Product Description
Laurel Gray Hawthorne needs to make things pretty, whether she's helping her mother make sure the literal family skeleton stays in the closet or turning scraps of fabric into nationally acclaimed art quilts. Her estranged sister Thalia, an impoverished Actress with a capital A, is her polar opposite, priding herself on exposing the lurid truth lurking behind middle class niceties. While Laurel's life seems neatly on track--a passionate marriage, a treasured daughter, and a lovely home in suburban Victorianna--everything she holds dear is suddenly thrown into question the night she is visited by the ghost of a her 13-year old neighbor Molly Dufresne. The ghost leads Laurel to the real Molly floating lifelessly in the Hawthorne's backyard pool. Molly's death is inexplicable--an unseemly mystery Laurel knows no one in her whitewashed neighborhood is up to solving. Only her wayward, unpredictable sister is right for the task, but calling in a favor from Thalia is like walking straight into a frying pan protected only by Crisco. Enlisting Thalia's help, Laurel sets out on a life-altering journey that triggers startling revelations about her family's guarded past, the true state of her marriage, and the girl who stopped swimming.

Richer and more rewarding than any story Joshilyn Jackson has yet written, yet still packed with Jackson's trademarked outrageous characters, sparkling dialogue, and defiantly twisting plotting, THE GIRL WHO STOPPED SWIMMING is destined both to delight Jackson's loyal fans and capture a whole new audience.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 33 reviews)

A moving, absorbing thriller hard to put down

Laurel hasn't seen a ghost in the thirteen years she and her husband lived in the gated neighborhood of Victorianna. She's kept herself immersed in family and quilting - but when she awakens one day to find a dead girl standing by her bed - the ghost of her daughter's best friend Molly - and it leads her to her murdered body, gossip and a hidden past break into her carefully sheltered world. THE GIRL WHO STOPPED SWIMMING is a moving, absorbing thriller hard to put down, and recommended for any library strong in memorable novels.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch
September 12, 2008

Highly entertaining page turner

Wow! What character development in just over 300 pages. Part ghost story, and part murder mystery, with lots of family conflict and inter-relationships, all spun together in a plot as complex as the quilts described throughout. The author knows how make you care about her characters, and it is best not to judge any of them based on first impressions since things are generally not quite what they seem.

This is the third book I've read by this author, and they have all been superb.
August 23, 2008

Great reading! Jackson is an excellent writer!

This review is short on words - but don't take that as a reflection on the book. Wonderful story and Jackson is a gifted storyteller.
August 17, 2008

Review

It seems like Laurel Gray Hawthorne has the perfect live. A great husband, David and their daughter, Shelby. Laurel lives in Florida in a gated community called Victorianna. It has been thirteen years ago since Laurel last saw a ghost. So when late one night, Laurel wakes up to see one of Shelby's friends, Molly standing by her bedside, Laurel is stunned. Molly wants Laurel to find out the truth about her death. Laurel's life will change after tonight, especially when Molly is found floating in Laurel's backyard pool. Laurel and her sister, Thalia used to be close but now a days they are barely speaking to one another. Laurel now needs Thalia's help once again. Thalia agrees to lend a hand to Laurel. Will solving the death of Molly make Laurel and Thalia grow closer again. Also, what is up with Stan Webelow and what secrets are Laurel trying to keep hidden from her family?

I thought that The Girl Who Stopped Swimming was a well-written and fantastic novel. The characters had wonderful depth about them. They were relatable in some way or another. It helps when you can relate to the characters in a story as it makes you feel more for them and it draws the story closer to you. This book flowed so effortlessly that I finished it in one sitting. The only thing is that I found myself saying at the end "Is that it?". The Girl Who Stopped Swimming is my first book by Ms. Jackson but I can tell you now that I will be checking out her other novel Gods in Alabama.
August 16, 2008

Disappointing

This book starts out with a murder, and I was expecting it to follow that course. The story goes on in so many different directions, with many sub plots that do not end up making a bit of difference to the main story. While I was reading, I felt like she was just making it up as she went along: poverty, mean sister, adultery, not really adultery after all, neighborhood gigalo, pedaphial, women suddenly getting drunk in the middle of the day etc. She was really all over the place, and in the end, she just tells the reader in great detail how the murder took place. The answer just comes, it's not really solved by any of the main characters, it's just kind of imagined by the main person in the book. It was so far fetched, and somewhat corny. I did not like it at all.
August 01, 2008

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