Publisher: Harper Collins Australia (Trade Paperback – 5 July 2023)

Series: Standalone

Length: 323 pages

My Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

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Rising Australian crime fiction author Veronica Lando presents a particularly intense and captivating read in her latest gritty release, The Drowning Girls.

Port Flinders in the north of Australia is a desperate town, suffering from depleted fishing and a poor economic future.  The only thing that is keeping the tiny town going is its infamous Drowning Girl Festival, which draws vast crowds of tourists to the town’s mangrove-lined shores each year.  The festival honours a statue that is symbolically dropped into the water in a seemingly harmless bit of fun, recognising an old legend that a woman must be sacrificed each year to revitalise the town’s fishing.  But not everyone thinks that the legend is untrue, especially as a tragic drowning of two girls 25 years earlier seemed to save the town.

As the new festival beings, Nate Bass arrives, set to temporarily fill in as the town’s sole teacher.  Forced to take the job after an incident at his last school, Port Flinders is the last place Nate ever wanted to come back to, as he has history with the town and its sinister festival.  However, the past has a way of coming back to haunt everyone, and soon a new development in the towns infamous history emerges.

A dead woman is pulled from the water at the height of festivities, but is she the victim of an unfortunate drowning accident, or has someone sacrificed her to the ocean?  As Nate finds himself drawn to the case, he is forced to dive back into his tragic childhood to events that have haunted him for 25 years, especially when the identity of the drowned woman is revealed.  To discover the truth, the past and present will need to come together, but is Nate ready to reveal his biggest mistake to the world?

The Drowning Girls was a very distinctive and captivating bit of Australian fiction by Lando which deeply impressed me when I checked it out.  Set around a compelling rural Australian setting with some major baggage associated with it, The Drowning Girls has a great story to it that features an excellent blend of mystery, emotional dives into the past, and some major character moments that really drew me in.

The story itself is told through two separate perspectives, that of Nate Bass, the town’s substitute teacher who returns during the height of the Drowning Girl Festival, and a young boy nicknamed Tack, who provides an intriguing alternate perspective of certain events.  Both get embroiled in the mysterious drownings that occur in Port Flinders in different ways, and their character-driven narratives swiftly come together to tell a story of tragedy, friendship, and secrets.  Nate’s story serves as the central focus of much of The Drowning Girl’s plot, and his exploration of the town’s history, the mindset of its people, and the impact of the festival adds some great depth to the story, especially as the author introduces some excellent supporting characters/suspects in the case.  The story revolving around Tack is an interesting coming-of-age tale, which shows the young protagonist trying to fit in around Port Flinders, while also learning about the mysteries of the festival.  This secondary storyline is a little harder to get into at the start, but the intriguing inclusions it features have some fantastic and fascinating impacts on the larger story.

There is a great reveal about halfway through the book that completely changes everything you thought you knew about The Drowning Girls’ plot, and which brings the two separate storylines together in an outstanding way.  I loved how Lando turned everything around at that point, and it led to a pretty addictive and exceptional second half of the book, which I honestly had a hard time putting down.  There are even more excellent twists revealed towards the end of the book, as well as some deeper dives into the protagonist, as he explores all the trauma from his past, as well as the deadly events from 25 years earlier.  The full extent of both the drownings in the past and the present are intense and very clever, and the elaborate and dramatic mystery that Lando came up with is extremely impressive and moving.  This entire story comes together pretty perfectly, and the full extent of the book’s tragic and moving storyline results in some truly shocking moments.  I honestly did not see the book’s big conclusion coming, and the Lando ensured that readers will come away from The Drowning Girls shocked and deeply moved.

There are a lot of great elements to The Drowning Girls that I enjoyed, and Lando has a real talent for writing and creativity that really connected with me.  Her creation of the fictional town of Port Flinders is fantastic, and she does a remarkable job of capturing the feel of a dying tourist town in Australia’s far north.  Everything about this town, including the crippling isolation, the rowdy tourists, the oppressive feel of the surrounding mangroves, and the various people who choose to call such a location home, feels highly realistic and it works into the dark storyline of The Drowning Girls extremely well.  I also loved the intense feelings invoked by the mysterious festival that is such a key part of the book’s plot, and you have to love the dark symbolism that Lando chose to associate with it.  You can almost understand the desperation that some of the town’s residents feel when it comes to the festival, and I felt that it was an outstanding and creepy plot focus that really stood out.  However, one of the best elements of The Drowning Girls was the main protagonist, Nate Bass, who has a complicated past and a deep and traumatic connection to the town.  Seeing the slow unravelling of Nate’s personal history is an outstanding and moving part of the book, and you really get attached to him as a result.  Watching him unload his guilt, trauma and resentment is some of the most powerful parts of the book, and you really must appreciate everything that Lando puts her protagonist through.  Thanks to the author’s great use of the split storyline, as well as the fantastic blend of drama and mystery that emerges throughout the narrative, The Drowning Girls’ story really shines through, and I came away with a huge appreciation for Lando’s style.

The Drowning Girls by Veronica Lando is one of the more unique and complex Australian crime fiction books I have so far read this year, and I was really impressed with how compelling and dark she was able to make it.  Featuring a clever and twisted mystery with some major character moments, The Drowning Girls is a highly recommended read and easily one of my favourite pieces of Australian fiction in 2023 so far.

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