the best they can with what they have been given.

Definitely worth the read!!

I received an ARC via NetGalley of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Rachel has a true crime podcast that she solves criminal cold cases. For her third season, she took on a different route. It led her to a small town of Neapolis. She’s covering an open rape trial. Because of the nature of her work, she has kept her identity out of any media. No one knows what Rachel looks like. However, one fan, Hannah, had figured out who Rachel is and left a pleading letter on her car’s windshield pleading for Rachel to investigate into her sister’s murder that happened 25 years ago.

Megan Goldin second book The Night Swim is so much better than her last book. Her style of writing seems to have evolved with this captivating novel. The style of going back and forth where Rachel broadcast her side on her podcast was realistic. It pulls me in. Although many times Rachel podcasts was bias toward the victim, because of her side investigation into Hannah’s sister death. Hannah’s sister was also raped, but there were no investigations. The trial and her personal investigation seem to be disconnected except for the similarity of the rape of a young girl. However, at the end, Goldin tied it up very nicely. Life has come full circle. The novel has a nice mystery air to it like a real true crime podcast. 

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for letting me read this fabulous ARC in exchange for an honest review.

4 - 4.5 stars. This book had two different stories happening, and both of them were interesting. Once I got into reading, I wanted to see how everything would turn out. There were some things that were predictable, but it didn't take away from the thrill.

Wow! Agghhjjkd ! Oh sorry I just blabbered meaningless letters because I’m shaken to the core, carrying my stupid face looked like suffering from 30 botox syringe injections. If I was a real celebrity, they can carry me to the Wax Museum and position me next to Queen Elizabeth. I looked like a statue with no facial expression (My face looks like Nicole Kidman right now! And I always told no to esthetic surgeries! Dammit!)

Of course I’m giving five gazillion stars ! This is kind of book steals your heart, pulling your hands like a magnet and as soon as you grab it into your hands, you never want to put it down even though it’s doomsday and zombies from World War Z knocking out your door!

What should I tell the brilliant author of Escape Room? ( Thanks to her, I had grey cells transplant operation after reading that book because I killed the old ones to solve the mystery! You know how it feels there is a smoke coming from your head. Thankfully Megan Godin taught me by writing mind bending, crazy train riding story)

I could say: Brava! Congratulations! Felicidades! Congratulazioni! Toutes nos felicitations! Herzliche glückwünsche!

I reset my brain by restarting it and fixed my language settings. Oh yes! I can write in English again! No more Gibberish!

The things I have to emphasize about this book:

Author’s dual POVED writing was amazing. Rachel and Hannah’s narrations are captivating. Especially the podcast parts of the book make you devour all those pages, cancel your entire schedule, call sick, go to your home and finish this book under your duvet which I already did!!!!!

I loved Rachel Krall and I wish she will be real podcast host. ( I’m already addictive to Serial, Criminal, Up and Vanished. If you’re die-hard fans like me and haven’t listened to them before, I highly recommend to you.) As a host Rachel is brave, curious, a workaholic, exactly married with her job, analytic, doing her best to stay objective. We only learned she was divorced but as far as we see, she is only connection in the real world is her producer. She is tough, strong, smart heroine we’re looking for and I’m so sure after reading this book, you’re gonna want her back, chasing new crime stories.

She comes the small town of Neapolis to dig more about town’s golden boy, Olympic swimmer Scott Blair ‘s rape case. He is accused of raping 16 year old girl who is also the granddaughter of police chief. (If she wasn’t police chief’s granddaughter, maybe there won’t be any trial because town’s people are real good to bury the facts and reject to talk about them.)

When Rachel finishes her lunch break at a random diner, she finds an envelope on her car. A girl named Hannah who insists that her sister Jenny Stills (even though the police reports show she’s been drowned) has been murdered 25 years ago at the very same time and she needs help of Rachel.

At first Rachel has no intention to take the case but she feels Hannah’s existence like a shadow following her everywhere, living more notes. She is intrigued. She cannot help herself. That’s her in blood. And she realizes there are so many inconsistencies about dead sister’s case. So Hannah might be right. And guess what: both cases could be connected.

Now I’m stopping and let you read this book! I have to tell there is stunning, heart wrenching, soul shaking ending is coming up!!!!

I think there will be sequels ( at least ending gave me this impression and interestiny I wanted to know Mitch Alkins’ back story and what kind of case forced him to come back to his hometown and change his profession.)

Overall: I. LOVED.IT. SO.SO.SO.MUCH.

Special thanks to NetGalley and St.Martin’s Press for sending me the ARC COPY of best thriller of 2020 in exchange my honest review. And Megan Godin, I fell in love with two of your books. Please keep on creating!

This just didn't work for me--it didn't interest me enough to continue reading it after the first few pages.

***Thanks to NetGalley for providing me a complimentary copy of NIGHT SWIM by Megan Goldin in exchange for my honest review.***

True crime blogger Rachel is covering the case of an Olympic hopeful accused of raping a sixteen-year-old when a note from a woman, identifying herself as Hannah begs the journalist to investigate her sister’s murder from twenty-five years ago. When Rachel looks into the new case, she discovers the drowning was considered accidental. The more she investigates, the more the current and past case overlap in the small town.

