This cover really drew me in! I was so intrigued by the gothic atmosphere of this novel and it worked well with the story. I loved the take on mothers and daughters. This was very well written and I enjoyed it!

The story in this one was great. It kept me guessing until the end. I loved the mystery and the gothic feel.

Cape Disappointment…why would anyone in their right mind live in a place with disappointment in the name? Meredith was never able to answer that question or figure out why her mother never left. Now her mother is experiencing the first symptoms of Alzheimer’s Disease so her daughter and her are moving back to take care of her.

After splitting with her wife, it seems like moving back in to take care of her mom is the next logical choice. Is Cape Disappointment really haunted like legends and townies say or is it all just a bunch of crap. Meredith isn’t sure but her mother, on the other hand is convinced that the water wants her granddaughter. If they aren’t careful, the water could take them all.

Alzheimer’s is a very hard disease on the patient and their families. What I enjoyed with Monroe’s writing, is that you can feel that fear and frustration as you are reading through her words. She does a good job of developing the characters and making them relatable to the readers. In this book, Monroe uses timeline jumps to share all sides of the journey that the reader is embarking on. Even with the timeline jumping, I was able to follow along as I read. I felt that it provided the additional background for the readers as they navigated the story. I enjoyed the interweaving of the supernatural and natural elements of world building throughout the story.

I would have enjoyed more background on the characters because I feel that it would make some of them more relatable for the readers and for me the pace would drag in some spots as I was reading. Other than that, I enjoyed this book and would definitely recommend to a friend!

Thank you Netgalley, Poison Pen Press, and Katrina Monroe for providing me this ARC in exchange for my honest unbiased review!

Haunting and beautifully written! I love stories about generations and specifically generations of women, part of that being because I grew up being very close to my grandma and mom, so this book resonated with me in that way. I appreciated having the different characters so present as to give the reader various perspectives to consider as the story unfolds. Each is dealing with their own troubles, no matter their age, and I think this is important to remember in our own lives, that all of us struggle so how can we use our experiences to unite rather than divide us.

This was fine! The language was pretty good and the underlying ideas were interesting, but the execution fell flat and the conclusion didn't satisfactorily resolve all the questions the plot posed.

Thank you to Net Galley for the ARC of this book.
3.5🌟🌟🌟⭐️

Likes:
- the writing was gorgeous. I could feel the physical sensations the author describes, the lure of the sea, the exhaustion felt by Meredith, etc. absolutely fantastic work.
- the idea/plot was fantastic and I really enjoyed the gothic feel of the whole book
- it was really engrossing and I truly felt a little spooked while I was reading it and had to put it down to give myself some space which is not a thing that happens often
- I’m actually really okay with the ending. I like that it wasn’t necessarily a quick and easy “we gave her what she wanted” ending. It made me sad but it also made sense.
- I do like the plot twist of who is haunting the family. That was clever, though I would have liked to have seen it explored a bit more from Regina’s perspective bc that would have been fascinating.


Dislikes:
- although I did like the changing POVs throughout the book, I’d often forget what part of the story we were at, especially with Meredith and Judith’s parts. There would be a mention of Diana’s story and I’d have to go back to remind myself what had actually happened there
- I almost wanted Regina to be more evil? More wiley? There was just something about her character that didn’t land as much as I wanted and Vik’s insisted defending of her when it’s kind of clear she’s Not Great felt a bit forced
- the ending felt a bit rushed, which is unfortunate because for a while in between the middle and the end, it felt way too drawn out. It probably could have been cut down by a solid 50 or so pages to keep up the pace that had been set earlier in the book.
- while I get that it’s a book about an inter generational curse, every single one of these mothers essentially making the same mistake over and over felt a bit forced? Like no one thought to talk to their daughters? “I’m going to do things differently,” says a woman who does the exact same things?? That felt a bit too easy. At some point you’d think a mother would realize that knowledge is power and have had an open conversation about their family.

Overall I did really enjoy it and would absolutely recommend it as a gothic, gripping read!

"Tourist would come visit Cape Disappointment thinking it's haunted. The tourist now have gone away Meredith and her younger daughter return to Meredith's childhood home after sit from wife.
Meredith's mother suffering from Alzheimer's, something in the water watching and waiting for them. "
Started off little slow, then started to grasp my attention, the ending is not what I was expecting.
If you like ghost stories, and about haunting in general this book for you.
Thanks to netgalley, poisoned press and the author in exchange for a review.
Published July 12th 2022

I ate up this book so fast it even surprises myself. I loved the atmoshpere that author created - dark, moody almost gothic. The atmosphere reminded me of Woman in Black.
This book is definitely characters baste, so for those who loves action this book can be boring. However I like book like this if they are written well.
This book is almost as a fight for time for mothers and their daughters and that fight kept me on the edge of my seet. I was rooting for our main character Meredith even though she was flawed herself, but that made her more real and relatable.
The ending was perfect in my opinion, even though tragically sad.

I definintely reccomend this book to all gothich book lovers.

The story overall was not really exciting. It was 'meh'/okay. I was expecting more of the horror. It was really not that scary at all...

It was fast-paced and a quick easy read!

I have heard not so great reviews of this novel from sources I trust and I did try to read a little bit of the book but wasn’t interested. Also with the comp titles comparing it to Silvia Moreno-Garcia I thought I was interested in it, then realized that author’s books tend to be a hit or miss for me. Rereading the synopsis and seeing the name of the town be Cape Disappointment, made even more wary. But I appreciate being approved for the ARC.

