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ashley_dang096 's review for:

The Drowning Summer by C.L. Herman
3.0

Two ex-best friends, a murder mystery, and ghosts that have come back to haunt them. Six years ago three Long Island teenagers were murdered, their drowned bodies discovered with sand dollars placed over their eyes. Nobody knows who killed them and the murder is still popular to this day. Evelyn Mackenzie’s father was the main suspect... but his charges were dropped when Evelyn summoned a ghost to clear his name with the help of her then best friend who also happens to be a medium, Mina Zanetti.... but that summoning was the straw that broke the camels back and the reason their friendship ended. Evelyn had promised never to summon another ghost after what it did to Mina, causing her to become sick, throwing up for days, and landing in the hospital... but what Mina didn’t tell her was that from that day she has had nightmares of ghosts and it has left her with a permanent scar of a sand dollar on her arm. But years later... Evelyn has once again summoned a spirit, this time to help her clear her name after she got caught stealing and cheating on an exam for her boyfriend. Mina Zanetti comes from generations of mediums who use the ocean’s power to guide the dead to their final resting place. Mina dreams about not only taking over the family duties but helping her mom and getting into fashion school... but one night of trying to help her mom leads her to being nearly choked by ghosts and her sand dollar scar lighting up again, Mina knows that Evelyn has broken their promise and has once again summoned a ghost... and that Mina and Evelyn are in far more danger than they realized. Now both girls will have to face each other after years of silence and broken friendship to solve the murder mystery that broke apart their friendship if they want to make it out alive because ghosts have begun haunting them and things are only going to get worse. That means opening both of them up to each other again... and opening up the feelings that they might have for each other. I’ll be the first to say I really didn’t like either of the characters that much. the mystery was okay at best, but overall this one did not live up to my expectations, especially since I’ve liked the authors previous works so much. This was suppose to be a dark murder mystery with sapphic romance but it just felt kind of like an episode of Nancy Drew (from the CW). Overall, it was an okay summer read, though I definitely will be reading the author’s future work.