Social worker Jackie (“Jax”) has spent years putting boundaries between herself and her sister Lexie (“Lex”) as a result of Lex’s mental illness, even going so far as to move to Tacoma, Washington when her sister has stayed in Brandenburg, Vermont. Dealing with Lex can be exhausting, especially when she is in the grips of a manic episode - so when Lex calls Jax more than 10 times in one day, Jax ignores the calls and asks their Aunt Diane to check on Lex. Hours later, Jax gets the call that Lex is dead, drowned in the dark, deep black waters of the pool on the grounds of the family house, Sparrow Crest.

Jax travels back to Brandenburg to take care of arrangements for her sister, where she discovers that in the last few months and weeks of Lex’s life, she had become fixated on the springs that feed the pool on the grounds of Sparrow Crest, and the history of their family. As Jax works to get to the bottom of what Lex was so close to discovering, Jax herself begins to suspect that the springs may be a miracle - or a curse…One that is tied into the very origins of her family, and one that Jax herself may not be able to escape from.

The Drowning Kind was truly a fantastic book - I devoured it in a day, after going through reading slumps for most of the pandemic. I could barely put it down. It did have a surprisingly dark subject matter at times, which I wasn’t really expecting when I started the book, but I didn’t find it jarring and if anything it made the read more atmospheric. I admit that it made me think, too, about my own personal life and boundaries, as Jax struggled with her own.

And what atmosphere! McMahon’s prose is absolutely engrossing; you can truly lose yourself in the setting - smell the sulphur of the springs, see and feel the water on the tile floor, hear Lex and Jax tapping on the walls between bedrooms. The Drowning Kind is so unsettling and it asks the reader what they would be willing to sacrifice for what they desire most - something not entirely comfortable, taking you to more dark places, but inside of yourself instead of the novel.

I can’t say enough good things about this book, honestly, it was truly a gripping, fun read and exactly what I needed (and it’s not just because the main character and I share a name!)

Thank you to NetGalley and Gallery/Scout Press for the opportunity to read and review this book. Also thank you to Ms. McMahon for this, and all your other books. You are a credit to literature.
#NetGalley #TheDrowningKind #Gallery/ScoutPress #JenniferMcMahon
Jennifer McMahon always writes an enjoyable read. Jax and Lexie are sisters with a very dysfunctional relationship. Lexie has manic depressive episodes so, when she repeatedly calls Jax on day, Jax is mostly unconcerned. That is, until Lexie turns up dead in their grandmother’s pool. We are also taken back to 1929 and introduced to Ethel whose greatest wish is to have a baby. She and her husband visit a natural spring in Vermont that is rumored to grant wishes.
The thing that shone about this book was the atmospheric imagery. I could almost taste the murky water and I definitely could see it. This book was so twisty and intense. One of my favorite types of books. I love Ms. McMahon for her ability to scare relentlessly but also evoke empathy. I also love how she never debunks her supernatural elements. They’re always real and always dark.
There were a few small flaws. The characters were a little more flat than they usually are. I had some trouble connecting, which always makes it just a little more difficult to get into.
This is a dark and wonderful book and it was a pleasure to review it.

@jennifermcmahonwrites is always my go to Author when I want to be creeped out, and I was so excited to get a digital copy of this newest book The Drowning Kind for review. I'm not very easily scared by books anymore. I mean, I'm a mom of three, nothing scares me. I also get really mad when I think I'm reading a good ghost story and then it turns out to be a scooby doo story and it was just a real person all along. When it comes to McMahon though it's always the real deal, and after reading the drowning kind I'm glad it's not swimming season yet.

3.5 rounded up

“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 Her soothing voice, so soft and low is the last thing you’ll ever know four simple words whispered in your ear, a gentle wind only you can hear: Come swimming with me”

Jennifer McMahon has been compared to Shirley Jackson and I 100% agree - there's this element about her writing where you have an unreliable narrator and can't tell if something is real or something you can blame on the character's mental state.

"The Drowning Kind" has switches between two time periods: 1920/30s with Ethel and 2019 with Jax. The story mostly centering around Jax's relationship with her estranged sister who ended up living in their Gram's house where they spent all summer splashing around in the pool: spring fed, cold, black, sulphur smelling water where their aunt Rita drowned... you can't reach the bottom and you cannot swim at night. Lexie always teased that Rita was at the bottom, waiting for them. After days of ignoring Lexie's manic calls, Jax has her aunt Diane check on her, but Lexie is not ok - she's found dead floating in the pool, just like Aunt Rita.

