They have the perfect marriage. Did one of them kill to get it?Prep school sweethearts Ian and Andi Copeland are envied by everyone they know. They have successful businesses, a beautiful house in St. Louis, and their eldest daughter, Cassidy, is following in their footsteps by attending prestigious Glenlake Academy. Then, a submerged car is dredged from the bottom of a swimming hole near the … hole near the campus. So are the remains of a former writer-in-residence who vanished twenty years ago—during Ian and Andi’s senior year.
When Cassidy’s journalism class begins investigating the death, Ian and Andi’s high school secrets rise to the surface. Each has a troubled link to the man whose arrival and sudden disappearance once set the school on edge. And each had a reason to want him gone. As Cassidy unwittingly edges closer to the truth, unspoken words, locked away for decades, will force Ian and Andi to question what they really know—about themselves, about the past, and about a marriage built on a murderous lie.
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Sinister, sophisticated, and elegantly structured, Drowning with Others is a landmine of suspense, long-held secrets, hidden histories, and haunting manipulation. When everyone has a secret, can the perfect family survive it? What a riveting and original story! I could not turn the pages fast enough.
Drowning with Others is both a deeply compelling page-turner and a timely exploration of power and authority in the hothouse atmosphere of a storied private school. You’ll find yourself racing towards its (very satisfying) ending, but its impact will linger with you long after its final page.
Wholly absorbing to the very last page, DROWNING WITH OTHERS, a must-ready by Linda Keir, is clever and brilliant!
Linda Keir’s artful telling of a private school upturned by a decades-old scandal is a seductive suspense story snaking around a polemic warning. The lies we tell don’t just define us. They become us. Gripping, poetic, and haunting: this book will keep you turning pages when you should be turning out the light.
Drowning with Others is a smart, engrossing mystery that explores how secrets from the past can bind a family together — or tear it apart forever.
I really like this author. This was the first book of hers that I read. Looking forward to more from her.
An interesting read, the author uses the journals written by Andi and Ian when they were students, and when the visiting writer/scholar, and “bad boy poet” Dallas Walker, mysteriously disappeared. This is juxtaposed with Cassidy’s experience in the same situation, a student taking the seminar with the latest visiting writer/scholar. In Cassidy’s case, instead of a poet, Wayne Kelly is an investigative reporter and the discovery of Walker’s body provides a convenient assignment in investigative reporting for the class.
Not a cozy and not written as a typical suspense or mystery, the draw is the characters and the secrets that were kept for 20 years. And for Ian and Andi, the reader gets to know them as they are now, happily married, successful, and living the dream, as well as how they were as high school students and the effect one teacher could have on them and their relationship. As readers, we get to see the growth and some of the residual angst from their high school years. A book worth reading. Very glad I was able to read this as part of the Kindle First selection.
Drowning with Others is well-written and compelling. Reading from Cassidy’s perspective as her journalism class investigates the recently learned-of death of a teacher while her parents were teens at the same boarding school she is in now, and the perspective of her parents, Andie and Ian, through their boarding school journals and their present concern over what Cassidy may learn, there is a sense of foreboding over how past and present will collide. Recommended for fans of suspense.
Content Warnings: SPOILERS:
Statutory rape; homophobic slur; domestic violence; eating disorder END SPOILERS
Drowning with Others by Linda Keir is a mystery novel that’s hard to put down. I think the only time I stopped reading was when I had to pee. I enjoyed every page because of the author’s eloquence and smooth metaphors. Also, for writers or avid readers, when literature plays a big part in the story, it makes it a perfect read.
The story is told by switching between two timelines — the present time and 20 years ago during Ian and Andi’s senior at Glenlake Academy. I love how the flow is suggestive of history repeating itself because Andi was a teacher’s pet and Cassidy seems to be the same because of Mr. Kelly, who has the same designation as the late Dallas Walker. Mother and daughter. Past and Present. Both are perceived as the literary “It” girls. Andi’s uneasy feeling towards the possibility of her daughter having an affair with her teacher just like she did two decades ago will give chills to readers who are parents just like Andi.
Overall, I am giving this 5 out of 5 stars. The ability of the author to write something that would stimulate the reader’s brain into speculating about what really happened to Dallas Walker made this novel a page-turner. This is highly recommended to readers who love mystery novels and I bet that even people with clairvoyance won’t guess how the story ends.
A well written “who done it”. A car is pulled from a lake and a body is in the car, and it’s that of a prep school teacher, that went missing years ago. A maintenance man at the prep school is arrested for the murder, but as the story unfolds, there are many possible suspects.
Linda Keir develops interesting characters and weaves a gripping tale of deceit, lies, family secrets and intrigue. It is a page turner.
My thanks to #DrowningWithOthers #NetGalley and #LakeUnionPublishing for the ARC. All opinions are my own.
This is one you will think you got it right.But you will be very surprised at the end. Never saw it comming.
Fresh and unexpected, this story kept me guessing and pulling for the protagonists. The ending was somewhat unexpected, yet satisfying.
Meh
A body at the bottom of a lake. A married couple with secrets from their boarding school days. And their resourceful daughter who just may uncover a truth she doesn’t want to know. Drowning with Others, a riveting murder mystery rife with poetry, lust, and lies, captivated me to the last page. A sumptuous, dark tale I could not put down!