Thank you to Netgalley, the author and the publisher for this ARC.

One of the things I loved the most about The Invited was how the story revolved around the house. The small details that made it this dark and spooky home. And I am so thankful that Jennifer McMahon stayed in this vein.

The Drowning Kind did not disappoint. If I read at night, I found myself looking over my shoulder. If I read in the daytime, my heart would pound. I often had goosebumps, I often hid my face behind my cardigan.

I love how the author weaves two different stories from decades apart together seamlessly. Usually when I read a book like that, with two alternating storylines, I favor one timeline over the other, but I couldn’t get enough of Ethel or Lexie.

This is the perfect book for a cool, rainy October night. Or really, any night. It was fantastic.

Jennifer McMahon has written a well crafted, highly original story that’s a slow burn to a satisfying conclusion. I would categorize the novel as more paranormal/horror than thriller.

Although the spring in the story is fictional, I can attest that McMahon accurately depicts an ice cold, bone chilling swim inside a natural spring. As a child, I swam in a local pool fed by a spring, and no matter how hot the summer sun, the water temperature never rose. We’d swim until our lips turned blue, our teeth chattered, and our jaws ached. Then we kids would wrap ourselves in towels and lay in the sun. The Drowning Kind revived these memories for me.

Thanks to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for an ARC of the book to read and review.

4++ Stars!!!!
I have read 4 Jennifer McMahon novels and totally loved 3 of those 4.
My comment on the book: "The Night Sister" was …
I liked this book certainly not a super scary horror monster book
more of a horror story for beginners.
Yep! I have been looking forward to another ghostly supernatural tale from one of my favorite writers!
This did not disappoint!

This story alternates between present and the year 1929.
Present: Sisters Jacqueline and Alexia aka Jax and Lexie grew up by vacationing at their grandmother’s Sparrow Crest country home. It has a spring-fed swimming pool, said to have healing powers as the waters is fed by an underground spring.
Lexi who is bipolar and often has manic episodes often has had dreams that their aunt Rita who drowned in the pool when she was 7. She believes that either Aunt Rita or another woman is calling out to her from the bottom of the pool.

The sisters call themselves. “The X Girls”. They cross their fingers and say “Now and Forever”.
However, Lexie then says, “If she comes for one of us, she’ll have to take us both!”

Past:
Back in the 1900s, there was a story told by children in Brandenburg, Vermont that the underground
springs at the Brandenburg Springs Hotel can heal you and also grant wishes…. Another belief is that the
Springs are cursed!

A legend has it that ~The water gives and the water takes away!

Ethel Monroe and her physician husband are in the late 30s and very anxious for a baby. Husband had heard about the hotel in Vermont and being a scientist b believes there just might be something special in the spring water. He tells his wife about the Hotel and how a trip to Vermont would be a nice romantic vacation.

Present: Now Jax is a social worker and discovers 9 unread messages from her sister Lexie who is bipolar and has had manic episodes. So Jax doesn’t overact by all the calls. Believe it is her dependent sister overreacting. Since Jax is in Seattle, WA and Lexie is in Brandenburg, Vermont, Jax calls her aunt and asked if she will stop by and check on Lexie as she is not answering her phone. Aunt Diane calls back that Lexie was found dead in their grandmother’s swimming pool!

Lexie has always been an excellent swimmer so Jax goes to Vermont to investigate. Once she finds out more about the home’s past she now is having fears that whomever or whatever called out to Lexie is responsible and is now after her.
So much more but don’t want to give too much away. Hopefully your interested has peaked with my description.

Personal Note: I finished this novel last night. My husband and our dog were both sound asleep. I turned
all the lights off as I walked down the hall and up to our bedroom. As I walked into the bedroom to turn
on a light, I stopped as I spotted though the blinds on the glass sliding door, a small very bright light in
the deep end of our our swimming pool. If I hadn’t just finished this story, I would not have thought twice
about this light. It, of course, was the reflection of a very bright full moon!

