MarilynW's Reviews > The Drowning Kind

The Drowning Kind, by Jennifer McMahon, is one supernatural, creepy, spooky, twisty, story. I enjoyed the different timelines and working to figure out how the various characters connected to the old family home, with the dank, dark, stinky spring fed pool, all tied together. Deep murky water, with plant growth that can touch your legs, is a big fear of mine. It's hard to believe that I swam a mile in a brown, Texas lake, years ago. That's what I kept thinking about with this creepy, smelly, pool of "healing" spring water...shudder. 

Social worker, Jax, flies across the country to take care of affairs after her older sister Lex, drowns in the old spring fed pool at the house that Lex inherited from their grandmother. Jax has avoided her sister for over a year, when Lex inherited everything from their mom's and their grandmother's estate, including this old, creepy house with the pool that is rumored to be haunted. Jax has a lot of guilt to work through, having been very close to her sister but also having been very jealous of her sister, who seemed to charm everyone, seemed so perfectly talented at so many things, despite her inherited mental disorder. 

We don't know the origins of the supernatural things going on with the pool but the story does show us how the family is drawn into the spell of the pool, years ago. The pool is like a living thing (or things) and once it gets a person in it's grip, it's never letting go. Or, is this all a complicated ruse, someone wanting the pool to have such a bad reputation that Jax and her family will be willing to give up the house, pool, and property? 

This is a very enjoyable story but it did have people diving in (sorry for the pun) and doing things most sane people would not do. There is always a tradeoff for doing unwise things and I think this pool thrives on people who are willing to run headlong into bad decisions. Still, the author made me feel the pool, feel the house, feel the eeriness of the entire situation and even feel the townspeople backing away from the wacky family that kept living at that old, haunted place. 

Publication: April 6th 2021

Thank you to Gallery/Scout Press/Simon & Schuster and Edelweiss for this ARC.