Ethel wants nothing more than to have a baby. When her husband brings her to a weekend getaway she discovers a Vermont secret: a spring that has healing properties, if you ask it for a wish, it will be granted, but be prepared to pay a price - the spring gives and the spring takes.

This is definitely a story of suspense and I was captivated throughout the entire thing. I really enjoyed McMahon's writing style - she has quite a way with words. There's a lot of family secrets, "mystical" elements and fun history that get tied together. Overall, I really enjoyed the eerie prose.

There were a couple of things I didn't quite love: numerous plot holes and/or plot points & connections glossed over, it was easy to connect the dots with where the story was going and the connections throughout so I was hoping it /wasn't/ that obvious and there would've been more of a twist or surprise, and I wasn't a huge fan of the end, it felt a little rushed and it was kind of expected - I wanted something a little more exciting from it.

All in all, a great, fun, creepy read that I really enjoyed.

* I received an an arc in exchange for an honest review* Gallery Books: Gallery/Scout Press
pub date: April 6, 2021.

Jennifer McMahon has been dubbed "the literary descendent of Shirley Jackson" by author Chris Bohjalian. Her latest book, The Drowning Kind, is an absorbing ghost story about sisters who are compulsively drawn to a unique pool . . . in which several before them have died.

The water in the pool is a character in its own right and the centerpiece of the tale. Measuring twenty by forty-five feet, the pool is surrounded by granite. It is spring fed with no pump, and an outlet at one end that drains into a stone-lined canal snaking across the yard to a brook below, and then on to a nearby river. The icy cold water is black and emits an odor akin to a combination of rot and sulphur, tasting like burnt matches and rust. The pool is situated on the grounds of Sparrow Crest, the estate in the tiny village of Brandenburg, Vermont, that once belonged to the grandparents of Jax and her older sister, Lexie. The girls spent summers with Gram when they were growing up, swimming in the pool but unable to find its bottom. Lexie insisted that Rita, Gram's younger sister who drowned in the pool when she was just seven years old, was waiting for them down in the water. Indeed, Gran said she felt close to her deceased sister when swimming in the pool. The girls loved playing The Dead Game, floating facedown together to see who could hold her breath the longest, but never in front of Gram, who, according to Lexie suffered from agoraphobia. She grew up at Sparrow Crest, was married there, and raised three daughters on the property that she never left. She did not drive, and had groceries and household goods delivered, but she swam in the pool regularly, even chopping through ice in the winter to do so.

But as the story opens, the house belongs to Lexie. She inherited it from their grandmother, a point of contention between the sisters. Jax is a social worker living in Seattle. She has avoided the increasingly manic messages she has received from Lexie, confident that she is off her medication again. The two had barely spoken in the year since Gram's death. Angry and bitter because Gram bequeathed Sparrow Crest and most of her savings to Lexie, as well as money to Gram's sister, Diane, Jax related in a first-person narrative that she received an old coin collection and some first-edition books, even though she was the one struggling to pay off her student loans and living in a tiny apartment across the country. Jax came to rely upon Diane to keep her apprised of Lexie's condition.

It is Diane who notifies Jax that when she went to Sparrow Crest to check on Lexie, at Jax's urging, she found Lexie's body in the swimming pool. And it is clear that, unlike just two weeks earlier when Diane observed that Lexie seemed to be doing well, judging by the state of the house, something was very wrong. Jax rushes home, leaving a colleague, Barbara, in charge of her clients, including nine-year-old Declan, a troubled boy who has just gotten situated in a school that seems to be a good fit.

Another first-person narrative is from Ethel O'Shay Monroe, the wife of Will, the local doctor. It is 1929 and Ethel desperately wants a child. She was thirty-six -- "an old maid" -- and Will was thirty-nine when they married the previous year. She watches Will interacting with the local children and sees what a wonderful father he would be, but every month brings disappointment. She has taken to employing various mystical ploys to get pregnant, including carrying a sparrow egg tucked against her breast. Ethel keeps a lot of secrets, including the fact that she self-harms when anxious or stressed.

