A Drowning Tide is an unpredictable, gripping story of toxic families, dangerous secrets and the past catching up with the present.
A Drowning Tide is Sarah Lawton’s debut crime novel, set on the Isle of Wight where the author grew up and introducing protagonist Merry, a reclusive fifty-something woman who finds solace in writing cryptic crosswords as a living and the pleasure of wild swimming. Merry’s life, though, is about to take a very different and unexpected path. When her neighbour, Lucas Manning – son of her late best friend, Julia – goes missing, Merry finds herself caught up in the search for his whereabouts, questioned by police and forming an unlikely alliance with a private investigator called Gareth to look for him. But what Merry doesn’t know is that finding Lucas will expose all her own deeply buried secrets, resulting in mortal danger and a thrilling twist.
Author Sarah Lawton is one of 3% of the population who are aphantasic, and therefore unable to form mental images of real or imaginary people, places or things. For Sarah, her lack of visual imagination has drawn her to pursue a creative career and has been helpful to her writing rather than a hindrance. She seeks out real places to describe in her own words, and her memories are visceral rather than visual, relating to feelings, sensations and smells, which all contribute to the striking detail of her writing. Needing to write about somewhere she knew and still drawn to the water, Sarah chose to set her debut crime novel on the island where she grew up, where the scent of the sea is never far away and, whilst picturesque, has, like most places, its dark side, too.
The novel is an unputdownable brainteaser, and readers can follow Merry’s journey whilst puzzling over the cryptic clues throughout.