The Drowning Girls

Two plays about love, loss, and the struggle for life.

“Freaking awesome! OMG!… I am obsessed!… Totally addictive… I cannot find the right words to say. All I know is that everyone should get this book… Just awesome!” MagpieReviews In the thin glow of moonlight, a mess of auburn curls gleams against the rocks. Hands bound, the girl’s fragile body is limp and still. Seconds later, a wall of raging white water crashes down, swallowing her whole… A knock on the door late in the evening can only mean trouble for Detective Josie Quinn, but fear chokes her at the news that the one of her own team is missing. No one has seen Denton PD’s beautiful Press Liaison Amber for days. Sweet-natured and totally dedicated to the job, she’d never let her colleagues down. A message scrawled on the frosted windscreen of Amber’s car leads Josie to a nearby dam. But the body they pull from the water is not Amber… Josie won’t sleep until she finds a name for the innocent girl left to drown, and the meaning of the numbers scribbled in a tattered pink diary found on Amber’s desk. But when the trail leads her to a twisted truth about Amber’s family, Josie wonders if anyone really knew her at all? Her team crumbling around her, Josie must stay strong and focused to get the job done. But as prime suspects start going missing, and rumors of an argument the night Amber disappeared surface, could one of her own staff be to blame? Finding Amber alive is Josie’s only chance of knowing the truth and stopping a dangerous killer in their tracks. But as a blizzard closes in, how many more precious lives will be snatched before she can? An absolutely astounding crime thriller that will keep you up all night and leave you sleeping with the lights on. This gripping rollercoaster ride, perfect for fans of Angela Marsons, Robert Dugoni and Rachel Caine, will have you TOTALLY HOOKED! Everyone is talking about The Drowning Girls: “Literally kept me guessing right up until the end… a twist I never in a million years saw coming!!... unputdownable!!” Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars “Fantastic... Heart thumping... Twists, turns and family betrayal have you turning the pages late into the night.” Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars “WOW… captivated from the very first page… Perfect!” NetGalley reviewer, 5 stars “Buckle Up!... a wild ride!... absolutely fantastic… Loved it!!!” m45, 5 stars “WOW! A ~page-turning~ nailing-biting read!” Linda Strong Book Reviews “Absolutely brilliant…This is one fantastic book. All I can say is brilliant from page one right to the end!! And bring on the next one!!” Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars Readers adore Lisa Regan: “BUCKLE UP… never-ending twists and turns. You think you know what to expect… and then BAM she hits you with something so out of the blue that you can’t help but gasp.” Katie Mettner Books, 5 stars “Absofrickenloutly amazing… fantastic start to finish… one of those books that you stay up way too late to read… pick up this book ASAP… be prepared to be hooked.” Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars “I. Don’t. Know. How. She. Does. It… My heart pounded in my chest, my pulse raced, I shed some tears, and my hands shook… absolutely incredible.” Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars “Mind-blowingly brilliant!! I read it in a day… just blew me away!!… Worth 10 stars if possible. A must read.” NetGalley reviewer, 5 stars “***CRACK*** Lisa Regan has knocked it out of the ballpark yet again, and I could not be happier!!!… I devoured this book… twists and turns galore in addition to a HUGE amount of emotion… Whew!… I LOVED IT!… I was glued to the pages from the very first page. She had me guessing, she had my heart pounding, she had me pleading “no, no, please no”… Read, read, read this book!” Open Book Posts, 5 stars

"Spellbinding."—Mary Kubica, New York Times bestselling author of The Good Girl and Pretty Baby "Disturbing…provocative." —Heather Gudenkauf, New York Times bestselling author Critically acclaimed author of The Mourning Hours and The Fragile World, Paula Treick DeBoard returns with a tale of dark secrets, shocking lies and a dangerous obsession that will change one neighborhood forever Liz McGinnis never imagined herself living in a luxurious gated community like The Palms. Ever since she and her family moved in, she's felt like an outsider amongst the Stepford-like wives and their obnoxiously spoiled children. Still, she's determined to make it work—if not for herself, then for her husband, Phil, who landed them this lavish home in the first place, and for her daughter, Danielle, who's about to enter high school. Yet underneath the glossy veneer of The Palms, life is far from idyllic. In a place where reputation is everything, Liz soon discovers that even the friendliest residents can't be trusted. So when the gorgeous girl next door befriends Danielle, Liz can't help but find sophisticated Kelsey's interest in her shy and slightly nerdy daughter a bit suspicious. But while Kelsey quickly becomes a fixture in the McGinnis home, Liz's relationships with both Danielle and Phil grow strained. Now even her own family seems to be hiding things, and it's not long before their dream of living the high life quickly spirals out of control… More Praise "[The] next must-read…"—Catherine McKenzie, bestselling author of Hidden and Smoke "Heart-pounding." —Sophie Littlefield, New York Times bestselling author "Suspenseful and compelling." —Karen Brown, author of The Longings of Wayward Girls

