The Water Cure

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: NPR - GLAMOUR - GOOD HOUSEKEEPING - LIT HUB - THRILLIST

"A gripping, sinister fable!" --Margaret Atwood, via Twitter

 
King has tenderly staked out a territory for his wife and three daughters, Grace, Lia, and Sky. Here on his island, women are protected from the chaos and violence of men on the mainland. The cult-like rituals and therapies they endure fortify them from the spreading toxicity of a degrading world.

But when King disappears and two men and a boy wash ashore, the sisters' safe world begins to unravel. Over the span of one blistering hot week, a psychological cat-and-mouse game plays out. Sexual tensions and sibling rivalries flare as the sisters are forced to confront the amorphous threat the strangers represent.

A haunting, riveting debut, The Water Cure is a fiercely poetic feminist revenge fantasy that's a startling reflection of our time.

Sophie Mackintosh won the 2016 White Review Short Story Prize and the 2016 Virago/Stylist Short Story competition, and has been published in Granta magazine and Tank magazine, among others. The Water Cure is her first novel.