The Water Cure

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by Sophie Mackintosh

In this dystopic feminist vengeance fantasy about three sisters trained to dread males on an isolated island, The Handmaid's Tale meets The Virgin Suicides.

Grace, Lia, and Sky, King's wife and three kids, have carved out a space for themselves. He's put up the barbed wire, moored the buoys in the water, and written a clear message: Don't go in. Or, to put it another way, it's not safe to leave. Women are safe here from the men's mayhem and violence on the mainland. They are protected from the toxins of a decaying world by the cult-like rituals and therapies they must undertake.

When their father, the only guy they've ever seen, vanishes, they retreat even farther until three strange men wash up on the beach. A psychological cat-and-mouse game takes place over the course of one scorching hot week. As the sisters face the nebulous threat that the strangers represent, sexual tensions and familial rivalry rise. Will they be able to withstand the men?

The Water Cure is a disturbing, fascinating first novel about the propensity for violence and the power of feminine desire that both devastates and astonishes as it reflects our own reality back at us.

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Our favourite quote from The Water Cure

Thinking yourself uniquely terrible is its own form of narcissism.

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Thinking yourself uniquely terrible is its own form of narcissism.

— Sophie Mackintosh, The Water Cure