The spring water that flows into the pool is believed by many to hold magical healing properties. So some people drink it, despite its horrible taste, and others believe that swimming in the pool will help them. Will takes Ethel away on a holiday to the newly-opened Brandenburg Springs Hotel and Resort for a romantic weekend. On the way, they stop at a small store where the proprietor is selling bottles of the spring water for five cents each, claiming it "has a funny taste, but it brings good luck and good health." But his wife warns, "Those springs are a dark place. You'd do best to keep away from them." At the hotel, Ethel and Will swim in the springs, and Ethel is befriended by the owner's wife, Eliza. She too talks about the water's healing power, adding that there's "more to it than that." She tells Ethel that the water "can grant wishes" and Ethel hopes that's true -- that the water will grant her wish for a child. Many of the locals believe, however, that the springs are cursed: "If you came to the water looking for a miracle, you had to be prepared to pay a price."

Jax searches for clues as to how Lexie -- a strong swimmer -- could possibly have drowned. And examines the notebooks filled with Lexie's research into Sparrow Crest's history. Her entries descend from coherent curiosity into disjointed ramblings and then trail off. What secret did she discover? And could her death have been a suicide?

McMahon's alternating narratives eventually provide the answers Jax seeks, coming together to form an atmospheric, dark tale of longing, disappointment, regret, and despair spanning generations. McMahon injects creepy, unexplainable developments involving the magical, mysterious water that flows through and complicates her characters' lives.

Her portrayal of the relationship between Jax and Lexie is moving and poignant, with Jax relating the ways in which the two girls interacted as they were growing up and the point at which it became clear that Lexie needed help. Her anger at Lexie for always being, from Jax's perspective, more popular and favored by family and friends, is raw, palpable, and believable, as is her grief over losing her sister. McMahon compassionately details Jax's journey from being disconnected from her family emotionally and geographically to understanding Lexie's struggles and discoveries. Ironically, Jax shut Lexie out, building strong boundaries around herself, because she could not deal with the mental illness that led Lexie into wild, manic states. Jax's own therapist pointed out, "You've never gotten over the fact that you couldn't fix your sister when she got sick. You couldn't save her, so you're trying to save all these other kids." But the bonds of sisterhood are far-reaching and unbreakable, as McMahon illustrates, with Jax's guilt propelling her to uncover the secrets that Lexie learned as the story races to a shocking and disturbing conclusion that will undoubtedly infuriate some readers.

McMahon weaves legend and myth, truth and reality into a chilling and intriguing confection that moves at an even pace, complete with glimpses of ghosts in the pool, phone calls with either no one on the other end or a quiet voice that sounds like it's coming from far away, and wet footprints -- of the dead? -- leading from the open front door up the stairs. Despite the supernatural elements, at it's core, The Drowning Kind deals with family ties, how we deal with the things our ancestors have passed down to us, and if we are constrained and limited by our family history. And, as Jax puts it, whether a person can be too heartbroken to walk away from it all.

They say to be careful what you wish for! The Drowning Kind by Jennifer McMahon proves that saying to be true!! This was a book that contained two different stories that somehow weave their way together! The story of two sisters, who have lost each other in more ways than one. Will their childhood home bring them back together? Why did they lose their way? Will anything make them okay?

This book was so creepy and perfect. I absolutely loved how the authors writing was so captivating- I was able to feel all of the creepiness of the paranormal and found it to be so believable! I was able to imagine the house, the pool, sparrow crest, the woods and it felt like I was truly there. Everything was real and creepy! I was a skeptic of the paranormal before reading and now I feel like a believer and will probably never swim after dark AGAIN!

I expect a good amount of spooks where Jennifer McMahon’s books are concerned, with The Winter People being one of my favorites. The Drowning Kind’s premise is every bit as unsettling - an inherited estate with a pool full of “healing” dark water and a family history of women intertwined with the water, for good and bad.

“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.
Her soothing voice, so soft and low
is the last thing you’ll ever know.
Four simple words whispered in your ear,
a gentle wind only you can hear:
Come swimming with me.”

