This is John Boyne at his best! Water is a short novel about a woman who changes her name to Willow Hale and moves to an island off of the coast of Ireland. She is hiding away from her previous life while she comes to terms with the acts of her husband.

I loved every part of this story - the narrative doesn't dwell too long on the dreadful stuff. Instead there are reflections on the traditional life of a married woman in Ireland, being brought up in the catholic church and attending but not really believing and then the island, the isolation, the community and the life lived simply. The novel tackles a serious subject but there is humour too. The introduction of Mrs Duggan (looking for the cat) made me laugh out loud. I also loved the subtle link to another of the author's books, A History of Loneliness, with a couple of mentions of Fr Odran Yates. It was just an acknowledgement of parts of both books being set in the same time and place I think.

I believe Water is the first of a set of four books based on the elements. I don't know where I read this as I can't find it anywhere now! I hope it is true. This will become a very collectable set I think. I'm certainly looking forward to the next one.

Many thanks to NetGalley for an early copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I hadn't read anything from John Boyne before this, but I will be having a look at his other works.

This is a short book that I read in a day. It kept me interested and I really enjoyed it. The writing style is perfect and the pace was just right for me.

I would recommend this.

I can’t fault John Boyne’s writing - his empathy and his seemingly effortless ability to convey emotion in just a few words. A sad, sad story of loss and feelings of guilt that drive the central character to the very edge of sanity. Emma’s fate is heartbreaking and her and her family’s individual stories will stay with me.

Throughout my reading of this I glimpsed similarities with the John Boyne novel I read most recently ‘All the Broken Places’ which he described himself as dealing with ‘guilt, complicity and grief …… and whether […] a person can ever cleanse themselves of the crimes committed by the people she loved’.

This is a short novel and says it all. I can’t see how it would have benefited from being longer. If there had been more characters perhaps, or more about the characters we do have, I think the core messages would have been diluted and that would have lessened their impact.

This could have been an unremittingly bleak book but the author doesn’t allow this and it ends on a hopeful note for all the characters we come to care about. Some achievement. Highly recommended.

With thanks to Doubleday via NetGalley for the opportunity to read an ARC.

’m a big fan of John Boyne and his previous novels, a Traveler at the Gates of wisdom and the hearts invisible Furies have both been five star reads for me. I was therefore delighted to see this book on NetGalley UK, and it jumped straight to the top of my to be read pile.
This novel deals with the fallout within a family of allegations that were made about the father who is alleged to have abused minors in his care as part of a national swimming team. The novel focuses on the effects of these allegations on the wife of the family as she comes to terms with them, and whether or not she had any part in not preventing them. We also learn that she has lost one of her two daughters to suicide and as the story progresses, we learn more about the reasons for this.

This is a perfectly crafted novella written by an experienced novelist. The topics are covered are very timely and the author covers them with supreme skill and subtlety . The book ultimately has an optimistic feel to it
John Boyne has a wonderfully poetic, beautiful way of writing, and this book was a joy to read. His characters are all well developed and feel like real people. The setting in an isolated island off the coast of Ireland is highly Visual, and the island itself could almost be described as being an additional character in the in the book.
It was very poignant that Sinéad O’Connor was mentioned twice in the novel once my name and another time by description. This is particularly sad as she had died in the week that I read the book.
I would strongly recommend this book for lovers of John Boyd’s work, but if you’ve never read any of his other novels, if you enjoy a character in motion lead literary novel, then you will enjoy this

Water is published in the UK on the 2nd of November 2023 by Random House, UK, Transworld publishers Doubleday
This review will appear on Goodreads NetGalley, UK, and on my book blog, bionicsarahsbooks.wordpress.com, and after publication on Amazon, UK

You’ll read this in one sitting. I didn’t realise it was so short as I read on kindle.
I love John Boynes writing so I was not surprised that I enjoyed it so much.
The story arc is not one I’ve read before. The protagonist is the wife of a man recently found guilty of child abuse. She goes off to an island on the West Coast of Ireland for a year.
I ‘enjoyed’ the insights we are given to her thoughts. These are powerful.
The novel doesn’t really give us a lot of other characters, or many details on the island and I think I would’ve liked this. Or perhaps eliminating all this noise heightens the experience of the words that we do have to read.
Ad Gifted by Random House UK, Transworld Publishers via @netgalley Published on 2nd November 2023

Water

I really enjoy John Boyne’s novels. In this one he quickly hooks you in from the start as the protagonist has changed her name and her location. Why?

The story unfolds easily and fluidly. ‘Willow’ lives alone in a cottage which could cut her off from people yet she does ensure she engages with the villagers. As long as she has the anonymity of her assumed name.

