The Girl Who Stopped Swimming

A Southern woman’s picture perfect life begins to unravel when a body is found in her swimming pool in this novel from a New York Times–bestselling author.

“Left me breathless. . . . You must read this book!” —Sara Gruen, New York Times–bestselling author of Water for Elephants

Laurel Gray Hawthorne hasn’t seen a ghost in the thirteen years she and her husband have lived in their beautiful gated community. Then, in the dog days of a Florida August, she wakes to find Molly, her daughter’s best friend, standing by her bed, who then leads her to her own small body floating lifelessly in the Hawthornes’ pool. Laurel’s carefully constructed existence cracks, and the past seeps through . . .

Laurel and her sister, Thalia, grew up in what looked like a typical blue-collar home. But the Grays have long been hiding a skeleton in their closet, While Laurel built her “perfect” life, Thalia became an actress with a capital A, a woman who doesn’t fit in Laurel’s tidy world. Now Molly can’t rest until someone learns her secrets. Laurel turns to her sister, and together they begin a journey that will unearth their family’s history, the true state of Laurel’s marriage, and what really happened to . . .

“A vivid, smartly calibrated achievement . . .a ghost story, family psychodrama, and murder mystery all in one.” —Entertainment Weekly

“A breakthrough novel . . .full of unexpected twists . . .beautifully balanced between magical and realist fiction and [close] in tone and voice to Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones or Richard Ford’s Frank Bascombe trilogy.” —Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“A great tale. . . . Builds to an exciting and violent ending, one that surprises.” —USA Today

“Jackson matches effortless Southern storytelling with a keen eye for character and heart-stopping circumstances. . . . What makes this novel shine are its revelations about the dark side of Southern society and Thalia and Laurel's finely honed relationship, which shows just how much thicker blood is than water.” —Publishers Weekly