Jax’s sister Lexie is the latest to fall victim to the water, drowned despite being an extremely strong swimmer. So now Jax returns to their late grandmother’s estate, still bitter that it had all been left to her sister in the first place. She finds evidence of her sister’s deteriorating mental health scattered everywhere - haphazard measurements, research, and photos, all about the water and its history. But as Jax becomes increasingly wary of the water herself, she wonders if perhaps Lexie’s paranoia about its dark past are not unfounded and the water indeed takes what it gives in equal measure.

Reading this at night made me very glad I didn’t have any bodies of water near my house. I’ve never been comfortable with swimming places where you’re unable to see what’s beneath you, and the idea of this black, seemingly bottomless pool gives me the creeps. This book is wonderfully atmospheric and keeps you anticipating what’s going to happen until the very last pages.

I received both the audio and eARC of The Drowning Kind by Jennifer McMahon and it was a wonderful experience to have both. I was able to listen while I walked and then read the eARC while waiting in traffic. I’ve never done that before, and it was a fun!

This was the first book I have listen/read by this Jennifer McMahon, but I know that she is popular in the book community and I am now eagerly looking forward to reading more!!

This story hooked me after the first couple of pages!! It’s a suspensive and haunting modern-age ghost story with a creepy mystery vibe to it. I’ll never look at an unknown body of water quite the same way and I’ll NEVER ever dip my foot into one again!!

The book/audio rotates between two timelines, we follow the story of Jax, in present day, who is searching for answers as to how/why her sister Lexie’s died in the pool on her grandmother’s estate. A pool they visited often over the years, swimming in the summertime. Alternately, we follow Ethel, Jax’s great grandmother as a newlywed in 1929. Ethel desperately wanted to have a baby and couldn’t concentrate on anything else, so her husband suggested a getaway staying at a hotel right next to the famous Branderburg Springs, a natural spring known to grant wishes. Ethel couldn't wait to visit and believed that this natural spring would grant her wish to have a child, but what she didn’t know is.... what lies beneath the surface of the waters? This magical pool will give...but, also take away.

The narrator Joy Osmanski did a great job of keeping me engaged throughout the entire story.

I couldn’t wait to get to the end to find out the whole story and yet, I didn’t want it to end! That’s a five-star book for me! I highly recommend!

I loved this eerie book! I found it rather irritating that life got in the way of my devouring of it. The dual timeline centering around a spring in Vermont kept me very intrigued! I would highly recommend for anyone looking for a ghostly read.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for my advance copy!

I would like to thank #NetGalley, #GalleryBooks, and #JenniferMcMahon for the chance to read this book, #TheDrowningKind.

When this book begins it is July 2000, but oh the traveling we are about to do....Lexi and Jax are sisters that are estranged. They were close when they were younger, but secret wishes have driven them apart. Lexi is the sole recipient of their grandmother's estate and Jax has hard feelings because of it. Jax is a therapist and Lexi has maniac episodes that Jax always feels like she must rescue her from. After it all becomes too much Jax moves across the country and tries to make a life for herself. Until she's gets a phone call. Actually several, but it is Lexi every time and Jax is refusing to pick up the phone. After several messages the calls finally stop. The next morning Jax gets a phone call from her aunt saying Lexi is dead.
It's time to confront everything that has long been buried and never talked about.

You will travel between present day and the early 1930's and learn the history of a family, their land, and all that lives there.

This book was a Rollercoaster ride and I'm so glad I was on it. It makes you think about everything that you've ever considered impossible or unreal. Grab a ticket and hold on because this one will give you the ride of a lifetime. This is a book I will be thinking about for days, weeks, or maybe even years, to come.

#HappyReading

This novel goes between two stories, one set now and one set in the early 20th Century, around the Thirties. The story begins with Jax, a social worker who learns her older sister, Lexie drowned in the pool of the house, Sparrow’s Crest, she had inherited from their grandmother. Her sister had been researching their family and the property the house stands on. A hotel with many strange legends and stories attached to it use to sit on the property. Soon scary things begin to happen and her sister’s ghost might be around.

The other story is about Ethel Monroe, whose husband, Will, brought her for a stay at the Brandenburg Springs Hotel in Brandenburg, Vermont. The woman had desperately wanted a baby, something that seemed to elude her and Will. She discovers a spring there that has unusual properties—ones that seem to heal. It is also considered cursed. And soon, Ethel, whispers to the water her wish for a daughter, one she had a dream about.

