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The Water Cure
- Author
- Sophie Mackintosh
- Publisher
- Penguin Books Ltd
- Publish Date
- 24 May 2018
- Run Time
- 7 hours 10 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
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What to expect
*COMING SOON: the second novel from Booker-longlisted Sophie Mackintosh*
*Blue Ticket, a chilling new novel about freedom, fate and motherhood - out 7 May 2020*
The Water Cure
British Vogue 'Star of the Future' for 2020
Independent Best Books of the Decade
Penguin presents the audiobook edition of The Water Cure by Sophie Mackintosh, read by Hannah Murray, Gemma Whelan and Morfydd Clark.
Once upon a time, damaged women came here to be cured. We took them in, fed them glasses of our clean, good water, let them scream at the waves till their lips split like ripe fruit. Now no one is left but my sisters and me. King died a year ago, quite suddenly. Mother has vanished, no one knows where. And the safe compound they built around us, far away from the toxic world, has finally been breached.
Three men arrived last week, washed up by the sea, their gazes hungry and insistent. We remember now what our father taught us. 'If the men come to you, show yourself some mercy. Don't stick around and wait for them to put you out of your misery.'
'Immensely assured, calmly devastating. This is a gem of a novel and I was bowled over by it' -Katherine Angel, author of Unmastered
'I loved this book. It rushes you through to the end on a tide of tension and closely held panic. Eerie, electric, beautiful' - Daisy Johnson, author of Fen
'Creepy and delightful - it has a pinch of Shirley Jackson, a dash of chlorine, and an essence all of its own' - Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, author of Harmless Like You
'Devastating. A work of cool, claustrophobic beauty' Eli Goldstone, author of Strange Heart Beating
Critics Review
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Compulsive, eerily gorgeous, [it] will have you gripped until the end... A film adaptation feels inevitable... As far as debuts go, this is superb
Irish News
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A feminist dystopian fairy tale, a sexual coming-of-age story and a survival-of-the-fittest tale. Evocative, suspenseful and bleak - in short, everything this age seems to be demanding
NPR
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[An] eerie, uncanny literary debut... Beautifully written, pared down and hypnotic
Sunday Times Culture
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Bewitching... [An] ambiguous utopia
Guardian
See more reviews See fewer reviews
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In raw, visceral prose, Mackintosh probes at ideas of the threat of male violence, the ways women are told to protect ourselves, love and sisterhood and survival. A hypnotic, stormy book, with one of my favourite endings I've read in a long while
The Pool
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Stunning... A haunting story of abuse, death, and desire... Chilling and topical, a breathtaking debut
Dazed
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Eerily beautiful, this strange, unsettling novel creeps up and grabs hold of you
Paula Hawkins, author of 'The Girl on the Train'
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Darkly gratifying, dreamy, primal, and arresting [as] a fairy tale... The overgrown grounds, with their perimeter of rusty barbed wire and shark-infested waters, resemble Sleeping Beauty's castle
New Yorker
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Searing, richly drawn, eerily compelling... As foreboding in what it holds back as in what it reveals
Stylist
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Elemental... [A] utopia portrayed in spectral, organic prose... Mackintosh is a wonderful stylist; the full scope of her imagination, as well as the cohesion of her vision, is evident on every page... A seriously impressive feat
Irish Times
User Reviews
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Details
- Author
- Sophie Mackintosh
- Narrator
- Hannah Murray, Gemma Whelan, Morfydd Clark
- Duration
- 7 hours 10 minutes
- Release Date
- 24 May 2018
- ISBN
- 9780241983867
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Penguin Books Ltd
- Genre
- Modern and contemporary fiction: literary and general, Dystopian and utopian fiction, Narrative theme: coming of age, Science fiction: apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic, Narrative theme: social issues / social problems
Synopsis
*COMING SOON: the second novel from Booker-longlisted Sophie Mackintosh**Blue Ticket, a chilling new novel about freedom, fate and motherhood - out 7 May 2020* The Water CureBritish Vogue 'Star of the Future' for 2020Independent Best Books of the Decade Penguin presents the audiobook edition of The Water Cure by Sophie Mackintosh, read by Hannah Murray, Gemma Whelan and Morfydd Clark. Once upon a time, damaged women came here to be cured. We took them in, fed them glasses of our clean, good water, let them scream at the waves till their lips split like ripe fruit. Now no one is left but my sisters and me. King died a year ago, quite suddenly. Mother has vanished, no one knows where. And the safe compound they built around us, far away from the toxic world, has finally been breached.Three men arrived last week, washed up by the sea, their gazes hungry and insistent. We remember now what our father taught us. 'If the men come to you, show yourself some mercy. Don't stick around and wait for them to put you out of your misery.''Immensely assured, calmly devastating. This is a gem of a novel and I was bowled over by it' -Katherine Angel, author of Unmastered'I loved this book. It rushes you through to the end on a tide of tension and closely held panic. Eerie, electric, beautiful' - Daisy Johnson, author of Fen'Creepy and delightful - it has a pinch of Shirley Jackson, a dash of chlorine, and an essence all of its own' - Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, author of Harmless Like You'Devastating. A work of cool, claustrophobic beauty' Eli Goldstone, author of Strange Heart Beating
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