I was browsing a used bookstore recently when this novel grabbed me. I can’t explain it, but sometimes I’m just drawn to books without knowing what they’re really about. Like Left Drowning by Jessica Park.

I was intrigued, but I wasn’t sold. I showed it to the friend who was shopping with me and she agreed that it looked good, but neither of us wanted to commit. Ultimately, I ended up taking it home, along with another couple of books I’m hoping to get to soon. I started Left Drowning the next day. It was...definitely a surprise. I wasn’t aware (based on the jacket description) of how intense the book would be - shouldn't there be some kind of indication/warning about sexually explicit content? I had no idea what I was getting into with this one. It feels like the sister of Jamie McGuire’s Beautiful Disaster, which has the same kind of angst and heat (which I also began without knowing that it was explicit). Now that I'm done grumbling about how I feel a little tricked by these books, we can move on to how I felt about other elements of the novel.