*4.25 Stars*

Mina's family is a family of medium. There's very few of them left in town though. Just her, her mom, uncle and cousin. And the number of ghosts that need help keep growing. Especially since an untrained person has tried to summon a ghost and things are going haywire.
Evelyn just needed a ghost to do her binding real quick, she didn't mean any harm. After all, it's Mina who showed her how to do this back in the day, when they were best friends. So really who should be blamed?
The two girls reconnect as they try to help one another and figure out what the heck is going on with these ghosts.

I enjoyed this book. I liked the characters and the romance and the plot. I liked the magic system and the mystery element. It was a good, interesting and entertaining read. I didn't rate it five stars only because I wasn't completely enthralled, I wasn't 100% invested. But I still enjoyed it. I have no actual critiques, and I'm glad I read it. I'm always here for sapphics and I'm looking forward to more by C.L. Herman.

Two teens, bound by a secret: They influenced a murder investigation six years ago by summoning a ghost. And now it seems like the repercussion are happening.

We have a summer-y murder mystery set at the seaside, ghostly shenanigans involved. It fit my mood perfectly.

Two protagonists, both bi, they used to be best friends until they tried to do a ritual - and it went wrong. The Zanettis are a medium family, and Mina was sworn to secrecy and has been raised to do the family business since she was little, but never to an extend she feels comfortable with. She feels as if her mom is holding out on her.
Meanwhile Evelyn's father is believed to have killed three people six years ago. There is no real evidence, but the whole town is sure, and they can't be wrong, can they?

I liked how the author manages to juggle different plotpoints without it feeling convoluted. Everything slotted nicely into each other, and the solution to the plot had me angry because I liked the villain until I knew what they had done .

I loved the atmosphere of summer vacations, days at the beach, and learning about ghostly entities and how to help them. And then I liked that the medium work the Zanettis do is not just busting out proton packs and catching ghosts, but work towards a solution that helps everyone - no matter if they're alive or dead.

We have a romance between two bi teens, which was a nice change, too. They spoke about coming out, being the only bi people in their peer group, and while I am not bi I can relate to feeling alone because of who you are.

I would totally read more from this author and would recommend this if you want a nice, fantasy, slightly spooky summer read.

The arc was provided by the publisher.

I read another book by Christine Lynn Herman and appreciated the style of writing and the storytelling.
This is a good mix of thriller and paranormal, I enjoyed it even if I expected a stronger horror side.
The plot is well developed, the characters are interesting, and the world building is excellent.
I recommend this story that I throughly enjoyed.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

I'm a big fan of Christine Lynn Herman's Devouring Gray doulogy and was really excited to pick up The Drowning Summer. This was a fine read, but I didn't end up loving it as much as I would have hoped.

I'm always here for witches, especially in contemporary fantasy, and throw in a murder mystery and ghosts? Yes please. I really loved the way that Herman created the medium magic that is so pervasive throughout this book - give me a magic system with rules and structure, and I will eat it up! The mystery of the murdered teens and the paranormal aspects of the book were well done as well.

However, I had some really mixed feelings about the writing. It felt incredibly clunky at times -Mina is always going on about ocean metaphors and Evelyn is comparing everything to the environment in her mind. I understand wanting your characters to feel three dimensional, but literally no one talks like this. This, in part, led to the characters feeling incredibly flat. They didn't really have any life to them, unlike the characters in The Devouring Gray, and they didn't seem very bright. I just wanted to grab them both by the shoulders and shake them at times, however in their defense, I am more than twice their age. They aren't really meant to relate to me!

The Drowning Summer had a lot of promise, but the most important aspects of the book (i.e. the writing) fell flat for me. I will, however, keep an eye on her future books.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars
CW: biphobia

This was okay, but it wasn't as good as I'd hoped it would be.

Based on the blurb I expected a darker story, and this wasn't nearly as dark as I'd hoped it would be.

For a book about witches, there's also not a lot of witching. I feel like there should've been so much more focus on magical rituals etc.

The characters and their romance were lackluster. I didn't really get any chemistry between the mcs.

Something that stood out to me was the way characters were introduced. The author would usually write something like "Character A entered the room. She was Mexican American." or "Character B's boyfriend is a Japanese American guy". It’s great that there was diversity, but I felt like it was written a little clumsily.

Now another thing that threw me off was the comparison to The Great Gatsby. I did not get any Gatsby vibes. At all. The one similarity I could find was a character being named "Nick", and I was really grasping at straws there.

Now to what I liked: the pet snake.

So overall I'd say this was an okay read, but my expectations going into the book were rather high and it couldn't live up to them.

I enjoyed this. It took me a while to get into it, but I liked the two main characters. Twist was a little predictable but didn't detract from my enjoyment

This is my second C L Hermann novel. I read and enjoyed The Devouring Gray, though not quite enough to pick up the sequel, but the synopsis for The Drowning Summer called out to me.

The first thing to strike me, was that there was so much emphasis on the characters being white. The initial descriptor for EVERY character is 'white' and in the cases of some minor characters that was the only description given. I don't think I've ever read another book where the first priority at each mention of a new person is to immediately designate race. I found it jarring. Fine if its important to CLH that we envision the MCs as white but why can't the reader atleast choose how to imagine a shopkeep or passing stranger?
Moving on..

I really liked the setting, a small coastal town with big secrets- whats not to love? Herman depicts Sand Dollar Cove beautifully and ties a wonderful bond between her characters and the ocean.

Told in third from the perspectives of Mina and Evelyn, The Drowning Summer is a tale of secrets, souls and summer love. A YA that focuses on building relationships between quirky teenaged outsiders and their broken yet loving families.

Although at times their awkward, stubborn behaviour was painful to read, I was endeared to both Mina and Evelyn. The bi rep is a focus of the book and whilst I felt the conversations around it were cookie cutter basic I still enjoyed the inevitable connection between them.

The mystery of the drowning summer murders and the ghosts rising six years later kept me invested in the story, I wasn't a big fan of the ending but Herman did a good job of dropping new secrets along the way.

Middle of the road for me, but worthy of a sunny afternoon escape.

Really enjoyable, twisty and unpredictable. I read this quickly it was a gripping read. I would definitely recommend reading it.

I've never read from Christine Lynn Herman before, but I enjoyed this book a lot! You've got mediums, an unsolved triple murder from six years ago, a potential demon and two girls who have to work out how to save themselves and their town - while also falling for each other. I really liked the two main characters of Evelyn and Mina, particularly Evelyn with her love for the environment, although I did find their voices to be quite similar. The whole ghost-murder-mystery was done really well, to the point where I was getting quite freaked out and didn't want to be reading it at night before I was going to sleep! I loved reading about the details of mediums and scrying focuses; as someone who is connected to that community in real life, it was really fascinating and great to read about it, especially in a way where it wasn't being dismissed as codswallop. I wish we could have seen more of Evelyn and Mina's relationship in this book. You do get some really nice moments between the two of them, but it is largely drowned out by the plot, and I would've really liked to see them actually together a bit more than we got.