But I Smile Anyway…

Another fantastic blog tour and review!

The Blurb

University wasn’t in the plan. But when a catastrophic knee injury destroys Serena’s future as an Olympic swimmer, the years of brutal training and spellbinding manifestation lead her to Leysham, a dark and gloomy university campus in the north.
Walking home at night, Serena stumbles on a young woman floundering in the viscous and freezing waters that snake through the campus. Helped by a mysterious older woman, they drag the student from the water to safety.
Attending an enthralling lecture shortly after, Serena instantly recognises the woman speaking. It is Jane – the woman who helped Serena save a life. And as Jane speaks, Serena’s eyes are opened to the history of witch trials, misogyny and murder that lives in Leysham’s waters, and continues to infect the present day, with drink spiking and sexual assaults rife on campus.
Captivated by the older woman, Serena and her cousin Zara, a rising star of social media, launch a campaign to force the university to confront the misogyny and violence which haunts Leysham. But as protests flare across the campus, a simmering rivalry takes hold between the cousins. And when cracks start to appear in Jane’s motives, everything spirals out of control…

My Review

The Drownings by Hazel Barkworth
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’ve not read Hazel Barkworth’s first book, but The Drownings is a profound story filled with feminine rage.
Serena is a university student. Having deferred entry to the fabricated prestigious Leysham University, she is just settling in after a terrible accident which scuppered her dreams of being on the Olympic Swim Team.
She started simultaneously with her younger cousin, Zara, who built herself up as an influencer, using her experiences as a larger woman to increase body positivity.
A series of events and drownings at the river beside the campus lead both Serena and Zara towards lecturer Jane, who educates them on the justice of Leysham and how women have been treated in the past, accused of being witches and suffering terrible deaths by drowning.
There is a lot to unpick through the story.
Serena struggles to come to terms with her changed identity and body shape from a lithe, focused swimmer to a young woman who hasn’t experienced all that most teenagers do, having followed such a gruelling training schedule.
Zara has her troubles and is finally in the limelight after years of being in the shadows because of her body image and bullying.
There is the awful ragging associated with these prestigious universities, as well as the darker misogynistic thinking that seems to be excusing terrible behaviour, incidents and attacks against many females on the campus.
I was fully drawn into the story, my mind being pulled from one thing to the next.
It certainly made me think…

About The Author

Hazel grew up in Stirlingshire and North Yorkshire before studying English at Oxford.
She is a graduate of both the Oxford University MSt in Creative Writing and the Curtis Brown Creative Novel-Writing course. Hazel works as a cultural consultant, delving into the cultural topics and conversations with most pertinence. This fascination
sparked the themes explored in both of her novels. Her debut novel Heatstroke was a Cosmopolitan Best Book of the Summer in 2020. The Drownings was written back in the streets of her own university days, where the ghosts of her student self were
lurking around every corner. She now lives in York with her partner.