Wow! I could not put this book down! The Drowning is a great spooky mystery thriller. A little boy, Joey, disappears from summer camp after being left on a raft in the middle of a lake by Alex, the camp counselor. Alex left Joey there to teach him a lesson. More than 20 years later it looks like Joey is back to get revenge on Alexa who is now very successful and living a lavish lifestyle. Someone, or something remembers Joey’s terror and wants Alex to share in that terror. The ending is a total surprise. I like this book. I highly recommend it. I received this book from net galley in return for an honest review.

This book has a great pretense but ends up being a bit of a mess.

We start with Joey being left at a camp for the summer and hear a GREAT horror story about kids being taken every 7 years...but then it goes really random. At one point we flash ahead 7 years on a hunting trip, to a retired sheriff who is obsessed with the case and interspersed are things being done to Alex, the person who was responsible leaving Joey on a ramp.

It was too convoluted.

Thank you netgalley for this ARC!

This is a real page turner! Alex, the swimming counselor at a summer camp, put 8 year old Joey on a raft and told him to swim back to the shore. Joey didn't. He completely disappeared- not a trace. Now, Alex, a NYC real estate mogul is being harassed and haunted by someone or something who represents Joey. Alex is not a nice man but his wife and his daughters are. Told from several perspectives, but primarily via Alex, and with a bit of time shifting, this is a plot you might have read before but Smith has thrown in some very interesting changes. It's very well written and kept me totally engaged. Why did I take a star off? Well, I'm really rating this 4.5 but the system won't let me do that. It would be a spoiler to explain why I was unsatisfied with the ending. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. This is a very good read.

THE DROWNING left me conflicted. The writing was good and the plot line was certainly suspenseful but the main character was not developed enough for me to really relate to him. Alex was a snotty frat boy with an attitude at the beginning of the book and and, when we meet him again twenty-one years later and obviously tried to become a better man. But Smith did not give me enough information about who Alex really was at heart to be able to sympathize with him or truly understand his actions. None the less, the desire to know who was behind the mystery had me turning pages well into the night..

8-year-old Joey Proctor is at camp when his swimming counselor, Alex Mason, forcibly places him on a dock in the middle of the lake even though Joey can’t swim. Hours later, Joey is missing, never to be found. Fast forward 20 years to Alex’s life as a successful businessman with a nice house, beautiful wife and 2 children. Suddenly ominous events start happening to Alex which eerily remind him of that fateful day in his past.

I enjoyed the first 2/3 of this but not so much the ending. I loved the overall story and the initial premise. Then the plot took a strange turn and the focus was jarringly different. I also found that certain chapters of the book seemed completely irrelevant to the plot and caused me some confusion. The twist at the very end was interesting but an important part was left completely unresolved, leaving me dissatisfied with the outcome. I think with a few changes this could’ve been a 4 or 5 star book, but with all the loose ends, it just wasn’t quite there.

Many thanks to Netgalley, Sourcebooks Landmark, and J. P. Smith for my complimentary e-copy ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

I just love it when a thriller totally takes me by surprise, and The Drowning drew me in straight away with its dual timeline that introduced what was to be a multi-layered, irresistible mystery. 21 years ago, eight-year-old Joey Proctor disappeared without a trace from summer camp. Some of the other boys are convinced he has fallen victim to urban legend John Otis, the evil man who is rumoured to have been behind the disappearance of several boys in these very woods. The police, on the other hand, believe that Joey may have wandered off into the forest, perhaps distressed about his parents’ marital problems. Only one person knows the truth – cocky swimming instructor Alex Mason, who left the boy behind on a swimming raft in the middle of the lake that afternoon to teach him a lesson and promptly forgot about him. But Alex is not about to tell the truth and destroy his own future for the sake of a simple “mistake”. So life goes on without Joey, even though for some it will never be the same again. The other boys grow up, Alex grows older and richer, and soon the news story is replaced by other headlines. Twenty years on, Alex has all but forgotten about that long ago summer as he is basking in his success as a property developer, living in a mansion with his pretty wife and two young daughters. Life has treated him well. Until the day things start to go wrong for him – and he receives a sinister message from Joey. But Joey is dead – or isn’t he?

