The Drowning Kind by Jennifer McMahon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Sisters, Jax and Lexie, the x-girls, were fairly close when they were growing up. They spent every summer at their Grandmother’s property in Vermont and have a lot of great memories from that time.
Lexie, the older of the two, was different than Jax, however, in a lot of ways. Lexie was more like their father, flighty, free-spirited and at times, manic.
The older the girls got, the more apparent the differences in their personalities became. It was clear that Lexie’s mental health was not well. She struggled to remain rooted in reality. It became a real problem for her.
Jax was always the more grounded of the two. She followed the rules, excelled in school and became a social worker. Over the past year, she’s also been estranged from her sister.
When Jax receives nine calls from Lexie one night, none of which she answers, she assumes her sister is just having another one of her episodes.
The increasingly frantic messages Lexie leaves don’t even make sense. Jax isn’t dealing with it. Not her problem.
The following day Jax receives news that Lexie is dead; drowned in the pool on their Grandmother’s estate, Sparrow’s Crest, which Lexie had inherited.
Jax is shocked. Why didn’t she pick up the phone when Lexie called? Heart-broken and full of regret, Jax makes the journey to Vermont to bury her sister and settled up her affairs.
Once there, reunited with family, including her Aunt and Father, Jax discovers that Lexie had been researching the history of their family and the property.
It turns out Sparrow’s Crest has a dark past and it could possibly be linked to Lexie’s death. Jax dives into the research herself, mostly centering around the property’s infamous pool and the natural spring it is fed from.
As with Jennifer McMahon’s other stories, The Drowning Kind follows two timelines. The present, mentioned above, and then a historical perspective focusing on the history of the property.
The more the Reader learns from the historical perspective, the more the pieces of the puzzle begin to fall into place for Jax. It is such a spectacular format. The pace is excellent!
I have found that sometimes when an author tries this dual timeline format, one of the perspectives will be more interesting than the other. Because of that, you rush through one perspective in order to return to the other.
That is definitely not the case here. Both the present and past timelines are equally foreboding and intriguing. I was fully committed to both.
Another aspect of McMahon’s work that I always enjoy is her sense of place. Sparrow’s Crest is a character. It is so well developed, you can almost hear it talking to you.
The idea that places remember, that pieces of history live on through the land and the structures upon them. I love that whole concept and it is tangible within this story.
In short, this is a phenomenally constructed multi-generational ghost story that will stick with me for a long time.
The ending, chills. Exceptionally well done. I can certainly say I didn’t see it coming!
Thank you so much to the publisher, Simon & Schuster Audio, for providing me with a copy of this to read and review.
I highly recommend it and cannot wait to see what McMahon comes up with next!