I was caught hook, line, and sinker, so to speak, to this tall muddy glass of unsettling gothic story of ghostly scares. It will make me think twice about getting a tub full of water.

Wow!! This has to be the best book I have read all year. It was a page turner. It was creepy and atmospheric. It was a well woven story mixed between past and present that was well written.

This family has quite a story. One that in present day they have gone to great lengths to keep its history quiet, but that all changes when their grandmother dies and leaves the family mansion to her granddaughter, Lexie, Lexie is determined to figure out what it is about that pool that draws people to it - why it gives and it takes. Lexie's younger sister Jackie comes back to the mansion after her sister's accident even though they were estranged to try to figure out what Lexie had learned before she drowned in the pool. What she learns is both shocking and sad.

Thank you to Gallery Books and NetGalley for the #gifted copy of this book.

This was my first book written by this author and it will not be my last. This book was dark and engaging. I enjoyed the audio version because it kept me captivated with the story. I liked the POV's and time lines and the overall story.

I’m a big fan of Jennifer McMahon’s haunting stories (I call them horror light, for those like me, who just dip their toes in the genre), so I was excited to try this one.
This book is part haunted house, part ghost story and thoroughly spooky. I liked that one character was a social worker and the effect of her trying to explain everything through her therapist lens. I also loved the epilogue, but that’s all I’m saying.
McMahon writes dual timelines, which is a trope I find hit or miss. One timeline started out a very slow burn but definitely heated up as the connection became more apparent. The other grabbed me quickly. By halfway in, I was throughly hooked.
My first McMahon (The Winter People) is still my favorite but this settles in pretty high on the list — probably at two or three.

Pros: Jennifer McMahon is one hell of a writer. She knows how to hook you, and keep you, until the last page and then some. The Drowning Kind is INTENSE.

Cons: people drown. It's mildly terrifying. Esp if you fear drowning. The Drowning Kind is INTENSE.

Obvs intensity can be subjective.

When Jax sees she's missed nine calls from her older sister Lexie, she knows nothing good can come of it. Manic and often off her meds, Lexie has forced Jax to push her sister away for a year now to preserve her own sanity. Now, Lexie is dead and Jax is on her way home to her grandmother's estate to pick up the pieces.

In 1929, almost-spinster Ethel Monroe is having trouble conceiving a baby. A spur of the moment decision takes Ethel and her doctor husband on a trip to the Brandenburg Springs Hotel. The hotel is home to the Brandenburg Springs, widely known to be healing waters, of the freezing variety. Ethel takes a dip and makes a wish. What will she have to pay for her wish to come true?

When I say this book is intense. I MEAN IT. I. could. not. put. this. book. down. It's been awhile since that happened too. Yet I also could not read it after dark! McMahon is master at keeping you on the edge of "is this happening" or "is that happening." She keeps on right on the edge of CREEPY. AND I LOVE IT. And the ending. OH, the ending. I just can't even. Really. I will not even because to even is to spoil it. So just read it already and when you do, please discuss the ending with me because I neeeeeed to discuss the ending.

But really. Read it. It's the perfect beach book, just be sure you put on lots of sunscreen and turn over occasionally. We need that tan to be even.

Thank you to Gallery Books for the review copy. This review reflects my own, unbiased, thoughts.

When Jax, a social worker, receives a series of frantic missed calls from her sister Lexie, she assumes that Lexie is having another manic episode. She has a lot on her own plate, and she'll have plenty of time to deal with her estranged sister's mess later.

But disaster strikes, and Jax finds herself trying to unravel the twisted, complicated history of her family and its land--a history Lexie had been researching and had become obsessed by.

McMahon's modern-day ghost story leads the reader into the family's pivotal 1929 decisions, when Jax and Lexie's ancestor Ethel Monroe, desperate to have a baby, made a dark bargain that would have terrible repercussions echoing for generations to come.

There's a dark, spring-fed pool at the heart of this book, and its seemingly bottomless depth and impermeable black water (which characters regularly swam in--I died inside!) were horrifying to contemplate. Spooky tales are passed down through doubting generations, and characters persistently suffer losses and tragedies related to this pool. Yet the water provides enough twisted miracles and temporary healing to keep characters greedily coming back. It's both a salvation and a destructive force.

