About the Book:
Cast a stone. Aim true. Let her sink.
Nate can't believe he's dragged himself up to this backwater town. Port Flinders would have fallen off the map years ago, except for one thing. Tourists flock to its mangrove-lined shores for the annual Drowning Girl festival: sacrifice a girl at sea, and the fishing hauls that keep the town afloat will prosper. Or don't and the whole town will sink.
But it's just a legend, a gimmick. Everybody knows that.
As fireworks light up the night sky, a woman's body is pulled from the inky waters of the gulf. Shock waves threaten to tear Port Flinders apart when she's identified as Kelsey Webb: a local teenager thought dead for twenty-five years.
As Nate tries to find the truth about what happened to Kelsey, he uncovers a string of deadly accidents over the decades. All women. All drowned. And always during the festival.
In his search for answers, the legend of the Drowning Girl begins to take hold of Nate, weaving its way into his head and threatening to pull him under, and he begins to question which sacrifices are truly necessary.
Published by HarperCollins Publishers Australia
Released 5 July 2023
My Thoughts:
2021 winner of the Banjo Prize, Veronica Lando, has returned with her second novel, The Drowning Girls. From its eerie cover onwards, readers are treated to a story that walks a fine line between creepy and strange. It's enormously addictive, despite my initial reservations about the main character, Nate. He wasn't particularly likeable at first, but he grew on me, especially after a certain twisty reveal within the story that I am not going to further allude to, so that you can experience the same 'ah-ha' moment that I did.
The Port Flinders setting within The Drowning Girls is a place I'd not want to visit. It's creepy, with its annual Drowning Girl festival, whereby an effigy of a girl is sacrificed at sea to keep the fishing hauls going. And yet, it seems it's not only effigies of girls drowning; the town has a history of actual women drowning down through the decades, and no one local seems to think this is sinister.
I'm not a huge reader of crime fiction, maybe one every couple of months, and when I do select one, I'm a bit fussy on what I choose and what I pass on. The cover drew me in with this one, it's eerie, yet strangely compelling. I read this novel quite rapidly as it really draws the reader in and keeps you turning the pages with increasing urgency. The ending has shock value, I can see it dividing readers, but I thought it was terrific. Bold and unexpected.
Thanks to the publisher for the review copy.
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