The Drowning Kind

 The Drowning Kind by Jennifer McMahon  319 pages

Summary from Goodreads: When social worker Jax receives nine missed calls from her older sister, Lexie, she assumes that it’s just another one of her sister’s episodes. Manic and increasingly out of touch with reality, Lexie has pushed Jax away for over a year. But the next day, Lexie is dead: drowned in the pool at their grandmother’s estate. When Jax arrives at the house to go through her sister’s things, she learns that Lexie was researching the history of their family and the property. And as she dives deeper into the research herself, she discovers that the land holds a far darker past than she could have ever imagined.

In 1929, thirty-seven-year-old newlywed Ethel Monroe hopes desperately for a baby. In an effort to distract her, her husband whisks her away on a trip to Vermont, where a natural spring is showcased by the newest and most modern hotel in the Northeast. Once there, Ethel learns that the water is rumored to grant wishes, never suspecting that the spring takes in equal measure to what it gives.

And here's what I thought: This was a really nice, creepy story. With the back-and-forth in time, you get an interesting perspective on the property in question, which I thought was interesting. In fact, the property and the pool of water, itself, is a character unto itself. I also liked that because some of the characters have . . . . issues, they are unreliable narrators. That sense of "can I believe them," and "is the water somehow evil?" kept things interesting.

Definitely a good story if you like a little ghost story with your suspense novel.