Leanne Olson

By Katrina Monroe
Releasing July 12, 2022 from Poisoned Pen Press

They Drown Our Daughters didn’t really work for me. I thought the premise was interesting, and I love the idea of a curse following a family down generations, with snippets from different timelines, but I struggled with the book itself.

They Drown Our Daughters is about a family in the present (grandmother Judith, mother Meredith, daughter Alice) dealing with a family history of female suicide, with women walking into the sea. Many of the women have visions of a strange half-girl half-creature beckoning into the ocean. The book flashes back to previous generations of women going through the same thing.

I liked the first few chapters, but I found by the middle of the book that nothing was really changing in the characters, and no new information was coming to light. It seemed to be repeating the same story over and over.

I enjoyed the atmosphere, and some of Monroe’s observations about the relationships between mothers and daughters. But she never quite drew me in emotionally.

Thank you to Poisoned Pen Press and Netgalley for my review copy of this book.