Down by the Water

A Stevie Diaz Mystery

De: Sam Evans

Narrado por: Tess Donelon

Stevie Diaz has a husband who won’t speak to her and no clue how to fix the mess she’s made of her life. When a jury duty summons arrives, it’s just one more thing she doesn’t want to deal with.

In the midst of trying to repair her marriage, Stevie is selected for a high-profile case where the details don’t quite add up—a case that dredges up memories of her dad’s death. Stevie can never leave well enough alone, despite knowing better, and her need to uncover the truth before condemning a woman to life in prison drives her to break every rule and shatters her understanding of the past.

Down by the Water is a neo-noir story about the lengths women go to for personal safety—and what happens when buried secrets rise to the surface.

©2025 Sam Evans (P)2025 Sam Evans

Smashing story

Down By the Water picks up right where book one, In the Woods Somewhere, left off. Stevie Diaz, is still torn between the two men in her life with her husband not speaking with her and her boyfriend picking up the pieces. While Stevie is attempting to sort out her love life she receives a summons for jury duty, and is chosen to be a juror for a high stakes case of a woman accused of murder. In true Stevie fashion (IYKYK), she begins to dig deeper into the case to look for clues on what really happened. The only problem is that Stevie may just have unearthed more than she bargained for. Will this new information help break the case wide open or will it shatter her world as she knows it? Author Sam Evans, has done it again, letting us dive deeper into the fascinating and often chaotic world and mind of Stevie Diaz. Even though Stevie tends to hover in what some may call the morally gray, she is unapologetically true to herself and exudes an heir of confidence and resilience through it all, and it’s really impossible to not like her. Along with this fierce FMC, it’s especially hard not to love the two beaus orbiting around her with their love and affections. No matter what dilemma Stevie finds herself in, Troy and Brad both stand by her and have her back at any given moment. The two also have begun to have adjusted a bit to their romantic entanglement. While the comfort levels seem to have grown from book one to book two, they still haven’t come to a fully doable resolution. I’m not sure how this entanglement will eventually pan out but I kind of enjoy them both with Stevie so maybe they can land on a way to make it work, I guess I’ll just have to wait and see. Outside of the romance portion of the story, the murder mystery side of the book had me thrown for loop after loop. Without giving too much away, there were hard topics discussed and uncovered that Stevie had to work through and come to terms with. This is where her resilience really shined and it made me appreciate her so much more. In a way it showed that she is a girl’s girl. In more than one instance, we see her rallying on the side of women, especially those in difficult situations and as far as justice is concerned. Down By the Water also shows that justice isn’t linear, and that our justice system in the U.S. still has some growing to do. This series is perfect for anyone with an open mind to the experience of people living life on their own terms and for those who love a good neo-noir read, will always recommend! 5⭐️

Narration:
I loved this story so much but the narration was a bit off for me personally. While the narrator has a pleasant voice, I found that I had difficulty connecting the voice with the characters. The best way I can explain this is similar to when you meet someone that you have talked with for the a long time (like an online friend), and you have trouble connecting the face to the voice. It’s like you know them but they seem like a stranger in person. In addition, I am an audiobook listener who really enjoys the theatrical side of what narration can be , so for me this felt a bit flat as it seemed like the story was just being read to me rather than having the story acted out vocally. Overall, it was fun listening to Sam Evans book being narrated, I just think for my personal preferences in audiobooks, listening to it was ok. 3⭐️