Drowning proves conclusively that the success of author T.J. Newman's riveting debut, Falling, was not a fluke. Her sophomore effort, Drowning, is equally terrifying, absorbing, and emotionally satisfying. In fact, her characters and their plights are even more sympathetic, and the story more heartbreaking but, ultimately, life-affirming.

Newman considers her post-college stint at Changing Hands bookstore in Tempe, Arizona, her first step toward becoming a bestselling novelist. No one knew that she was laboring as a bookseller by day and writing in her bedroom at night, contemplating how to accomplish her goal of becoming a published writer. At her mother's suggestion, she segued into and loved flying, and her ten-year career as a flight attendant supplied the inspiration for falling.

Newman says she knew that the follow-up to her staggeringly successful first novel had to be “bigger. In every aspect, it had to be bigger. Bigger heart, bigger action, bigger stakes.” It is. Searching through her trove of story ideas amassed during her flying days, she recalled yet another red-eye flight from Hawaii to Los Angeles. The flight path from Hawaii to the mainland is the longest in the world with no suitable alternate route. During that flight, she looked out the porthole window in the door of the forward galley “at nothing. There's nothing out there for hours and miles in every direction. It is nothing but a pitch black void. Nothing but water.” She pondered, “What if something happened? What if we went down? How would they find us out here? How would they come get us? How would they save us? How would we save ourselves?” And she is captivated by how ordinary people react when they find themselves in a heightened situation. “I think we all discover parts of ourselves that we didn't now were there when we're in hot water and I'm fascinated by that.”

“In aviation, the emergency landing of an aircraft on water is called a ditching,” according to Drowning's brief prologue. Thinking back to that vast nothingness except water, Newman contemplated the worst case scenario: the pilot announces “prepare to ditch” and the plane crashes into the ocean before sinking with passengers and crew members trapped inside. And it comes to rest teetering on the edge of an underwater cliff. From there, Newman “reverse engineered” the story by understanding how that circumstance might actually occur. But found it “really tricky” to figure out how to make the fictional plane crash because, theoretically, the events in the book should not play out due to safety mechanisms and protocols. But her research revealed that they could.

So, for instance, a pilot should never have a “dead stick,” meaning no hydraulic fluid and no hydraulic power. Planes have “three hydraulic lines. Two layers of redundancy in case of a system failure.” Those backup systems should ensure that the loss of an engine does not eliminate the pilot's ability to navigate the aircraft and, if necessary, either return to the airport where the flight originated (in this case, Honolulu) or land at an alternate location (which, in Drowning would be either Kahului Airport on Maui or Kona Airport on Hawaii). But because the plane will not continue gaining altitude and the pilot literally cannot turn the plane around, there is only one place for it to land: southwest of Moloka'i in the narrow channel between that small, largely uninhabited island and the nearby island of Lana'i where trade winds blow every day. The shelf is known as Penguin Bank.

Newman establishes Flight 1421's predicament in a straight-forward, unembellished style that makes the sheer terror the passengers and crew are experiencing palpable and believable. She demonstrates various characters' response to crisis. For some, their worst traits come to light while others unexpectedly become heroes. Newman wisely recognized that the spectacle of the disaster could not sustain the story unless her readers became invested in the well-being of the twelve people trapped in the plane. So, with the plane sinking to the bottom of the sea and readers fully engrossed in the action, she winds the story back three hours and examines the history of her main characters, engineer Will Kent, his estranged wife Chris, and their eleven-year-old daughter, Shannon. Their oldest daughter, Annie, died tragically six years ago in a maddeningly preventable accident. Losing her has caused her parents, especially Will, to become overprotective of Shannon. For that reason, Will is going to fly with Shannon to San Francisco where she will attend summer camp, and immediately return to Hawaii. Shannon is appropriately mortified. Annie's bedroom has remained as she left it, symbolic of the stasis in her parents' relationship that has led to their pending divorce. They have spent the years since Annie's death wracked with guilt and pain, believing that if “they dealt with their marriage or changed the house or cleaned out Annie's room, they'd be moving forward. Which would mean they'd be leaving Annie behind.”

