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by Catherine Chanter
From the winner of the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize, a brilliantly haunting and suspenseful debut set in modern-day Britain where water is running out everywhere except at The Well - the farm of one seemingly ordinary family whose mysterious good fortune leads to suspicion, chaos, and ultimately a shocking act of violence.
Ruth Ardingly has just been released from prison to serve out a sentence of house arrest for arson and suspected murder at her farm, The Well. Beyond its borders, some people whisper she is a witch; others a messiah. For as soon as Ruth returns to The Well, rain begins to fall on the farm. And it has not rained anywhere else in the country in over three years.
Ruth and her husband Mark had moved years before from London to this ancient idyll in the hopes of starting their lives over. But then the drought began, and as the surrounding land dried up and died, and The Well grew lush and full of life, they came to see their fortune would come at a price. From the envy of their neighbors to the mandates of the government, from the fanaticism of a religious order called the Sisters of the Rose to the everyday difficulties of staying close as husband and wife, mother and child - all these forces led to a horrifying crime: the death of their seven-year-old grandson, drowned with cruel irony in one of the few ponds left in the countryside.
Now back at The Well, Ruth must piece together the tragedy that shattered her marriage, her family, and her dream. For she believes her grandson's death was no accident, and that the murderer is among the people she trusted most. Alone except for her guards on a tiny green jewel in a world rapidly turning to dust, Ruth begins to confront her worst fears and learns what really happened in the dark heart of The Well.
A tour de force about ordinary people caught in the tide of an extraordinary situation, Catherine Chanter's The Well is a haunting, beautifully written, and utterly believable novel that probes the fragility of our personal relationships and the mystical connection between people and the places they call home.
"Starred Review. A sure bet for fans of Margaret Atwood's edgy dystopian fiction, Chanter's cautionary tale of environmental mayhem and religious fervor is a provocative, tantalizing triumph." - Booklist
"Starred Review. Combining gripping mystery, nuanced psychological drama, and striking prose, this debut is a mesmerizing read." - Publishers Weekly
"Starred Review. This powerful novel is more emotional than political, but as a story foreshadowing a very possible future, it will strike a chord with readers of fiction and nonfiction alike." - Library Journal
"Chanter's poetry background is evident, as the beauty of her prose often outshines the strength of the plot, but the story is compelling if not wholly gripping." - Kirkus
"Battered, weathered, at the end of the novel [love] comes cresting over the hill, a herald of relief. Bravo...I loved this book!" - Jessie Burton, author of The Miniaturist
"The Well was so astoundingly assured that I wondered if AS Byatt had adopted a pseudonym... [Catherine Chanter is] a brilliant writer." - Allison Pearson, bestselling author of I Don't Know How She Does It, presenting the Lucy Cavendish Award
"The Well is... a powerful novel for our anxious times, and an exciting debut." - Edan Lepucki, New York Times bestselling author of California
"Catherine Chanter has done something remarkable here, she's written a profound meditation on belief and humanity and manages to tell a terrific story in the process." - Ivy Pochoda, author of Visitation
This information about The Well was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Catherine Chanter is a teacher, poet, and short story writer. She is the winner of the Yeovil Poetry Prize and the Lucy Cavendish Prize awarded by Cambridge University. She grew up in the West Country before attending Oxford. The Well is her first novel.
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