Want to thank NetGalley and Gallery/Scout Press for this early release granted in exchange for an honest professional review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
Publishing Release Date scheduled for April 6, 2021.

Thanks Netgalley for allowing me to read this book. Jax and her sister Lexi enjoyed the summers because they stayed at their grandmothers house where they loved to swim in the pool. This was no ordinary pool. There have been several young kids who have drowned in the pool. Jax gets a call that her sister Lexi has drowned. This book kept me guessing from start to finish. I cant wait to read Jennifer McMahon next book.

I am a huge Jennifer McMahon reader so I went into this with high expectations that were absolutely satisfied even if it gave me some guilt in the process.

Everyone bypasses a call from a loved one only to lose them unexpectedly soon after so, when this happens to Jax it made me so, so sad- I had to put the book down and walk away for a minute and come back.

When I did, what unfolded was a poignant and impossible to put down ride, the kind which McMahon unfailingly delivers when she sets out to tell a story.

Another spooky book from Jennifer McMahon. It sort of reminded me of Anne River Siddons' old book about an evil house but with a twist--healing springs that aren't quite so healing! We have traveled to a place with purported healing waters before so I was intrigued right off the bat. Her writing is so atmospheric that it's easy to to get sucked into both the 1920s story and the present-day one.

Thanks NetGalley for giving me an ARC of The Drowning Kind by Jennifer McMahon in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts are my own. This is the first ghost story that I ever enjoyed, due to how well written it is.

This book is fabulous. It is a traditional ghost story and made my skin crawl, I really felt unnerved reading it at night in the darkness. I don't want to give too much away about the story. Suffice it to say that McMahon deftly weaves a multigenerational tale of women that give in to their most sacred wishes and then pay high prices for getting what they want. This is a brilliant autumnal read for the run up to Halloween. The only downside is that it is a teensy bit too long, there is some repetition. Other books I have read by the author felt a bit tighter. Still, read this. If you love ghost stories, rather than out and out horror, then this is for you.

Thank you NetGalley and Gallery Books for the eARC.
Jax, a social worker, refuses to answer her sister Lexie's phone calls. She had decided to distance herself from Lexie, who has become increasingly manic. The sisters were extremely close growing up, but Jax always felt a bit resentful of Lexie's outshining of her and then, upon their mother's death, Lexie inherets everything, including their home. Jax has had enough, moving far away to make a life for herself without Lexie.
When she hears her sister has drowned in their home's pool, she is devastated, haunted by guilt. The pool was a big part of their childhood; it's water considered to have healing properties. But...the water gives and takes away.
The book is set in two timelines: today and the 1920's and 30's, featuring a couple who desperately want a child and build a home by the pool on the ashes of the hotel that was there before. The pool (I feel it was the main character of the book) is frightening and hides 'ghosts' that weave a deadly spell. Personally, I would have moved as far away as possible from it!
A great read, encompassing myth, mystery, family and mental illness, I couldn't put it down. Highly recommended!

Anything by Jennifer McMahon guarantees a sleepless night after I finish it. Loved the narrative and that twist ending, what a gut punch!

Jennifer McMahon has a unique ability to reel you into any story and totally suspend disbelief in the supernatural, and The Drowning Kind is no exception. I wasn't too sure what to expect in this story except for ghosts. But this book has so much more, and it's definitely not ghosts. I'm not sure what they were...maybe a twisted version of mermaids. As much as the story focuses on the monsters, it's also a study on how mental illness can affect an entire family. Jax was scarred growing up having to deal with both a father and sister who suffered from untreated mental illness, having to pretend that everything was normal & pretty much being her sister's keeper. It's this that has caused the rift between them as adults and the misplaced guilt over her sister's recent death. As Jax struggles to piece together her sister's last days, she becomes aware that something is off at the house. Eventually, she mistakenly believes that others purposely drove her sister crazy in a bid to get the house and land...mainly because she refuses to admit that there is something supernatural going on. By the time she finally comes to terms with this, it's already too late.

The ending to this book was a bit of a gut punch and made it all the more tragic. The story was well written and I highly recomend it.