J.P. Smith has taken a risk by starring a very unlikeable character as the main protagonist in his novel, but he managed to totally pull this off for me. Whilst I disliked Alex intensely – not only for what he has done, but for his arrogance and lack of remorse – he always maintained a small degree of humanity that made a tiny part of my heart sympathetic to his plight. Ok, perhaps not overly sympathetic, but curious in how this would play out. Those interested in seeing karma come back to haunt the guilty will get some satisfaction out of the events that follow. And of course there is the mystery of the cold case, the missing boy, that totally hooked me.

Smith writes well, and both timelines played out seamlessly in my mind’s eye. I loved the constant thread of danger and suspense that overshadowed the events in both past and present, and the inclusion of the urban legend was a great touch. There is nothing quite like a John Otis to awaken our primal fears of the monster coming in the night to take us away. Do we ever really grow out of that? Everyone who has ever been on a school camp will be able to recall the goosebumps as someone told a ghost story in the night. Then there was the butterfly effect Joey’s death had on the lives he touched, ultimately spinning out of control as the timelines collide. And if that was not enough, there is that extra contemporary touch of including a filmmaker interested in Joey’s story for a true-crime documentary, and a tireless detective investigating the cold case. It now had all the elements I love in a thriller – thank you very much!

The Drowning was one of those books that immediately drew me in and made me read late into the night to find out the answers. It’s not easy these days to find a thriller that stands out from the rest, but this one is so cleverly plotted that it definitely fell into that category for me. A well constructed, compelling read!

This is a superb read. It’s the kind of book that will become an overnight success. The plot is interesting and gripping from the first word. How events unfold and can have a ripple effect over the years is shown beautifully in this book. Hands down best seller.

Joey's parents aren't getting along. They try to hide it from him, but he knows they're packing him off to camp to get rid of him while the marriage crashes.

Every good novel has a character like Joey. You care about him and keep reading because you want to find out what happens to him. J.P. Smith makes us care about Joey and uses him all through The Drowning to keep us turning pages as we read about other characters we don't care about at all. Most of the book is focused on Alex, a careless self-centered swimming coach, who tortures Joey by throwing him in deep water to force him to swim. Alex is angry when he has to rescue Joey from drowning. He yells at him and leaves him alone on a raft in the middle of the lake, telling him he will have to learn to swim to get back to the shore.

Alex forgets about Joey, stranded on the raft. Joey disappears. Alex lies, swearing Joey left the the swimming lesson and went back to camp.

The author skips twentyone years. Alex is now a wealthy property developer with a beautiful home and a perfect family. He's learned to (mostly) control him temper and hide his selfishness. When bad things begin to happen to Alex and his business, it looks like Joey has returned to take his revenge. I kept turning the pages, waiting for the big confrontation between Joey and Alex. I wanted to find out what happened to Joey.

I blame the spectacular (undeserved, IMO) success of Gone Girl for novels like this. It's full of dangling clues leading nowhere and has no ending at all. I gave it fours stars because it did keep me reading and I often abandon novels after the first chapter.

When I started reading The Drowning, I had little idea what to expect and soon thought it would be yet another story about the disappearance of a 8-year-old boy from a summer camp. But after a few chapters, I realized this one was different. It’s mainly told from the point of view of a totally unlikable character, Alex. That in itself was new to me, and even though I didn’t pity him—let alone relate—the book kept me wondering, and shred my first assumptions into pieces. The author brilliantly fed readers just enough additional information about Alex at the right time as the story went on, unraveling Alex’s life little by little, and I never guessed the ending. I must say though that I read the author’s note at the end and I didn’t feel the “legend” as he put it, and I wished he had explained what had happened to the kid. And also, I cannot comprehend how there was a witness, working on the site, and he was never interrogated; I did not understand either the connection with the two hunters, or how Alex could be fooled by Pete’s extorted confession, why people from that summer died, and maybe a few other frustrating loose ends…

Thank you to NetGalley, Sourcebooks, and J.P. Smith for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Wow! I could not put this book down! While the main character is so unlikeable that I wondered if I could read through to the end. But no worries - the author does a great job with making you know all the people involved and then there's the mystery surrounding the disappearance of an 8-year old boy from summer camp. The ending was a total surprise. A very good adventure!

This book was easy to read, it didn't take long to fly through the pages. That being said, the book was also quite boring. The whole time it felt like we were on the verge of something big happening, and although the story did get better the closer we got to the end, that "something big" never really happened. Even the ending left me unsatisfied. I appreciate the cleverness woven throughout the story and the blurb sounded promising but unfortunately it missed the mark with me.

