These Still Black Waters

Christina McDonald writes psychological thrillers with strong family threads, and These Still Black Waters returns to a setting many of her readers will recognize. The protagonist comes back to the small lakeside community where her sister disappeared years earlier, and the unresolved history starts surfacing the moment she arrives.

McDonald is patient with the reveals. The reader pieces together the original disappearance alongside the protagonist, who has her own gaps in memory about what happened.

The atmosphere is the book’s strongest element. The lake, the closed community, the people who would prefer the past stayed buried. Each is rendered with careful attention.

For readers who liked her earlier book The Night Olivia Fell, this is in similar territory. Fans of Riley Sager or Lisa Jewell will find McDonald comparable. Worth reading in fewer sittings rather than spread out, since the tension benefits from continuous attention.