A man with a certain…magnetism.Īnd there are stories where it’s hard to be sure who’s a prince and who’s a monster, who is a victim and who should live happily ever after. Mitch Anderson is many things: A dedicated teacher and coach. (This is not one of those stories either.) There are stories where the monster gets the girl, and we all shed tears for his innocent victim. And then, of course, there was the time she almost died in a fire. She used to count on her older brother-until he shipped off to Afghanistan. Her father is a controlling psycho and her mother is a drunk. Jenna Lord’s first sixteen years were not exactly a fairytale. There are stories where the girl gets her prince, and they live happily ever after. And I wasn’t really surprised to find that the subject matter made me even more uncomfortable. When Kelly sent this cover art my way, I needed to know what Bick’s novel was about. (Cover love, remember?) Drowning Instinct’s face does come off a bit like a poster for a David Fincher thriller, but it doesn’t make it any less intriguing. Bick’s Drowning Instinct, I was immediately uncomfortable.īut immediate discomfort doesn’t automatically label this as a bad cover. It’s that feeling that hits you before you start to ask questions about meaning and motive. Whether it’s an overwhelming feeling of sadness, joy, or anxiety, it’s still overwhelming. I’m just standing there, slack-jawed, leaning ever-so-slightly in to the point where I stumble just a little. There are times when I’ve been to a gallery or art museum and I’ll stare at a piece of artwork that clears my head of all assumption.

Drowning instinct