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Editorial Content for The Drowning Sea: A Maggie D'arcy Mystery

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Ray Palen

In THE DROWNING SEA, Sarah Stewart Taylor’s third Maggie D’Arcy mystery, the former Suffolk County homicide detective from Long Island is on a summer vacation among the beautiful but dangerous cliffs of Ross Head in West Cork, Ireland. She is there with her teenage daughter, Lilly, and is sharing a cottage with her boyfriend, Conor, and his son, Adrien. Maggie seeks a fresh start after a rough finish to her time on the force, and she needs to sell her daughter on the idea of a permanent move to Ireland. Read More

Teaser

For the first time in her adult life, former Long Island homicide detective Maggie D’arcy is unemployed. But her summer vacation on a remote West Cork peninsula takes a dangerous turn when human remains wash up below the steep cliffs of Ross Head. When construction worker Lukas Adamik disappeared months ago, everyone assumed he had gone home to Poland. Now that his body has been found, the guards seem to think he threw himself from the cliffs. But as Maggie gets to know the residents of the nearby village and learns about the history of the peninsula and its abandoned Anglo Irish manor house, once home to a famous Irish painter who died under mysterious circumstances, she starts to think there's something else going on. Something deadly.

Promo

For the first time in her adult life, former Long Island homicide detective Maggie D’arcy is unemployed. But her summer vacation on a remote West Cork peninsula takes a dangerous turn when human remains wash up below the steep cliffs of Ross Head. When construction worker Lukas Adamik disappeared months ago, everyone assumed he had gone home to Poland. Now that his body has been found, the guards seem to think he threw himself from the cliffs. But as Maggie gets to know the residents of the nearby village and learns about the history of the peninsula and its abandoned Anglo Irish manor house, once home to a famous Irish painter who died under mysterious circumstances, she starts to think there's something else going on. Something deadly.

About the Book

In THE DROWNING SEA, Sarah Stewart Taylor returns to the critically acclaimed world of Maggie D’arcy with another atmospheric mystery so vivid readers will smell the salt in the air and hear the wind on the cliffs.

For the first time in her adult life, former Long Island homicide detective Maggie D’arcy is unemployed. No cases to focus on, no leads to investigate, just a whole summer on a remote West Cork peninsula with her teenage daughter, Lilly, and her boyfriend, Conor, and his son. The plan is to prepare Lilly for a move to Ireland. But their calm vacation takes a dangerous turn when human remains wash up below the steep cliffs of Ross Head. 

When construction worker Lukas Adamik disappeared months ago, everyone assumed he had gone home to Poland. Now that his body has been found, the guards, including Maggie's friends Roly Byrne and Katya Grzeskiewicz, seem to think he threw himself from the cliffs. But as Maggie gets to know the residents of the nearby village and learns about the history of the peninsula and its abandoned Anglo Irish manor house, once home to a famous Irish painter who died under mysterious circumstances, she starts to think there's something else going on. Something deadly. And when Lilly starts dating one of the dead man's friends, Maggie grows worried about her daughter being so close to another investigation and about what the investigation will uncover. 

Old secrets, hidden relationships, crime and village politics are woven throughout this small seaside community. As the summer progresses, Maggie is pulled deeper into the web of lies, further from those she loves and closer to the truth.

Audiobook available, read by Aoife McMahon

June 24, 2022

This week we finally got to see Top Gun: Maverick, which is terrific. Before the film came on, there was a short clip where Tom Cruise shared a message thanking people for waiting to see the film in theaters --- and telling them “to enjoy the ride." The movie had been finished in 2019, they added some extra footage in 2020, and then it was held until they thought there could be a big enough crowd in theaters. Holding back like that was not easy in our streaming world.

Julie Clark, author of The Lies I Tell

THE LIES I TELL is a twisted domestic thriller that dives deep into the psyches and motivations of two women and their unwavering quest to seek justice for the past and rewrite the future.

Vacationland by Meg Mitchell Moore

June 2022

A few weeks ago, I plucked an advance reading copy of VACATIONLAND by Meg Mitchell Moore from my shelf. Immediately I was transported to a beautiful home on the coast of Maine. I could smell the water and see the rocky shore.

As the novel opens, a young woman named Kristie is headed to Maine on a bus. She has a backpack, $761 and a mission to figure something out. That is the setup for a typical scenario of “a woman on a quest.” From there, the story shifts to Louisa, a tenured professor who has arrived in Maine from Brooklyn with her three children to spend the summer with her parents while her husband launches his podcast brand back in the city. Louisa is counting on her folks to help out with the kids as she works on a book with a deadline she has to hit. She has been on sabbatical, but something has gotten in the way of her work, and she is desperate to get some time to write.

June 24, 2022 - July 8, 2022

Here are reading recommendations with your comments and a rating of 1 to 5 stars for the contest period of June 24 - July 8.

We have listed 10 of Carol’s Bookreporter.com Bets On picks that are now or soon to be in paperback. Which of these books have you read or do you plan to read? Please check all that apply.

June 24, 2022, 625 voters

Interview: Joshua Moehling, author of And There He Kept Her

Jun 22, 2022

When two teenagers break into a house on a remote lake in search of prescription drugs, what starts as a simple burglary turns into a nightmare for all involved. That’s the intriguing premise of Joshua Moehling’s debut novel, AND THERE HE KEPT HER, a thrilling page-turner that introduces readers to a complicated new hero and forces us to consider the true nature of evil. In this interview conducted by Bookreporter reviewer Ray Palen, Moehling talks about his inspiration for the book, his decision to set the story in a small town, some of his favorite mystery/thriller authors, and his future writing plans.

June 21, 2022

In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of June 20th and June 27th that we think will be of interest to Bookreporter.com readers, along with Bonus News, where we call out a contest, feature or review that we want to let you know about so you have it on your radar.

This week, we are calling attention to our "What's Your Book Group Reading This Month?" contest on ReadingGroupGuides.com. Three book groups will win up to 12 copies of CLARK AND DIVISION by Naomi Hirahara, which was a Bookreporter.com Bets On pick when it released in hardcover last August and will be available in paperback on June 28th. The deadline for your entries is Wednesday, July 6th at noon ET.

June 21, 2022

This Bookreporter.com Special Newsletter spotlights a book that we think is a great summer reading selection. Read more about it, and enter our Summer Reading Contest by Wednesday, June 22nd at 2pm ET for a chance to win one of five copies of THE LIES I TELL by Julie Clark, an upcoming Bookreporter.com Bets On pick that is now available. Please note that each contest is only open for 24 hours, so you will need to act quickly!

Kirstin Chen, author of Counterfeit

Ava Wong is a strait-laced, rule-abiding Chinese American lawyer with a successful surgeon as a husband, a young son and a beautiful home. But beneath this façade, Ava’s world is crumbling. Enter Winnie Fang, Ava’s enigmatic college roommate from Mainland China, who abruptly dropped out under mysterious circumstances. Now, 20 years later, Winnie is looking to reconnect with her old friend. She has developed an ingenious counterfeit scheme that involves importing near-exact replicas of luxury handbags and now needs someone with a U.S. passport to help manage her business. But when their spectacular success is threatened and Winnie vanishes once again, Ava is left to face the consequences.