This is Sarah Enright, with the Sioux City Public Library, and you’re listening to Check It Out. Today I am recommending The Drowning Kind by Jennifer McMahon. If you’re looking for a haunting, atmospheric read with genre bending supernatural elements, and unforgettable chills and thrills, this is the perfect book for you.
It’s 2019 and Jax is a social worker on the west coast when she’s notified that her estranged sister Lexie has died. She drowned in the natural spring fed pool located on the grounds of the estate she had recently inherited from their grandmother in Vermont. The worst part? Jax missed nine calls and ignored odd voicemails from Lexie the night before. Lexie suffered from bipolar disorder, so Jax wrote it off as another manic episode. Now, she has no choice but to return to her childhood home and attempt to sort things out while grappling with her own guilt and grief.
Ninety years earlier in 1929, Ethel has just married the town doctor and is struggling with infertility. Feeling it may ease her stress, her husband surprises her with a getaway to a newly established hotel, Bradenburg Springs, featuring natural spring waters rumored at the time to have powerful healing properties. Ethel is mesmerized with the beautiful setting, the hotel, and the waters, but strange happenings begin to arise, leading her to suspect that the water may be the source.
Back at Sparrow Crest, Jax discovers that Lexie had begun researching the history of their family and their grandmother’s property. Jax takes it upon herself to continue digging for information until the dark mysteries of the past, and the water, begin to unravel.
Both present and past timelines are equally foreboding and intriguing.
Find The Drowning Kind and more chilling books like it at the Sioux City Public Library.
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