Will and Shannon survive the crash, as does another young girl traveling alone, eight-year-old Maia Taylor. ALong with Will, female pilot Kit shoulders responsibility for ensuring that everyone trapped in the fuselage gets out alive. Through flight attendants Molly and Kaholo Newman again emphasizes that “flight attendants are first and foremost safety and security professionals. Full stop.” An elderly couple traveling together, Ruth and Ira Belkin, and Ryan Wang, whose new bride is killed on impact, are particularly memorable. As the oxygen supply dwindles, Will and Kit take the lead in communicating with military personnel charged with organizing a mass rescue operation (MRO) from the USS Theodore Roosevelt, a 101,000-ton Nimitz-class aircraft carrier. Under normal circumstances, Chris's blatant conflict of interest and lack of objectivity would preclude her from becoming part of the rescue operation. However, Chris and her colleagues are civilian contractors hired to perform routine hull maintenance on the ship. When she learns that Will and Shannon's flight has crashed, she refuses to be sidelined while possible rescue strategies are debated. None of the military personnel have ever undertaken such a rescue operation and Chris possesses invaluable special expertise. No one is more motivated than she to see the MRO succeed. After all, it is her family that is trapped some two hundred feet below the water's surface.

Newman notes that one thing the rigorous training provided to flight attendants does not address is how to respond if a plane sinks to the bottom of the ocean with survivors of the crash inside, so she was required to conduct extensive research to make that aspect of the story credible, as well. For one thing, she had to change her mindset because normal aviation protocols are no longer applicable. She says the plane is no longer an aircraft — it has, as a practical matter, been transformed into a “submarine.” Her depiction of the trial-and-error attempts to rescue the trapped survivors is heart-stoppingly tense, fraught with uncertainty, and completely engrossing. Those scenes are indeed emotionally wrenching because Newman has, by that point in the story, deftly convinced readers to care deeply about the survivors' fate.

Drowning is a propulsive, unpredictable thriller. Newman's narrative is tautly crafted with no surplusage and moves at a steady pace, with shocking developments delivered at expertly timed junctures that compel the story forward. Newman never loses control of the speed at which the tale unfolds, restraining it from becoming frantic. Rather, critical story developments occur at realistic intervals, giving readers a chance to brace themselves for the next complication, reason to hope, or heartbreaking loss. And, of course, losses are an expected and credible part of the story.

Newman made a conscious effort to incorporate more details about the passengers in her second novel than she did in Falling, largely because she realized that most of her readers are actual or potential passengers themselves and, accordingly, put themselves in the characters' places and are most interested in the trajectories of their stories. The approach is highly effective. At its core, though, Drowning is the story of a family. With Will and Shannon in peril, Chris will stop at nothing to save them, including risking her own life. Like Will, she is convinced that she will not survive if Shannon does not. Her feelings for Will are complicated, as are his for her. Like the aircraft's cabin, when the story opens, their marriage is teetering on a cliff and rapidly running out of oxygen. Both characters are fully formed, flawed, and empathetic, and Shannon, who continues to mourn her big sister, is particularly endearing. Newman never allows her story to lapse into melodrama or her characters to become cloying, demonstrating that she is equally adept at creating compelling characters and inventing terrifying situations in which to place those characters.

Drowning cements Newman's stance as a first-rate writer. She says she is working on her third novel and her goal is to amp the dramatic tension up even further, which is hard to imagine. Drowning is the best of two genres – a horrifyingly realistic thriller to which anyone who has ever been a passenger in an airplane can readily relate and an emotionally rich exploration of the impact of grief, isolation, guilt, and an inability to effectively communicate on a marriage, a family, and, most importantly, a surviving sibling. It is sure to be on not only every bestseller list, but every list of the best books of 2023.

“Will Kent and opened his eyes just in time to see the engine explode.”

So begins my own person nightmare. Oh! And also TJ Newman’s newest book.

Guys, saying I’m a nervous flier is probably an understatement because there were parts of this book where I was actually shaking. Which is honestly just a credit to @tj_author’s visceral, high adrenaline writing.

Reading Drowning is a lot like having an action movie injected directly into your veins. In the best possible way.

Pulse pounding action, family drama, and genuinely nightmare inducing terror. What else do you want from a summer blockbuster?

I was so excited to receive an ARC of this book, it sounded fast paced and intense.

I binged this in one sitting mostly as I had to turn the pages, it was intense and nail-biting. I loved the writing, but ultimately it lacked the intensity throughout and felt like it had some pacing issues. It had the breath holding moments, but then would just slow down and that made it feel choppy.

