The River

The Orange Prize long listed debut novel by the author of The German Boy

In 1958, in a small Devon village, on an idyllic summer afternoon, two children are drowned. Their parents, Isabel and Robert, are overcome with grief but, as time passes, their tragedy becomes part of the everyday fabric of village life.

One summers day, thirty years later, Anna arrives. She comes to the village on a whim, hoping to start afresh - and, without telling anyone she is pregnant, goes to live with Isabel. For a time the women find solace in each others company, but the babys arrival causes powerful feelings of loss and heartbreak to surface, and Anna must question whether Isabels feelings towards her child are entirely benign. . .

Wastvedt, like Alice Sebold in The Lovely Bones, casts a wide net that goes beyond the immediate family. Captivating and evocativeToronto Globe and Mail

Accomplished, dramatic, with a finale that Du Maurier herself would have been proud ofDaily Mail

Moving, impressive, strongly atmospheric. A remarkable achievement Penelope Lively

Born in 1954, Patricia Wastvedt grew up in Blackheath, south London, and spent her summers in Kent. She has a degree in Creative Arts and an MA in Creative Writing, and her first novel, The River, written in her late forties, was long-listed for the Orange Prize. Her second novel, The German Boy, is available in Penguin. She teaches at Bath Spa University, and is also a manuscript editor. She lives and writes in a cottage in Somerset.