Alex is a swimming councillor at a summer camp. Little Joey is sent to the camp so his parents can sort out their marriage. Joey can't swim and is afraid of water. Almost at the end of camp, Alex gets angry at Joey for not at least trying to swim. He takes Joey out in the lake and leaves him on a raft and tells him he will have to swim back or stay there forever. Alex leaves him there and forgets about him. That evening, when they start looking for Joey, Alex remembers, but when he gets to the raft, Joey is gone. Alex keeps quiet and Joey is never found. Twenty one years later Alex is a succesful business man with a wife and two daughters. But then Joey catches up with him. And as is mentioned in the book, the reader sees how one small careless act leads to a string of tragedies. Many people was affected by what happened and there were consequences all over the place. Like bodies on a battlefield.
I could not put the book down and I want to sincerely thank #Netgalley and the publishers giving me the chance to read it. I did not see the twist at the end coming at all.

Every seven years, a boy disappears from Camp Waukeelo. Who will be next?

It doesn’t take long for a little boy to disappear. Joey Proctor can’t swim, but that doesn’t stop camp counselor Alex Mason from leaving him out on a raft in the middle of the lake in a fit of rage. Alex only meant to scare the kid, teach him a lesson. He didn’t mean to forget about him. But now Joey is gone… and his body is never found. More than twenty years later, Alex is a success. No one knows what happened that summer at camp. At least, no one should know. But it looks like Joey Proctor may be back to take his revenge…

Summer camp stories have always scared me and this one was no exception! The characters and descriptions were beautifully detailed, I felt very connected to this story. This thriller gets an A+ from me!

Thank you #NetGalley for the ARC of #TheDrowning
Pub Date: 01 Jan 2019

An incredibly unique page-turner...I was hooked from the first page! It’s well-written, gripping and twisty. The ending is the only thing that held me back from giving it 5 ⭐️’s!

Joey Proctor is an 8-year-old going to summer camp for the first time.

Camp Waukeelo is like every other summer camp—it has a ghost story. As the kids sit around the campfire, the counselors tell the tale of John Otis. John has snatched a boy from the camp every year for the past seven years. He chooses one of the smaller kids—a loner who is timid and fearful.

Joey can’t swim and is afraid of the deep water, but his swim instructor—Alex Mason—intends to keep his promise to teach every kid to swim by the end of camp. Frustrated with Joey’s fears, he leaves Joey on a raft in the middle of the lake and in a fit of rage, he tells him to “swim or die”. He’s confident Joey will overcome his fear and swim back to shore. But once Alex is back at camp, he forgets about Joey until someone notices he’s missing.

Joey never returned. He’s not on the raft or anywhere else in camp and Alex never tells anyone about leaving Joey stranded alone on the raft. The police are called and the lake and surrounding area searched—but Joey is never found.

It’s been over twenty years and Alex has buried the memories of Camp Waukeelo. He’s a successful property developer with a trophy wife, two daughters and a hefty income. But it looks like Joey and the summer camp tragedy are back to haunt him. His family is terrorized and someone is trying to destroy his business and marriage. He’s convinced Joey is still alive after all these years.

Thank you to NetGalley / Sourcebooks / J.P. Smith for this digital ARC, in exchange for my honest review!
#Netgalley #TheDrowning

So much deeper (no pun intended) than a boy left in a raft.
This story is a crazy, interwoven series of lives affected by the butterfly effect of one 18 year olds choice 21 years ago. And, yes 21 years later the Butterfly Effect is still spreading.
The title is also full of symbolism. There is so much drowning that the title doesn’t just refer to that one night at camp. A man Watching his business sink while trying to keep his marriage above water. A couple drowning in debt from that one night 21 years ago. A son drowning in the loss of his parents because of that night 21 years ago. A literal drowning of a young man 21 years later. Secrets drowned.
But everything resurfaces sooner or later.

This book deserves 5 stars for the plot and the prose. The author has a beautiful writing style.

Thank you #NetGalley, the author and the Publisher for my free ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

This is my first book that I've read by J.P. Smith and all I can say it's a really good book. It had me gripped from the start to the end. There is no hero or anti-hero that you expect in any book because all the characters are humans, they have their flaws and that's the brilliant part of this book. This book makes you like and dislike the characters all at the same time and sometimes you feel bad for the characters and sometimes you just despise them. All in all this was a good book, one that I quite enjoyed. Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for giving me the chance to read the ARC in exchange of my honest review.

