I was immediately drawn to the description of this book with its mix of generational storytelling and gothic horror. It was a slow but enjoyable read. Similar to Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Monroe does a fantastic job creating an atmosphere even if the story jumped around a bit.

First of all can we just appreciate how stunning this cover is 😍 I kinda wish the lilac were still blooming to take a photo in front of them 😂

I absolutely loved this book ❤️ the writing is beautiful and it made me realize how much I love books about nature!!

The way the ocean was described was perfection ❤️

I thought it would have been darker than it actually was but it's still a beautiful book.

If you love generational stories with a lot of description of the surroundings this book is for you without any doubt.

It's more of a slow story so don't expect a lot of action because not a lot is happening but still it was hard to put down and read it really fast !!

I was excited to give They Drown Our Daughters by Katrina Monroe because I really enjoy difficultly family relationship books and have been in a huge horror kick lately so this was the best of both worlds for me. There is a lot going on in this book with multiple timelines and family trauma being unearthed. At times it made it a little difficult to follow and slow.
The lead up to the end was a little too long in my opinion and made the ending feel a little like a let down for me personally but others might enjoy it though.


This would be a great read for people who love really atmospheric books as the island location and lore were really well portrayed. Also readers who enjoy slower paced gothic books as well.

Thank you to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for the opportunity to read and review this book.

3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

They Drown Our Daughters is as much about a curse on a family as it is about generational trauma and mother-daughter relationships. Katrina Monroe utilizes multiple timelines to showcase the cascading effects that the wrongful death of a child years ago, manifesting as a string of tragedy on Cape Disappointment.

The ocean is as much of a character as any of the ones we follow in the book. If the sea scares you (and you like being scared), it might be worth picking up for that alone. The imagery is reminiscent of the phenomenon known as the call of the void, and utilizes intrusive thoughts as a way to actualize the family curse.

I feel the book could have done a better job outlining the complexities of the mother-daughter relationships showcased throughout the book, particularly with Meridith and Judith. We hear a lot about Meredith's mixed feelings about her mother, but we aren't given much in the way of backstory (a "show don't tell" mindset would have improved this greatly). It feels like a missed opportunity that leaves Judith's character feeling flat.

Though I appreciate the thematic connection made with the reveal of the true antagonist of the story, Gina's storyline, and thus the last 1/4 of the book, was the weakest part of the novel for me. The momentum shift reduced the efficacy of the payoff for me.

The ending may be fairly divisive, but I enjoy authors that take risks with their characters.

Some elements could have been executed better, but overall this was still an enjoyable read.

Crossposted to Goodreads at: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4831918519

This book is told from the past to present, which I love! It begins in the late 1800's with two unlikely friends, Regina and Constance. Constance is known as a witch and it was Constance that Regina credits with being able to conceive her daughter. Regina is visiting Constance for another reason, her husband and despite the warning from Constance, Regina plans to hide a charm meant for her husband.

Whispering a wish into the charm, Regina is interrupted by her niece, Liza, before she can safely hide it. An accident turns into a mad dash to cover it up, but when she returns her precious first born daughter is missing. A curse is born.

The story weaves around generation after generation where the mothers all have the same fate.

Meredith with her daughter- in-tow, returns to her mother's home in Cape Disappointment. Although, Meredith and Judith have always had a strained relationship, Meredith is trying to figure out what to do with her dissolving marriage. Meredith has grown up hearing about the dangers of the cape. Meredith doesn't believe in the superstitions.

Meredith can't deny that there is a strange pull. It isn't until her mother decides that she can put an end to the curse and walks into the cape. Meredith struggles with the loss of her mother, and comes home to find her cousin beaten and her daughter, Alice, missing. Meredith's has an old memory from when she was a teenager and begins to wonder if there might not be some truth to the curse after all. Meredith sets off in a rowboat on the cape to look for Alice.

There's a mystery along with a creepy ghost in this story and quite a few twists. Stay out of the water, don't pick up pink shells, and turn the red light from the lighthouse on!

I requested and received an ARC from NetGalley via Poisoned Pen Press and I have voluntarily reviewed this book.

I wanted to love this, because I love gothic spooky stories, mermaids and the PNW setting! However, the chronology of the stories was confusing and the build was a bit too slow for my liking. It ended in an unsatisfying way and I still feel wishy washy towards it..