I received an ARC copy from #NetGalley.

SPOILER-FREE REVIEW: (10/10 stars) The Drowning Kind was written by Jennifer McMahon and will be released by Gallery/Scout Press in April of 2021. McMahon is a New York Times bestselling author and the prolific writer of MANY successful, haunting mystery/thrillers, including The Invited, The Winter People, and The Night Sister. The tagline for her new novel reads, “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.”

PLOT RUNDOWN/BASICS: Jax is a social worker counseling troubled kids in Seattle, thousands of miles away from where she grew up in New England. Estranged from her older sister, Lexie, she is suddenly drawn back into the past - and the home she’s run away from - when her sister leaves her a series of increasingly troubling messages on her answering machine.

Lexie is bipolar, and Jax’s propensity to want to rescue her sister - plus her unexpected bitterness over Lexie’s inheritance of their grandmother’s vast fortune and property the year before - have led her to start a new life so far away. But it’s become clear to Jax that Lexie has stopped taking her medication, and when she asks their aunt to check on her, she is given the troubling news that her sister has been found dead in the pool on her property.
Jax must return home to Sparrow Crest, where she and Lexie spent all of their childhood summers with their late grandmother. She’s there to arrange Lexie’s funeral and take care of her affairs, including a cleaning of the neglected large stone mansion...but she’s also intensely curious about what happened to cause Lexie’s death. Lexie was a champion swimmer, one who knew all the ins and outs of their grandmother’s mysterious (and seemingly bottomless) pool, and how she could drown is beyond Jax’s comprehension.

What Jax finds will lead her down the same troubling, haunting, and terrifying path Lexie took before her own death - and to the same shocking revelations that Lexie uncovered in her final days. Some legends are true, some ghost stories are all too real, and sometimes, when we make a wish...we aren’t prepared to pay the price it costs.

MY THOUGHTS: This was not my first McMahon novel, but I read The Invited so many years ago that it might as well be. I loved this novel immensely, and I wish I could go back and read it again for the first time. I sped through it in two days, and it was only in rereading it for a detailed review that I noticed some of the very clever “easter eggs” sprinkled throughout the novel that tie the past - and the dead - to the living in the present time.

This novel goes back and forth between the late 1920s/early 1930s, before Sparrow’s Crest is built, and the summer of 2019, when Jax loses her sister and must return home. We are able to see how the decisions of Jax’s ancestors create a ripple effect that lasts for generations, impacting the lives - and deaths - of the Monroe family for at least a hundred years. When they are willing to overlook the warnings and whispers of curses to fulfill their own selfish desires - including, in many cases, a desperate desire to avoid grief and loss - they start an avalanche of loss and tragedy for decades to come. McMahon is there to remind us that trying to control any aspect of life is a tricky business; she chillingly writes, “The spring does not give without taking. Miracles are not without their price.”

McMahon is an incredibly literary writer, which you’ll know if you’ve ever enjoyed any of her previous novels. Her vivid imagery of Sparrow’s Crest, and its cursed pool and overgrown gardens, are enough to catapult you into the middle of the story...and her depictions of grief and loss are beautifully haunting and realistic. But let’s not forget that this is a suspenseful ghost story, and there are parts where I found myself curling up under the covers and holding my breath as I waited for Jax to grab the flashlight, or follow the watery footprints, or find out what was causing the pool gate to bang open in the middle of the night.

This book has many layers - it’s a historical family tale, a ghost story, a mystery, and a treatise on the depths of love and loss. I feel as if I could peel apart a completely new understanding and appreciation for this story with each successive rereading of the book. It’s the second excellent novel I’ve read this year about the incredibly close and tenuous bond between sisters (the first being The Good Sister by Sally Hepworth, also slated for release next year). A sisterly relationship can be volatile, fraught with jealousy and envy and bitterness...but it’s only (typically) because the love is so deep and intense and unmatched that it’s as hard to be apart as it is to be together.

The ending is as good and haunting as the story itself, and it does not disappoint. I’m so excited for this book to get published so I can discuss it with everyone - and until then, I’m definitely making plans to get my hands on more of McMahon’s books.

