'If you're looking for your next Handmaid's Tale-esque fix, this is it' BELFAST TELEGRAPH
Fiercely written, vivid and timely, The Seawomen is an unforgettable and highly acclaimed debut novel about the rise to power of women on a remote island, for fans of Margaret Atwood and Naomi Alderman.
They say wickedness lies in the sea.
To touch the water - to even look at it - will stir up the sin that naturally lives in the heart of each woman. The only path to salvation is obedience, marriage and motherhood. Those women on the isle of Eden who fail in their duty will be cast back into the dark water, without mercy.
But the sea calls to Esta. It always has.
When danger forces Esta beyond the shallows, she uncovers a different world. One of freedom and power. It sets her on a course to uncover a secret sunk beneath the waves and the truth that will tear Eden apart.
PRAISE FOR CHLOE TIMMS:
'A gripping tale of love and bravery' SOPHIE WARD, author or The Schoolhouse
'Unsettling and lushly written' KIRSTY LOGAN, author of Now She is Witch
'A powerful, enchanting novel' ANNA BAILEY, author of Tall Bones
'Mesmerising and moving' SUSANNAH WISE, author of The Fragile Earth
Autorentext
Chloe Timms
Klappentext
Esta has known nothing but Eden's Isle her whole life. Raised by her grandmother, after a fire claimed her parents and scarred her face as a child, Esta faces a life of piety and dread, bound to a religious society who cut themselves off from the mainland in the name of salvation. The island is governed by a fear of the outside world and the corrupting evil, lurking deep in the water known as the Seawomen. They fear the water, and the only way to remain virtuous is never to enter the sea, to follow God's word, but curious Esta longs for more.
Women on the island are controlled, married off and must conceive a child within the twelve months of their appointed motheryear. If she doesn't bear a child in that year, she is marked as cursed, and cast back into the sea as a sacrifice, in an act called the Untethering.
When Esta witnesses a woman Untethered before her eyes she sees a future to fear. Her fate awaits, a loveless marriage, her motheryear declared. But before long, Esta gets a taste of freedom and the insular world she knows begins to unravel.