This was a really unique story about several generations of women haunted by their family’s past.

Cape Disappointment seems like a bit of an ominous name for a town, but for Meredith Strand’s family, there is some truth to the rumors that surround her childhood home. When she returns with her young daughter after a split from her wife, she is determined to not let the haunting stories affect her or Alice. But her mother, Judith, is beginning to show signs of Alzheimer’s and believes the ghost stories are true. She knows there’s something in the water, watching and waiting. Once you hear it’s mournful call, it may be too late.

This story explores the lengths women will go to protect themselves and their daughters, and how one brave mother could end the curse that has plagued their family for years once and for all.

Highly recommend!

This book has such beautiful writing, it’s definitely a slow burn but keeps you so interested! Set in a small town and includes mermaids and curses which is something I’ve never read about before but I absolutely adored it. It also has that kind of creepy/unsettling and ominous feeling throughout

The sea, a curse, and generations of haunted women.

They drown our daughters centres on Meredith who, amidst a separation from her wife, returns to her childhood home in Cape Disappointment with her daughter Alice in tow. Finding her own mother, Judith, more paranoid than ever and now without the mitigating factor of her late step father, Meredith finds herself once again facing talk of their family's supposed curse. Intercut with chapters from women all along the family line, the dark truth of the Strand family's history slowly comes together.

While this book thrives in its atmosphere and fraught mother-daughter relationships, the non-linear storytelling made it a challenge to get invested in the characters or even find them particularly distinct from one another. I applaud the late stage twist and bold ending, but do wish there'd been better pacing and character work throughout.

All in all, if a seaside gothic tale following a series of complicated women sounds promising to you, this is well worth picking up.

Thank you to NetGalley and Poison Pen Press for providing this digital review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Family curses and mermaids? Yes, please. Kudos to Katrina Monroe - she truly delivered an atmospheric read. There were points that I felt like I was sitting near the ocean. This book was on point and I enjoyed the delivery of salty air and beach sand so much that I only wanted to read this while sitting on my boat.

I'll be honest though - the creep factor? It didn't deliver but the family feelings were very real. I'm a mother, daughter, and grand-daughter to a woman suffering from Alzheimer's and those pieces really did hit home. The story is told from multi-generational various viewpoints and Katrina Monroe beautifully writes a story based upon a mom's love and protection of our children.

Thank you to Poisoned Pen Press and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I would describe They Drown Our Daughters as a slow building thriller with some elements of supernatural horror, and I really appreciated how the storyline kept me guessing until the very end. It's also full of grey characters, and the complex relationships like the one between the main character Meredith and her mother Judith were especially interesting to explore. Throughout the book you get to read from the point of view of several women in Meredith's family line and I think the author did a great job of making the reader care about them with only a few chapters. There were some brief greusome scenes but nothing too explicit so I think this would be a good read for anyone looking for something a little spooky but not too scary for the summer. Also a bonus if you enjoy reading about female characters and complicated mother-daughter relationships.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a free e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

I was so excited to receive an ARC copy of this novel via NetGalley!

Katrina Monroe does a lovely job of setting a spooky atmosphere, and I was hooked from the beginning! The story is so intriguing, and I loved the multigenerational aspect of the plot threads. A family curse, a mysterious figure calling women to the depths, and complex, compelling characters and relationships make this book a fascinating one. I loved the eerie tone of the story, and the way the author makes you really feel like the pages themselves are soaked in seawater.

3.5

<b>”The thing you have to know is that, in the end, these things have a mind of their own.”</b>

Wow! This hauntingly creepy atmosphere surrounding family curses and the ocean was exactly what I wanted from this book and it delivered! The first half of the book was eerie and spine chilling, flipping between the present and the past throughout the novel. There is a family map that came in HANDY while reading, as you hear from all of the women since the curse began.

I felt the pull to the ocean just as strongly as these women through the use of beautiful prose; the way the author spins the English language makes you feel as if they are your own emotions. I could have lived forever in the first half of this dreary, cold home hearing the ocean call to me.

I’ll admit that struggled with rating this and have taken some time to reflect on it. I really wanted to absolutely love this but the ending went in a direction that I didn’t love and the book overall felt a bit dragged out. I think you will either fall into team first half or team second half, depending on what you want from this kind of novel.

Thank you to Poisoned Pen Press and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ebook in exchange for my honest review. I have since purchased a paperback of this book with my own money for my collection.

