It Comes from the River

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What to expect

Bloomsbury presents It Comes From the River by Rachel Bower, read by Kristin Atherton.

Infused with the folklore of Northern England, It Comes from the River is an unforgettable, uncanny debut about violence, resilience and hope - and the power of women when they work together.

The three women flinch: feel something pass outside. A reek of singed fur, scorching damp. Flaming eyes. A creature. It knows these women. They feel its wanting.

From the river it comes.

To the river it always returns.

Alex is trying to hold her growing family together with a husband who is becoming more and more difficult to keep happy. Lauren hopes that the new man in her life might present a fresh start for her and her two boys. And Nancy’s son has moved her into a care home where she feels entirely out of place, longing for her lost dog while dreaming of her own escape.

But there is something else at play here. Something lurking in the water or at the end of an unlit street; a shadow in a bag of strangers’ clothing; a chorus of voices calling in the distance.

As each woman’s world spirals from her grasp, they feel it getting closer, revealing the truth of what binds them together, and what must be done to set each of them free . . .

Critics Review

A hellish dog with fiery eyes stalks this novel: the Gytrash, subject of a northern English ghost story that is here powerfully repurposed ... Infused with the uncanny and Bower’s poetic sensibilities, the claustrophobic desperation of this unflinching debut builds relentlessly to a heart-stoppingly dramatic climax, revealing fellowship forged in the face of direst adversity
Daily Mail
A gritty and captivating tale of resilience, violence and the power of female solidarity, Bower's debut novel is a startling account of three women living in northern England bound together by the eerie folklore of the region
Harper’s Bazaar, 20 absorbing fiction books to pick up in 2025
Haunting, lyrical and thoroughly gripping. At once heartbreaking and hopeful, poetic and skilfully plotted, this novel shines a compassionate and achingly honest light on three women's struggles with motherhood, poverty, and coercive control. These characters and their lives will stay with me for a long time
Clare Fisher, author of ALL THE GOOD THINGS
A rich, wild, completely absorbing novel that draws us into the troubled worlds of three very different women. An exploration of motherhood, abuse, poverty and age which had me hooked from the start, rooting for these women to find a way through their current situations to something better. Bower’s evocation of place, and the shifting darkness that seeps through the everyday, is extraordinary. Devastating and hopeful, she weaves light and dark into pure magic. I can’t recommend it enough
Sarah Butler, author of TEN THINGS I'VE LEARNT ABOUT LOVE
Bower fuses the burnished beauty of poetry, the rawness of realism and the sublime soul-wracking thrill of Gothic horror and offers us this novel which is as close to flawless as a novel can get. She distils the horror from the everyday domestic and offers it back to us in this immaculate trinity of women’s lives in a prose that burns with terror, rage and, somehow through all the devastation, immense love. The empathy and humanity with which Bower captures the very best and worst of humanity is truly astounding. This is a debut that heralds a masterful new literary great
Karina Lickorish Quinn, author of THE HOUSE OF SKIN
The language of Rachel Bower’s debut novel surges from the river – carrying a powerful story that will leave you changed
Kimberly Campanello, author of MOTHERBABYHOME

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