#SuspenseMonday -- you never know...
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
Wellβthe 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 childβall 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 grandsonβs 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 Chanterβs 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.
Start Reading THE WELL Now
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