Wow what an amazing and well written book.

I was drawn into this from the very first page. It was chilling and really kept me on the edge of my seat more than once.

The chapters were written in multiple POV and in different times and I felt that kept it entertaining throughout.

The ending was just so good and I really enjoyed the whole book

Thank you Netgalley and Katrina Monroe for thr ARC of this book.

A page turner for sure! I kept telling myself “just one more chapter!” But then couldn’t stop! I needed to know what was going to happen next. Great use of alternating pov and timelines.

Meredith leaves her wife in Arlington and moves home with their daughter Alice to Cape Disappointment, where Meredith’s mother lives next to the lighthouse. Many say the town is haunted, that there is a lingering spirit there. And Meredith knows all too well how that has affected her family - whether the spirit is real or not, the women in her family are susceptible to mental illness and often early deaths. Moving back in with her mother, Judith, who is in early stages of Alzheimer’s, Meredith finds her mother speaking more and more of this malevolent water spirit as if she was real and not just a fantastical story. And Meredith questions whether her mother is right.

Slow to start and moving between many points of view (all women in Meredith’s family), this was a little hard to get into. But it was intriguing and I liked the idea of the story, if not loving the execution. For those who like this genre, a good option!

This was pretty beautiful and haunting - um, literally.

An atmospheric, multigenerational story of mothers and daughters and ghosts with mermaid imagery hits a lot of points. I loved the glimpses into the women and girls throughout the generations, and the sense of dread that came with knowing they were doomed. While I guess I can't say I "loved" that sense of dread, because I'm not a sadist, I fell into the writing and could get caught up in it like a tendril of seaweed wrapping around your ankle and pulling you down into the depths . . . Wait.

The writing was just gorgeous, and again, so atmospheric. Just overall a lovely albeit often tragic read.

Once upon a time, a wronged woman was willing to do whatever it took to secure her daughter's future.
Maybe if her intentions had been pure, maybe if they had not held a tinge of selfishness things would have turned out differently.
Instead, what she set in motion ruined the lives of generations to come.
Years later, rumors of witchcraft and a curse on the women are still fodder for gossip and pranks, and occasional vandalism on the family property.
When Meredith returns to her childhood home with her young daughter in tow, there is no happy reunion between her and her mother. Old wounds are reopened, and danger lurks in the water, waiting for its chance to claim another life.

This story is told on multiple timelines, from the points of view of several generations of women. I would describe it as historical horror fiction that makes its way into the modern day. It is atmospheric and dark, touching on the bonds between mothers and daughters and what it takes to sever them. There is a bit of supernatural mystery woven in, with a quick pace that kept me turning the pages. I was all in on this story until probably the final third when it took a weird turn without an adequate explanation.
I still enjoyed the story but that irked me enough to deduct a star.

4 out of 5 stars.
My thanks to Poisoned Pen Press

Be on the look-out for a cool gothic atmosphere and wonderfully written, descriptive backdrops in this character-driven horror. The characters are complex and it’s pretty damn intense, but something just seems to be missing and I can’t quite put my finger on it. There is also a fairly unpredictable “twist” that after some thought I think it was just ok for me. This gets a solid recommendation.

Thank you for this opportunity. The Readerly gist by invisiblemonster is mine.

This one was a bit of a mixed bag for me. I enjoyed the haunting element immensely. Monroe does a bang-up job with setting a chilly scene and invoking a deep sense of unsettle without a bunch of flash and bang. Often times a quiet hum you feel in your bones is more disburbing than something grusome in your face and I think she does this very well here. Also, the link between mothers and daughters and the lengths they will go to for each other was well established throughout generations.

While I did enjoy the sliding back and forth through time to get glimpses of each generation's struggle, at times it could feel a little muddled, most especially towards the end. At the conclusion I was still left with some kind of big lingering questions. Without being revealing of spoilers all I can say is I'm okay with some mystery being held by the end but one thing in particular I would have liked spelled out, and it felt more like a plot hole to me than mystery. I can think of a reason why it was so but that isn't necessarily my job and I didn't like that it wasn't addressed more plainly. Another unfortunate thing for me was I couldn’t really connect with any of the characters. None of them were all that likeable to me, which can fine if done right, but they all were equally unremarkable too in a lot of ways, the only exception to that being the curse that plagued them and their zest to be rid of it.