I did like the ending a lot, even though it was predictable I don't think it was meant to be the opposite? It was heart-warming.

I'll check out this author's next book!

Drowning is a gripping thriller about a commercial jetliner that crashes into the ocean, leaving twelve passengers trapped inside. The story follows an elite rescue team led by professional diver Chris Kent, who must work with her soon-to-be ex-husband to save their daughter and the passengers before it's too late. With heart-stopping suspense, Drowning is a story of a family's fight for survival against impossible odds.

I DNFed this early on as I simply wasn't in the mood nor connecting to the story, which is me issue and not books issue. Therefore I can't give proper review or rating as of this time. Maybe I'll pick it back up in the future if the right mood strikes.

**Thank you, NetGalley and Avid Reader Press, for sending me this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.**

This book takes no time to get the tension and suspense going. Starting from the first chapter, we're met with increasingly tough challenges and wild circumstances that seem impossible to get out of alive.

There's something about aviation thrillers that I love. Combine a plane crash with the claustrophobic, terrifying depths of the ocean, and you've got a recipe for a novel I was eager to read. And T.J. Newman does plane thrillers well. Her first novel, "Falling," gave me a newfound respect for flight attendants. "Drowning" cements her as a pro at crafting page-turners.

While this novel's suspense is A+, I wasn't overly enthralled by the characters. They were OK and had some fun moments, but I didn't feel myself connecting that much with any of them. I do have to give props to Newman for writing no-nonsense female characters in traditionally male roles, though, and for allowing them (and most of the male characters) to have vulnerability too.

But if you, like me, were looking for a book that's hard to put down, you won't be disappointed. "Falling" would be great to read on the beach... or maybe on a flight if you're masochistic.

Apparently, "Falling" is going to be adapted into a film, and I can't think of a better novel I've read all year that would be great for the big screen. I'll be looking forward to it!

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC for an honest reveiw. Having read and enjoyed Falling by the same author I was super excited to have a chance to read this one and it did not disappoint. While some people may be a bit disappointed or bogged down with the 'science' talk and explanations encounted within, I not only appreciated it but found it necessary as well, otherwise I think I would be rolling my eyes like a B sci-fi movie. Newman makes the characters come 'alive' so quickly and intensely that the reader is as invested in their survival as they are. Chris is amazing--her no nonsense way of cutting through both the red tape and the goverment 'bull s***' at the same time was impressive. Mama bear at her finest. Each character had a trait that tugged at my emotions, good or bad. An intense, quick, wild read. Hope there will be more from this author alng the same lines as this one and Falling for sure.

Wow! When you start this book, make sure you have extended time to read. You will NOT want to put this book down. The story opens as a plane is crashing as it takes off from Hawaii. Once in the water, some passengers decide to go out the escape rafts, but then we start getting to know the few characters who stay inside the plane, hoping to wait for rescue using an air pocket. The US Navy, as well as a civilian company with ties to some of the passengers, race against the clock to come up with a plane to rescue the passengers. I could not stop reading, I was invested int eh story, especially the main characters, Will and his daughter Shannon on the plane, and Chris, Shannon's mother, desperately working on a plan to save her family. Fast paced, easy to read, no wonder it's already a summer hit! Don't miss!

What a wild ride! This was an emotional, yet action packed. While reading I couldn't stop imagining what a great movie it would be. Loads of characters with the good and bad traits you can't have a suspense book without. The descriptive writing made me feel like I was there just holding my breath for what was to come. It did not disappoint.

T,J,Newman did it again! I loved her first novel so much when I saw Drowning come up, I knew I had to get it. It is a fast paced, on the edge of your seat read. I could not put this one down.

I thought I’d have a hard time reading this one because I already have flight anxiety, and I wasn’t wrong, but it was so worth it! The fast paced, claustrophobic environment made this book so hard to put down. I can’t wait to read more of what TJ Newman writes!

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you for the opportunity to review this new novel.

Phew... this book was not good for my heart! It had me on the edge of my seat the whole time. I don't always like to fly so maybe I should have let this one pass me by but the FOMO got too big 😂

If you want to read something beside the pool or at the beach that makes sure you don't want to make time to take a swim, this one is for you! Unputdownable...

