Megan Kimsey is haunted by visions she cannot understand. She is misunderstood by most who surround her. She needs answers from the past to move on to her future. To Swim Beneath the Earth by Ginger Bensman is the story of Megan's haunting search for the past. This is a book that makes you care and shocks you with the emotion of the ending (even though I guessed what was coming!).

Read my complete review at http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2016/07/to-swim-beneath-earth.html.

Reviewed based on a publisher’s galley received through NetGalley ( )

Meghan, a young doctor, has received an unusual birthday gift from her dad: plane tickets to an archaeological conference in South America, where they are to meet an expert on Incan artifacts and history. It seems that the language Meghan has been speaking occasionally since childhood, as well as the drawings and string art she's made, are all remnants of Incan culture. She's also had occasional visions, which she's related to her father, some of events about to happen and sometimes of another time and place. Meghan's mother has spent years trying to have her "fixed" by the family priest or a psychiatrist she's hired. Her father, a much gentler soul, has instead tried to identify what's happened to Meghan, and thus the birthday present. Before the conference, Meghan's father dies, but she goes ahead with his plans for her.

The first third of the book covers the plot described above. The rest of the book describes Meghan's trip, where she meets some people who think she's really connected somehow to the ancient Inca and some who want to know what her con is. Meghan doesn't really care what they think: she just wants to get to the village who's name she's always had on the top of her tongue, because the closer she gets, the more hallucinatory her inner life is becoming.

The first third of the book takes its time, and Meghan's description of her inner life and how it has affected her outer one gives a clear underpinning to why she's taking the trip. But the really interesting and suspenseful last two-thirds is where the reader will sit up and try to stay up until she's finished. Although I found Meghan a bit naive at times, she's an interesting character with an interesting problem, and it was wonderful fun to see what she would find and what she'd do with that knowledge and with the rest of her life. ( )