The Drowning House

"This smartly paced, genre bending novel is a good choice for the horror-curious thriller reader who enjoyed The Good House by Tananarive Due and Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia." —Booklist, Starred Review"Cherie Priest is our new queen of darkness, folks. Time to kneel before her, lest she take our heads." —Chuck Wendig, author of The Book of Accidents Houses fall into the Pacific Ocean all the time.Not one has ever come back. Until today.A violent storm washes a mysterious house onto a rural Pacific Northwest beach, stopping the heart of the only woman who knows what it means. Her grandson, Simon Culpepper, vanishes in the aftermath, leaving two of his childhood friends to comb the small, isolated island for answers—but decades have passed since Melissa and Leo were close, if they were ever close at all. Now they'll have to put aside old rivalries and grudges if they want to find or save the man who brought them together in the first place—and on the way they'll learn a great deal about the sinister house on the beach, the man who built it, and the evil he's bringing back to Marrowstone Island. From award-winning author Cherie Priest comes a deeply haunting and atmospheric horror-thriller that explores the lengths we'll go to protect those we love.

Library Journal

"A great suspenseful and twisty story, reminiscent of Hex by Thomas Olde Heuvelt, The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher, and The Winter People by Jennifer McMahon."

Poppy Z. Brite, author of Lost Souls

"Cherie Priest can be counted on to tell a bang-up tale with engaging characters and exciting twists. She is one of our most underrated horror authors."

Stephen Blackmoore, author of Dead Things

"Cherie Priest has made something truly special with The Drowning House, a haunting story of ghosts, family, friendships, and horror. This is one of her best."

Clay McLeod Chapman, author of What Kind of Mother and Ghost Eaters

"Inhabiting the same sandy block as Michael McDowell's The Elementals and Josh Malerman's A House at the Bottom of a Lake, Cherie Priest's The Drowning House has taken up permanent residence in my subconscious alongside the briniest haunted houses around. Be forewarned: there's an undertow to this novel. Once you start reading, it'll suck you right in."

Nick Cutter, author of The Handyman Method

"Cherie's Priest's The Drowning House is a haunted house tale of a totally unique order. I consider myself a hard reader to surprise. Priest's thrilling and heartfelt novel managed to do just that."

Carter Wilson, USA Today bestselling author of The Father She Went to Find

"Nature's fury plays a dominant role in Cherie Priest's haunting and gorgeous The Drowning House, a reminder to the reader that none of us are ever really in control. Through masterful prose, Priest seizes on that instability, introducing the intriguing confluence of events of a man disappearing the same night a mysterious house washes up on shore. Fiercely original and bone-deep chilling, The Drowning House is as satisfying as it is unsettling."

Booklist, Starred Review

"This smartly paced, genre bending novel is a good choice for the horror-curious thriller reader who enjoyed The Good House by Tananarive Due and Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia.”

John Hornor Jacobs, author of A Lush and Seething Hell SheReads Most Anticipated Horror of Summer 2024

"Propulsive, exciting, often terrifying, The Drowning House effortlessly threads compelling mysteries and horrors into a supernatural thriller drawing readers in from the first heart-stopping pages and not letting go until the end. Priest once again proves she is a masterful storyteller promising secrets and revelations. She delivers on all counts."

Darcy Coates, USA Today bestselling author of Dead of Winter

"The Drowning House is deliciously eerie, atmospheric, and impossible to forget. The setting, the friends, and the washed-up house itself combine together to create one of this year's best horror stories."

About the Author

Cherie Priest is the author of two dozen books and novellas, most recently the Booking Agents mysteries Grave Reservations and Flight Risk. She also wrote gothic horror projects The Toll, The Family Plot, and the Philip K. Dick Award nominee Maplecroft; but she is perhaps best known for the steampunk pulp adventures of the Clockwork Century, beginning with Boneshaker. Her works have been nominated for the Hugo and Nebula awards for science fiction and have won the Locus Award (among others)―and over the years, they’ve been translated into nine languages in eleven countries. Cherie lives in Seattle, WA, with a menagerie of exceedingly photogenic animals.

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