Wow! This was non stop action and it absolutely held my attention till the last page. I can see why this is the summer thriller of the year. I enjoyed the story so much and I think it was even better than her first book, Falling.

T.J. Newman does it again! She masterfully weaved together this high stakes survival story. This was much more than just the repercussions of a plane crash. It had well-developed characters that I found myself routing for in the end.

What a thrilling ride from start to finish! This book starts out with a bang and does.not.let.up.

Minutes into a flight out of Hawaii, a commercial airplane crashes into the ocean. Many things go wrong and the best option ends up being to shut the plane doors and hope it stays afloat... but it begins to sink.

In a last ditch effort to save the passengers, a plan is put together with little to no confidence it will work. It's just too risky and complex. Will, our main character, is an engineer and on the flight with his pre-teen daughter. His ex-wife Chris is a talented underwater welder and not afraid of a challenge. After finding out about the passengers trapped, she springs into action to save not only her ex-husband and daughter, but every soul on the plane.

Having read Falling back in 2021, I didn't know if Newman could top it, but she did. I loved Drowning even more and was absolutely captivated. Will, Shannon, Chris and the other passengers have my heart forever (besides for 1 guy and if you know, you know). I cried and laughed and was so incredibly invested from start to finish.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

This book made me aware of the fact that I am terrified of drowning in an airplane and made me want to reread this book 100 times so that when this happens to me ( which of course it will I read it in a book once) I will save us all. We follow a flight leaving Honolulu which crashes in the ocean because of some issues some of the passengers could not exit the plane. They were patiently waiting when a cracked windshield leads to the plane sinking to over 200 feet deep but because of an air pocket the passengers now have a much more difficult time to safety. This book was such a fun summer read. I was hooked from page one and was so interested in all the technical information included in this book. This was my first book by this author but will not be my last. I would like to thank Net-galley and the publishers for a chance to read this book for an honest review.

Absolutely loved this action packed thrilling novel. If you loved Falling, you will love Drowning! I read this in one sitting and I coule not stop.

By the end of this rollercoaster of a ride, I was exhausted emotionally and physically. This book is easily one of my favorite reads this year. Six minutes after take-off Flight 1421 it crashes into the ocean. While evacuating an engine explodes and the plane is flooded. The remaining people on the plane are forced to close the doors and the plane begins to sink. The story is about love, hope, loss, second chances and the lengths a parent will go to for their child. The author has a way of making you feel so connected to the characters that you feel like your right there with them.

I had heard so much hype about this book I was hesitant to even request it from NetGalley as I tend to not like the “big” books that everyone else is screaming about. Boy, was I wrong. This book! I devoured it in 24 hours because I simply couldn’t stop reading. I’m not squeamish about flying and I don’t have a fear of plane crashes, small spaces, or drowning per se, but still, I had moments where I wondered if I might feel differently next time I board a plane flying over an ocean. I know I will be much more observant about EVERYTHING when I do finally take that trip to Hawaii.

The author does a really good job of drawing you in right from the get-go. After reading four cozy mysteries in a row, I was absolutely breathless within the first ten pages of Drowning. While some of the key plot points seemed far-fetched to me, with absolutely no science background whatsoever, I completely let go of any of that and just went along for the ride.

I loved the character development that went along with this thriller, not always the case when the main objective is to thrill the reader. The tension between the people on land and the people on the plane was palpable and I can not even imagine what was going on in Chris’s mind the whole time. The unraveling of the backstory of Fitz was very interesting and paced just right.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Thank you to NetGalley for giving this skeptical reader a much-needed jolt to her summer reading. Thank you to T. J. Newman for a great book. And, could someone tell me where I can buy whatever case that cellphone was in that it was still operating after all of that? Asking for me!

This is one thrill of a read ,it is constant action from the start to finish. A plane disaster has left a selection of people trapped on the plane in the ocean, We get the story of the characters in the plane and get to know them quite well.T he story centres around the rescue to get them out. It is a very intense read and can be read quickly because you have to know what’s going to happen next. If you like constant drama this is the book for you. This would make an excellent film , it’s so visual. The one criticism I have is I sometimes got lost with the technicalities of what was happening and because the pace was so fast I found it hard to visualise it in my head.. Having said that I found it very enjoyable to read .

WOW! Talk about a roller coaster ride! Yikes! Excellent page turner! I felt I was there with all the characters. Can't wait for her next one ✈️