OMG! I have loved every single book by McMahon and this one was no different. I devoured this and wish I had read it slower cause now I have to wait till she publishes another book. I liked this storyline and the creepy vibe that I felt throughout the entire story. I will be telling my friends about this one. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this one!

*4.5 stars

Not my favorite book by Jennifer McMahon but still another solid story from her. It had that spooky vibe that I've come to expect from her. Two story lines, a mysterious death, a mysterious house, mysterious circumstances, and mysterious history. Are you starting to understand the theme of this book? I have no doubt that this will be a bestseller for Jennifer. Great book from her. Loved my time reading this and have no problem recommending this to everyone.

*Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

That ending though!! This book captivated my interest from beginning to end. Most books rush through the ending but this one was steady and spooky, right to the end and I didn't anticipate the ending, which is a good thing. I might've yelled in my head "what just happened???" and didn't realize it was the end. What a great read! Highly recommend.

Woah this was amazing! Way better than I had expected! Perfect time to read a book like this and would highly recommend to anyone for spooky season! So good!

Another winning effort from Jennifer McMahon and an excellent example of perfectly executed gothic horror.

With the exception of The Invited (which wasn’t great), I’ve enjoyed all of McMahon’s horror/suspense novels. But until now they have all had a few consistent flaws, most notably thin backstory and predictability.

I mostly enjoyed them anyway, but was beyond delighted after reading the Drowning Kind, which has neither of those issues and is McMahon’s best book to date.

The Drowning Kind perfectly blends its two timelines into one very creepy tale, complete with excellent protagonists and supporting characters and a sense of menacing atmosphere that is flawlessly done in both timelines.

And the epilogue. The epilogue! This is how every good gothic novel should end: With a brief gotcha moment and a surprising conclusion that both makes you laugh when you realize you’ve been had but also makes you consider sleeping with the lights on for a few nights.

An outstanding piece of modern gothic, a compelling page turner, and an atmospheric triumph.

I'm an enormous fan of this author's ability to mix the mysteries of the spiritual world with the complexities of family. I found myself a little disappointed that the framework of the novel follows the all-too-common mystery trope of the prodigal daughter returning to her hometown after calamity with her adolescent love interest somehow in the mix.

While that is an unoriginal premise, the spiritual and historical components that interweave with that story were incredibly fascinating. I would have enjoyed more expounding on the history of the waters, which is the sign of a good novel: it leaves you wanting more. The ending is extraordinarily satisfying as well.

**I received this advanced reader's copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review**

Let me start off by saying the cover of this book is amazingly gorgeous !
I have read two other books by Jennifer McMahon ( The Invited :4 stars & Promise not to tell : 3 stars ) and seeing the cover & loving the author made me want to put all my TBR pile on hold to pickup and start reading this beautiful book right away!

Started reading the book, and I couldn't wrap my head around the whole pool / water / magic powers concept. Honestly it felt like a true original story, but had trouble with a pool that granted wishes. Loved the 1920's storyline, had a hard time following the present day story. Felt like it was all over the place and characters were just thrown in ( the dad & aunt). In the end I wasn't blown away by the ending and caught onto many "twists" halfway through the book.
No surprises, no scares, no thrills for me. It took me 6 days to read this book, and most times it was a struggle to pickup. My favorite of Jennifer's is The Invited and it will stay at the top for me.

Thank you netgalley for giving me the wonderful opportunity to read this book 8 months in advance!
I feel so privileged to have been given the honor to read Jennifer McMahon's next book!

Sisters Jax and Lexie grew up in a wonderful country home complete with a spring-fed pool. So what if deaths surrounded the pool. So what if their grandmother never left the property. Ghosts aren’t real.

Then Lex is found dead in the pool and grown-up Jax goes back to investigate. What really happens here?

Jennifer McMahon can write mystery with a creepy, supernatural element like no one else. This book is tense, atmospheric, and has a fantastic twist at the end. I definitely recommend it!