Thank you to #NetGalley for this ARC of #TheDrowning

This is the first novel I’ve read by J.P. Smith, therefor the writing technique cannot be evaluated comparatively to previous works. While novel offers a dark, mysterious feel the pace of the story alters too much to give the anxiousness that is a true suspense novel.

An eight year old boy goes missing from summer camp. One of the guidance counselors responsible for his care is lying. Twenty one years later, the same guidance counselor starts having very eery things occur to dishevel his perfect life.

The story alternates between past and present in addition to character perspective. However, it’s all told in this third person voice that is also used to summarize rather than develop a storyline further. I found all this very distracting. The way in which it is written takes away from character development. I found it hard to get invested in the book. 3 stars.

Enjoyed the bulk of this mystery/suspense novel. It’s a page turner with some interesting twists. Dragged a little at about 2/3 through, but picked back up pretty quickly. I could easily see this being adapted into a movie!

3.5 stars. I liked this one, but felt a bit unsatisfied by the ending. Well, it was satisfying in one way, but left some frustrating loose ends as well.

We start out 21 years ago, when Joey Proctor disappears at a summer camp, after being left on a raft by Alex Mason. The way this happened gave me a similar feeling to the last book I read about a summer camp--do the people who write these books know how camps work!? I worked at a Girl Scout camp for three summers and there was no way I could EVER have lost a kid for hours without noticing. Sure, they could have snuck out at night, but during the day, especially when leaving one activity for another, I was always counting them. And if someone didn't return from the waterfront in particular, it would have been a huge deal, as everyone had to tag in and out, and if there was a tag left, it was treated as an emergency and potential drowning (like, they blew an airhorn and we all had to run to the lake and jump in and sweep the bottom). However, I guess there are likely to have been camps with less strenuous rules than mine, so I did my best to suspend my disbelief, but it's a bit mind boggling.

After Joey's disappearance, we fast forward to the present day Alex Mason, rich and successful and not suffering any lasting guilt about what he did to Joey. At least, not until some strange and threatening things start to happen to him and he begins to fear that Joey has returned to seek his revenge. Alex is not a character you root for, but I was still sucked in to the terror he was experiencing, while still wanting to see him receive his comeuppance, especially as his own actions escalated.

This was a engrossing thriller and a worthwhile read if you're looking for something fast paced and suspenseful, and don't mind a somewhat ambiguous ending.

5 stars

This book has flashbacks that help to explain and enhance the main story.

Joey Proctor is eight-and-one half years old and is small for his age. He reluctantly attends summer camp for the first time. His parents are always fighting anyway, so he might as well go. Of course he is singled out by the older boys and he is bullied. He befriends a camp counselor named Steve. Another camp counselor Alex Mason is an arrogant (and just plain mean), college boy who is the swimming coach. He doesn’t like Joey at all and wants to scare him big time. So he throws him in the deep lake and then leaves him on a raft in the middle of the lake.

Joey disappears. No sign of him has ever been found. A detective named Mike Farrelli, retired after seven years have passed since Joey’s disappearance, can’t let the case go. He keeps looking for answers.

It’s now twenty-one years later and Alex is a successful multi-millionaire business man with a wife, daughters and an expensive home.

Strange things begin to happen to Alex. There is trouble in his marriage and odd things are occurring at his hotels. There is blood in his swimming pool and later a home invasion happens. Alex just knows it is Joey. He begins to look askance at his own employees. He is positive that he knows who Joey is pretending to be.

The situation is escalating. Alex’ life is falling apart and he is slowly self-destructing. Fearful and filled with anxiety, he makes one blunder after another.

All is revealed on nearly the last page of the book. It’s delicious.

This book is very well written and plotted. It is filled with twists and stunning surprises. I didn’t care for the main character, Alex, but it hardly mattered. The reader gets to see what happens to him. This book is a very interesting psychological study of what happens to a guilty man when the past comes back to haunt him. Ghosts from the past? Perhaps so… The author has done a wonderful job in writing this novel. This is my first JP Smith book, but it won’t be my last. I immediately went to Amazon to look for others of their books.

I want to thank NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for forwarding to me a copy of this great book for me to read, enjoy and review.