I took issue with Gram's unapologetic and outrageous favoritism toward Lexie, which could have possibly been attributed to Gram's understanding of her mental health (and inability to hold a job or provide for herself), but was never said to be. Lexie's sabotage of Jax's friendships at a young, vulnerable age seemed too easy for Jax to move past--although I suppose the later wishes and granted wishes that occur were a revenge of sorts.

Lexie is the captivating character here, although she exists largely off page and in the main protagonist's mixed-feelings memories. Lexie was the excellent swimmer and student and musician and had lots of friends and was their parents’ favorite, Grandma’s favorite, and family friend Ryan’s favorite (all despite her mental illness/schizophrenia and its challenges). Most of what Jax does is in reaction to Lexie, while Jax herself feels somewhat nondescript.

The lead-up to the ending feels odd, as characters are ignoring alarming occurrences. I'm not sure I believe that the characters would have behaved the way they’re said to at end of book in order for the denouement to work cleanly. (Would those characters be at the house?)

There are many instances within the book in which a character begins to share key information and is interrupted or stops abruptly, and I find myself becoming increasingly frustrated by this method of prolonging a mystery.

The pool is the standout element here: a source of relentless, hungry power that seems to straddle the worlds of the living and the dead, persistently pursuing victims within the wholly haunting atmosphere McMahon has created. It's wonderfully creepy.

I received a prepublication edition of this book courtesy of Gallery Books and NetGalley.

The drowning kind
I'd like to start by saying that this is either the fourth or the fifth book that I've read by Jennifer McMahon. I'm supremely drawn to her storylines because they have this questionable element to them. Most of my experience as a reader is trying to decide if the book's forces are supernatural or natural, imagined or made up.
She has the “unreliable narrator” down. And it's not used in a cliche way.

She always comes through in surprising me even though I know her format and kind of know what to expect.

I look forward to it each and every time.

I'm going to be so vague in this review I want you to go in with the title and nothing else.
THE DROWNING KIND

This book reminded me of the movie
THE FOREST circa 2016, Available now on @Netflix
about the two sisters and one of the sisters has problems and one day she goes into this forest where it is known that those who want to be lost go.

It's a real forest in Japan.
Anyhow, one sister is missing and the other sister kind of goes looking after her, looking to find her. The Forest is a great movie, not to be confused with INTO THE FOREST, 2015, on @showtime. Both good movies.

If you liked THE DROWNING KIND by Jennifer McMahon then I recommend THE FOREST and if you like THE FOREST then I recommend THE DROWNING KIND.
Whoa! Nelly!!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thanks to #netgalley #gallery #scoutpress for a copy of the book in exchange for my honest review!
You’re the best!

This was a really great atmospheric thriller. It wasn't quite as creepy as her other books but I really appreciated that. It was still chilling though and definitely kept me on the edge of my seat. I loved the dual timeline and the historical aspect to the story. The author did a really good job moving between the past and the present. There is also a ghost/paranormal element to the story that I thought was really well done. I jumped back and forth between an e-copy and the audio and found that the audiobook was very well done too. I loved the narrators. Overall if you are a fan of paranormal thrillers I highly recommend this one.

I just finished this book and my initial reaction is what did I just read?!!!! This book is a beautifully written,twisted thriller. In fact, it's the creepiest book I've read in a long time. I enjoyed being in 2019 and transporting back to 1929 where the story all began. The characters came to life for me as I read and I was thoroughly entranced by this story.

Wow. #jennifermcmahon #thedrowningkind also author of #thewinterpeople #theinvited 😱 she makes you just (gasp) what did I just read!?! Two sisters. Lex. And Jax. So close until .. well #nospoilers we travel back in time. 1920s to where the story starts. To 2019 where the story continues. It’s an amazingly woven tale of family. Magic. Mystery. And that miracle water we hope will cure all. I started this morning and finished this evening. That’s how great this book was #bookhangover #simonandschuster #netgalley #netgalleyreview #bookstagram #readersofinstagram #booklover #readacrossinstagram #bookrecommendations this one is out now. Run. Don’t walk to purchase this. Or. Go to your #locallibrary #independentbookstore