Katrina Monroe sets her novel, They Drown Our Daughters, at the shore of Cape Disappointment. However, there's no disappointment in this ghostly thriller. It's a tale of a family curse and the power secrets hold over mothers and daughters. Meredith has returned to her family home after the death of her mom, Judith. It's a place in the shadow of an old lighthouse that she never planned to revisit. The cape is where many in her family died by suicide. They were all drawn to the cape's cold and stormy waters. Is it true that a woman in the water draws them in, and will Meredith be the next?
This is more than a ghost tale. It touches on the often fragile relationship between mothers and daughters. It plays upon the emotions of trying to be "good enough" as a mom and struggling to hold onto sanity. The novel is as multi-layered as the pink hues in an uncommon seashell and in the powers of the past. Just be prepared to stay up late reading!

I was drawn to the cover first and foremost but the beautiful outside matches up to a lush and exquisite thriller of an inside! Such an intriguing story, I completely devoured it in one sitting!

Thank you Netgalley for the advance reader copy of They Drown Our Daughters by Katrina Monroe in exchange for an honest review. What beautiful writing. I loved this gothic horror story. I always feel the scariest stories are the ones we can relate to the most. My mother recently died and I'm now taking care of my father who has Alzheimer's. I felt a deep connection to the main character and how it can be hard to know what is truth coming from them.

I did enjoy this book overall but I had trouble connecting with the characters, and as it was largely a character-driven story, it was slightly disappointing. I would still recommend it if you're interested in very slow burn gothic horrors because the atmosphere is 10/10.

DNF @ 20%. This book has a beautiful cover and a great description and that sucked me in, but the pacing is awful, and from the looks of other reviews it doesn't get any better. So unfortunately I'm going to give this one a miss. Sorry.

There's just too many heavy things out of this story for me to process right now,leaving me feeling exhausted,overwhelmed and confused. There's just too many things going on in this complex,multi-generational story about a cursed family who all acted very strangely like they are not a family or even related.

A lot of things that did not make any sense to me. I am still trying to fathom on what i just read here as my minds got all jumbled up and messed up with so many things,weird things going on here. Well there's some weird LGBTQ-lesbianism theme, witchcraft/sorcery/spells, murder, attempted murder, suicides,attempted suicides, depressions,kidnapping/abduction, beating,drugging and locking down a kidnap person, violence, aggression,drinking,making out on the beach,etc. Arrghh!

There's just too much and too many things going on,weird things and weird characters that didn't make any sense to me,with so many povs from God knows,four or was it five generations of women of the same descendants that keep switching on and off between them,with some left unanswered with no proper closure,especially to Constance/the witch's family/descendants.It's all very hazy,confusing and messed up to me. And not to forget, this story really drags and is very slow, which makes me bored and feeling depressed and drained out until i had to take a long breaks in between before i forced myself to finish it (but i skipped and jumped most of the parts for a quicker read and faster ending).

So, sadly this story is worth of only a 2🌟 out of 5 for me. That is only because i love the theme of motherhood,even though i am not a mother yet myself but i understand those feelings of being one,as i am currently taking care of my own elderly mother and taking over her role as well,as both a daughter and a mother to her as she is now incapable of caring for herself and acts just like a baby/a child. So i know those feelings; those sadness,despairs,regrets,frustrations,sacrifices,etc of failing to be a good mother, and a good daughter, failing to do something to make things better and right again, failing to heal, to bring back hope and a smile to the person you loved most, to protect them,to keeping them safe, to love them or make them feel loved and appreciated, to make them feel worthy only to find myself being a bad,worthless and useless mother and a daughter for failing in all of these things,for making a bad decisions and choices in life, for hurting the person you loved the most out of frustrations,despairs and anger you had with yourself,for failing to do what's best and you hoped for for the beloved person. In the end, we are all flawed and messed up in our own ways,just like the mothers' characters in this story.

Thank you to the author, the publisher and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read and review this e-ARC copy.

Initially, I was enjoying the writing style with the flashback into the family's history. However, the story is extremely slow-paced and unfortunately predictable ending. Eventually some of the flashbacks due become not that important to the plot and made me want to skip them at times in order to get to the present where there was more tension.
Although I hadn't enjoyed the book for leisure, I do believe this would be a great novel to study the complexity of human nature in this book. This would be great for high school book reports or for reading groups to discuss the meaning of the book.

This book is filled with lots of dark family drama and a touch of slow burn mystery. I found it to be a little slow at times but throughly enjoyed the story details and plot. For Katrina’s debut novel, she did an amazing job and I will be asking for more of her books in the future. Well done!

This is an intriguing and atmospheric story, but I struggled a lot with pacing. Slow burn mysteries don’t work out for me every time. This is a touching story about mothers, daughters and small town life. If that’s something you enjoy, you’ll love this.

Thank you Poisoned Pen Press for the e-arc.

I actually read this ages ago, back during the summer and forgot to post a review. Whoops. Let's see if I can scrabble a brief background on what I read, what I liked about this and why it didn't work for me!

A curse, a haunting, and a queer girl in search for answers. All that sounds good, right? But for some reason I just wasn't drawn into the story! I felt no connection with any of these characters, and it felt like other authors have done this and made a better job of it. It had all the creepy elements, but I wasn't captivated. Probably 15 year old me would have adored this but adult me is just "meh, it's okay" and I'm sorry but that's just how I feel about it. The writing was good and showed promise. The plot was decent and showed vague interest. But overall? This was another solid 3 star read for me. Maybe her next book will work better for me.