The backwaters of Georgia hold many buried secrets. But they won’t stay buried forever.

One hot, sticky summer in Bledsoe, Georgia, twelve-year-old Kay Whitaker stumbles across a stilt house in a neighboring marsh and upon Andy Webber, a boy about her age. He and his father have recently moved back to Georgia from California, and rumors of the suspicious drowning death of Andy’s mother years earlier have chased them there and back.

Kay is fascinated and enamored with Andy, and she doesn’t listen when her father tells her to stay away from the Webbers. But when Kay’s sister goes missing, the mystery of Mrs. Webber’s death—and Kay’s parents’ potential role in it—comes to light. Kay and her brothers must navigate the layers of secrets that emerge in the course of the investigation as their family, and the world as they knew it, unravels around them.

At once wickedly funny and heartbreaking, it is an immersive coming-of-age story narrated by a feisty, smart, yet undeniably vulnerable girl reminiscent of a modern-day Scout Finch—a character who will live in readers’ hearts for a long time to come.

Review:

Poignant, atmospheric, and immersive!

The Floating Girls is a humorous, touching tale that takes you to small-town Georgia and into the life of twelve-year-old Kay Whitaker, a young girl yearning for adventure who, after stumbling across a handsome boy in the marshes behind her house and being strongly warned by her father to stay away, inadvertently triggers a series of events, including the disappearance of her strange, older sister, that will unearth long-buried secrets and ultimately change their lives forever.

The prose is vivid and rich. The characters are naive, assertive, and strong. And the plot is a heart-tugging, raw, coming-of-age tale of life, love, loss, family, friendship, poverty, desperation, tragedy, secrets, and survival.

Overall, The Floating Girls is an insightful, gritty, compelling tale by Patrick that reminds you that life is sometimes a hard, complicated struggle, secrets always seem to have a way of coming to light, and often the choices people make have far-reaching consequences.

This book is available now.

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