Review originally published on Bookshelf Bombshells 8+ years ago. Please refer to www.bookshelfbimbshells.com.

A good suspense is so good for your heart. Gives it a solid workout. Let's get to Elizabeth Black's The Drowning House, shall we?

Clare Porterfield's life is falling apart. Her marriage is at an impasse, her family is estranged, and her daughter died one year ago. When Clare is called home to Galveston to put together a gallery exhibit, she realizes that things are not what they seem--and they may never have been. Secrets abound in both the present and the past for everyone.

Heads up: this book is about to get a rave.

I was smitten from the first chapter. This book was incredibly intriguing, filled with strange characters and a murky story--it was downright riveting. If I could paint this book a color, it would be a hazy, dark, midnight purple, almost Gothic. I digress; back to the incredibleness that poured from this book.

Clare is a phenomenal character--truthful with a clear character arc, yet so humanly fragile and flawed. The story is told in first person and I felt that Black just folded me into this character. I knew her, inside and out. While I was horribly intrigued by the secrets and deceptions withheld from me, the reader, I was calm throughout the book, knowing that they would all unfold slowly like a blanket hiding a trinket to be savored.

Black has created a world of fascination that anyone from a small town can understand. She paints the town of Galveston in a full, colorful picture and she creates characters that won't let you down. Each holds a piece to the puzzle. Dive in and let the waves wash over you. You won't be disappointed by spending time in this world.

You should click below and buy the book. Really. Kindle on left, hard copy on right.

The Drowning House is a novel in which dark secrets are revealed, one after another, like bullets from a machine gun. Unfortunately, it takes too long for the firing to begin, and unlike bullets, the revelations have no impact.

Clare Porterfield is a successful photographer who grew up in Galveston, where she returns after an absence of many years to select archived photographs for an exhibition. She has grown apart from her husband Michael, probably because she says things to him like "I want to hear your ideas but I don't want advice," as if the poor guy is supposed to know whether his suggestion of an idea will be construed as advice. Clare also makes condescending remarks about Michael's inability to understand her photography and belittles his "conventional" taste. Their marriage is rocky in part because Clare blames herself for their daughter's death, although Michael obviously does not. Clare is similarly consumed with grievances about her deceased father and unloving mother. She's constantly picking at the scabs of her past, refusing to let them heal.

The novel takes its title from an apocryphal story about the house adjacent to Clare's childhood home -- identified in Galveston guide books as the Carraday House -- in which a seventeen-year-old girl is said to have drowned during a hurricane in 1900. When Clare was still living at home, she spent much of her time visiting Patrick Carraday, "the brother I never had, then later, something more." Then, when she was fourteen, she and Patrick shared a dark moment, the details of which are slowly revealed as the story progresses. After that event, Clare is sent to the Ohio to live with her grandmother and Patrick goes to Europe. In the present, despite being married and not having seen Patrick since they were young, and in the absence of any evidence of interest on Patrick's part in renewing their relationship, Clare can't stop mooning over him. She wants another life, the life with Patrick she imagines she would have had if not for their separation. Clare will eventually discover the difference between fantasy and reality.

The novel's first half is told in long passages of expository writing that the reader must wade through while wondering if they will lead to an actual story. Eventually we learn that the Carradays are keeping a dark secret about their family while Clare's mother is keeping a dark secret about Clare's family. By the time the secrets finally emerged, one bombshell revelation following another, I had stopped caring. Actually, I never started caring, so the blockbuster secrets struck me as contrived melodrama.

I don't need to like a novel's characters because unlikable characters can furnish insights into human nature, but I learned nothing from tedious Clare. It's understandable that Clare is grieving the loss of her daughter. It's understandable that she injects her pain into nearly every conversation she has. It's understandable that she thinks "that grieving the loss of my child would be my life's work." It's understandable that she resents her father, her mother, Patrick's father, and just about everyone in Galveston. But it is just as emotionally draining to read about woe-drenched people who are buttoned up in an insular world of pain as it is to interact with them in real life. It doesn't help that Clare is condescending, not just to her husband but to almost everyone (she wonders, for instance, whether the names Shakespeare and Homer "mean anything" to "harried mothers ... and grizzled homeless men" as if mothers and the homeless never graduate from high school).

Elizabeth Black's descriptions of Galveston are informative and colorful. She writes wonderfully rhythmic sentences, but they had a tendency to lull me to sleep. Black strives to fill every sentence with deep meaning. After awhile, her observational prose ("It's interesting to watch the very rich play the role of host") and earnest questions ("Have you ever discovered yourself in someone else's snapshot?") and reflective comments ("A child is a chance to be someone new and different") become grating. In fact, if I had to describe The Drowning House in a single word, "grating" is the word I would choose.

NOT RECOMMENDED