NIGHT SWIM is my first Megan Goldin book, and it won’t be my last. I loved how she set chapters from Rachel’s third person POV, the podcasts and Hannah’s letters. From the blurb, I expected NIGHT SWIM to be a thriller, but the story was more mystery lacking the pace and tension of the thriller genre. Readers expecting an edge of your seat thriller might be disappointed. NIGHT SWIM was so good, I didn’t care about the slow start and pace. The resolutions were unexpected and satisfying, though the wrap up felt like a period rather than exclamation point at the end of a sentence.

NIGHT SWIM will make you glad you didn’t grow up in a small town with all the secrets, lies and corruption in the book. A worthy mystery.

Megan Goldin has hit it out of the park again. Rachel Krall, famous podcaster heads to small town, Neapolis to attend a trial regarding the rape of a 16 year old girl. What Rachel doesn't count on is another case begging for her attention.

Told in alternate perspectives of Rachel and Hannah. The book had me sucked in from the start.

Thank you Netgalley, and St. Martin's press for my advanced copy.

The Night Swim is the kind of book that grabs you straight from page one and doesn't let go until the final page; you're oblivious to everything else and realize a number of hours later the world continued spinning without you in it. It's the very definition of unputdownable.

This was a truly PHENOMENAL book. I read it all in about four hours. Each chapter was a cliff hanger and there were over 35 chapters. Truly an incredible book. I will go buy Megan's other book right now. Don't read any other reviews, just read this fantastic book. The best courtroom trial book I have ever read, and I have read quite a few. Well done. Buy it when it comes out!!!

I am so thankful I requested this book on Netgalley. Even though I figured out the ending long before it happened, this story had me glued to my seat and I read it in day!

Podcaster Rachel Krall is in the town f Neopolis for the start of a rape trial concerning the fair haired Olympic hopeful hero of the town and a sixteen year old girl. A classic he said/she said, the town is divided on the guilt or innocence of the boy. Rachel has decided that the new season of her podcast Guilt or Not Guilty will encompass this trial. What she doesn’t know is that a similar rape occurred decades ago that ended in a young girl being murdered. While Rachel sits in court everyday listening to the trial and doing her podcast at night, she is drawn into the decades old death by someone who says she is the sister of the girl who died.

What Megan Goldin has done is weave a tale of two girls, both of whose lives changed forever in the sleepy little town.

This book is told in third person revolving character between Rachel, and Hannah, the sister of the long dead girl. The stories intertwine together in a fascinating glimpse of how once a reputation is tarnished, it is tarnished forever. Even though she has been dead for years, Hannah’s sister Jenny is still viewed by the townspeople in a way that didn’t depict her as the girl she was.
I hate spoilers so I’ll leave it there, but just know, this book will make you think about how people perceive you and how powerless you are against rumors and innuendo.

This book will also force you to examine your views rape, what constitutes it – legally, and morally – and how our views can change in an instant.

5 well deserved stars to what I know will be a much talked about book of 2020. Thanks, Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for the sneak peak

Rachel Kralls” voice has become well known after her podcast, Guilty or Not Guilty, helped free an innocent man during its first season and solved a cold case murder during the second. With increasing competition from copycat podcasts, she decides to do something a little different and follow an ongoing case, involving a rape, attending the trial, making daily summaries and allowing the audience to be the jury.
Rachel stops at a diner on her way and is disturbed to find a note left on windshield. Although she receives thousands of emails, and her voice is well known, she works to remain unknown and it is discomforting that she was recognized. The note is from a person who identifies themself as Hannah and she has tried to contact Rachel previously about her sister Jenny who was killed in the city Neapolis where she is going to attend the rape trial. As Hannah reveals more about her story, she is drawn into looking for answers.
The case which has drawn her to this small town is already causing division between those who have a “ blame the victim” mentality and those who support Scott Blair the town golden boy. Can Hannah uncover the truth behind now only the current case but what happened 25 years ago?
The author draws you into this story and your heart aches for what rape victims are subjected to, not only by their attacker but by the system that is supposed to help get justice. I appreciate that the author was not trying to push one viewpoint over another which made stark descriptions of the victims anguish even more effective.
This is storytelling at its best, I could not put this down.

The Night Swim by author Megan Goldin is a thrill of a mystery book! The setting of a podcast is awesome and the characters are developed well! Would absolutely recommend this book!

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I loved this book!!! It's about a podcaster Rachel who takes on a case where a 19 year old swimmer is accused of raping a 16 year old girl after a party. There's also a backstory where in the same town 25 years earlier, 16 year old Jenny Stills died and her sister wants Rachel to help her find out the truth about what happened to her.

True crime podcasts are hugely popular these days and Rachel Krall is a very well known podcaster searching for answers to unsolved crimes. She finds a plea for help in a note left on her windshield, which leaves Rachel shaken. People might know her voice, but few would know her on sight. And this won’t be the first note she finds. With season three of her podcast on the line, Rachel begins to look into the case of a popular and well loved local swim star who has been accused of raping a high school girl, who just happens to be the town police chief’s granddaughter. While she tries to untangle the complex and explosive case, Rachel keeps getting notes from someone who wants to know what happened to her sister, Jenny, 25 years before. The official cause of death was accidental drowning, but the note writer knows she was murdered and there may be a connection between Rachel’s current podcast and the truth about what happened to Jenny all those years ago. Readers may make the connection before Rachel does, but this is still an exciting and timely read