A complex, haunting novel that explores a schizophrenic young artist’s struggles with her perception of reality… including an intriguing ghostly woman who appears to her in the most mysterious ways. India Morgan Phelps—Imp to her friends—is trying to write her memoir, but she struggles with the unreliability of her own mind. Suffering from schizophrenia, as well as comorbid anxiety and OCD, Imp has a difficult time separating fantasy from reality. But for her, it’s most important to tell her “truth.” And for Imp, that truth comes through a stream-of-consciousness tale of her love story with her transgender girlfriend, as well as Imp’s obsession with a mysterious woman whom she finds naked and mute at the side of the road. Imp must push past her mental illness—or work with it—to piece together her memories and tell her story. A rich exploration of mental illness, gender identity, and creative process, The Drowning Girl delivers an eerie and powerful story of a woman’s efforts to discover the truth that’s locked away in her own head. “Caitlín R. Kiernan moves firmly into the new vanguard […] of our best and most artful authors of the gothic and fantastic—those capable of writing fiction of deep moral and artistic seriousness.”—Peter Straub

This groundbreaking book offers the first full analysis of the long-neglected and controversial subject of female infanticide in China. Although infanticide and child abandonment were worldwide phenomena from antiquity down to the nineteenth century when massive numbers of children were still being abandoned in Europe, China was unique in targeting girls almost exclusively. Yet despite its persistence for two thousand years, little has been published on a practice that is deeply sensitive within China and little understood by outsiders. Drawing on little-known Chinese documents and illustrations, noted historian D. E. Mungello describes the causes and continuation of female infanticide since 1650 despite efforts by Confucian moralists, Buddhist teachings, government officials, and even imperial edicts to stop the practice. The arrival of Christian missionaries led to foreign involvement as well, with Catholic priests baptizing abandoned and dying infants in Nanjing and Beijing beginning in the early 1600s. Mission efforts peaked in the nineteenth century when the European-based Society of the Holy Childhood urged Catholic children to contribute their pennies to help neglected children in China. However, most of the infant victims were drowned at birth in the privacy of their homes, thereby escaping the scrutiny of the law and the public. Mungello brings this secretive practice to light with a nuanced and balanced analysis of the cultural, economic, and social causes of early infanticide and its contemporary manifestation in sex-selected abortion as a result of the government's one-child policy. Presenting female infanticide as a human rather than a distinctly Chinese problem, he estimates the tragic loss of girls in the millions.

Winner: 2022 Hugo Award for Best Series Finalist: 2023 Hugo Award for Best Novella In Where the Drowned Girls Go, the next addition to Seanan McGuire's beloved Wayward Children series, students at an anti-magical school rebel against the oppressive faculty "Welcome to the Whitethorn Institute. The first step is always admitting you need help, and you’ve already taken that step by requesting a transfer into our company." There is another school for children who fall through doors and fall back out again. It isn't as friendly as Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children. And it isn't as safe. When Eleanor West decided to open her school, her sanctuary, her "Home for Wayward Children," she knew from the beginning that there would be children she couldn’t save; when Cora decides she needs a different direction, a different fate, a different prophecy, Miss West reluctantly agrees to transfer her to the other school, where things are run very differently by Whitethorn, the Headmaster. She will soon discover that not all doors are welcoming... At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Invited and The Winter People comes a chilling new novel about a woman who returns to the old family home after her sister mysteriously drowns in its swimming pool…but she’s not the pool’s only victim. Be careful what you wish for. 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’s mental state 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 returns to the house to go through her sister’s things, she learns that Lexie was researching their family’s and the house’s history. And as Jax dives deeper into that research, she discovers that the land holds a far darker history 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 spring is rumored to grant wishes, never suspecting that the spring takes in equal measure to what it gives. A haunting, twisty, and compulsively readable thrill ride from the author who Chris Bohjalian has dubbed the “literary descendant of Shirley Jackson,” The Drowning Kind is a modern-day ghost story that illuminates how the past, though sometimes forgotten, is never really far behind us.

A young girl discovers a portal to a land filled with centaurs and unicorns in Seanan McGuire's Across the Green Grass Fields, a standalone tale in the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning Wayward Children series. “Welcome to the Hooflands. We’re happy to have you, even if you being here means something’s coming.” Regan loves, and is loved, though her school-friend situation has become complicated, of late. When she suddenly finds herself thrust through a doorway that asks her to "Be Sure" before swallowing her whole, Regan must learn to live in a world filled with centaurs, kelpies, and other magical equines—a world that expects its human visitors to step up and be heroes. But after embracing her time with the herd, Regan discovers that not all forms of heroism are equal, and not all quests are as they seem... A standalone Wayward Children story containing all-new characters, and a great jumping-on point for new readers. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.