They Drown Our Daughters

Monroe’s brooding modern gothic debut delivers a generation-spanning account of one family grappling with the inescapable specter of grief. When Meredith separates from her wife to return to Cape Disappointment, a former mermaid-centric tourist trap, she and her seven-year-old daughter, Alice, are welcomed back into her childhood home by her mother, Judith. But with three generations of Strands gathered back together in a seaside town whose water holds centuries-old secrets—teased out in flashbacks to 1881—Meredith must uncover the truth about the real curse of Cape Disappointment, or lose everything to the grasping waves. Monroe does an excellent job interweaving time periods and character arcs to create a rich, complex picture of intergenerational trauma, and Meredith’s relationships with her mother and daughter make the present feel vital. Clunky exposition occasionally hampers the story’s ability to integrate so many moving parts into a cohesive narrative, but the atmosphere remains as chilly and gripping as an ocean wind as the story drives toward its haunting conclusion. Fans of Silvia Moreno-Garcia should check this out. Agent: Joanna MacKenzie, Nelson Literary. (July)