Willow is trying to leave a past behind her. A past in which she has made decisions which affected others. She now has plenty of time to think over and over about what has happened.

This may sound like a bleak book but it isn’t. I was really enjoying reading it on my Kindle when I noticed I was at 85% finished. I was disappointed that this well written novel is less than 200 pages long. I could have read more but Boyne brings it all to a satisfying ending. Cannot say more without a spoiler.

I recommend this book highly. I read a copy provided by NetGalley and the publishers but my views are my own.

There's a Scottish saying “guid gear comes in sma' bulk” which means good things come in small packages. It seems very appropriate here.

Water is a short book at 176 pages but it's wonderful. I love John Boyne's writing. The words flow from the page and there are no unnecessary sentences. Any dialogue seems natural and believable.

Vanessa Carvin is a woman trying to escape her past life in Dublin and has rented a sparsely furnished cottage, with no wifi or television, on an island off the Galway coast. As soon as she arrives on the island she changes her name and shaves her hair to a blunt crop.

You know she's led a fairly privileged life but that something awful has happened that attracted a lot of press attention. You also learn that she's no longer with her husband, her older daughter is dead and her younger daughter doesn't really talk to her.

There are encounters with locals, some good, some less good but she settles to life on the island

You gradually learn what has happened. Living alone on the island gives her time to think and consider if her actions and non-actions made her complicit in what we now know was a crime.

She realises she can't escape the past forever when a guest speaker at a public meeting turns out to be someone who knew her husband and recognises her.

The story starts with her arrival on the island and ends with her leaving the island a year later ready to start the next chapter of her life as an independent woman in Ireland.

It didn't take me long to read the 176 pages. I got completely engrossed and I think it is a book I would enjoy reading again. Such wonderful prose. I know it's one of a quartet of books and I am very much looking forward to reading the others.

Started reading this the moment that I was accepted to read and review on Netgalley.

I adore John Boyne’s work and was so excited about this new release. Water told a page turning story and full of intrigue about the inhabitants of the remote island in Ireland. Discovering the lives of what took them there including Willows story as she lands on the island, changing her name and style, and escaping from her past.

Only criticism (which it isn’t!) is that I need more! I’ll eagerly await more from John Boyne and my pre-order copy arriving in November to read again.

I really enjoyed this book! I look forward to reading other books by this author. There were so many twists in this book I didn’t see coming. But then again I rarely can figure books out. I would definitely recommend this book!

Water is a beautiful short novel centred on a woman moving to a small island looking for anonymity and for an understanding of how her life has fallen apart. Boyne conveys so much understanding of people, their motivations, their relationships in so few pages. I wish all authors had his gift of bringing characters, even the minor ones, to life so concisely. He has a remarkable gift for dealing sensitively with difficult themes such as child abuse and suicide..

Boyne is a master of clarity in his plot development and whilst we don't know what turns Vanessa's life will take in future it's clear that her time on the island and the conversation she finally has with her daughter will take her in a new and more positive direction.

I look forward with impatience to Earth, Air and Fire.

This one has just made me more eager for the three other books, that are apparently all interconnected.
It's a sort of quiet story, of a woman hiding out on an island.
It reveals her story, and as it does so we learn about the neighbours, and as slways things are not always what they seem.
Despite being so short, it packs a punch, I welled up at one point, but I also smiled several times.
Glad to have a new Boyne book.

This is a short novel but it gripped me from the first page and from there I just couldn't put it down. The story begins with the arrival of a woman on a small Irish island and gradually unfolds until we learn her full story. I don't want to go into detail as the way the story progresses is so beautifully done I don't want to spoil it but readers should be aware that there are upsetting themes, as is often the case with John Boyne (as always, though, these are handled with sensitivity). I love this author's work, and each book impresses me more. His characters in this one, as in his others, come to the page fully formed - you really feel they have had a life before the book and will continue after, this is just the first time you've met them. Each of them has strengths and faults, they feel like real people living normal, complicated lives. Even when nothing much seems to be happening in the story, everything is adding to what we know of them and past history is never starkly laid out by the author but develops as the character remembers it so it always feels natural and believable. John Boyne just goes from strength to strength and to me is absolutely one of the best writers alive today. I can't wait to see what comes next. Thanks to Netgalley and Doubleday for a copy in return for an honest review. #Water #NetGalley

John Boyne is one of my favourite authors and I was very excited to read his latest book.
As I started reading I was surprised that the page count was only 176.
What I didn’t realise was that this book is the first of 4 in a series that he has written about the elements - water, earth, fire and air.
Each book slowly reveals the traumas faced by the characters and how they have been affected by each particular element. This is a very clever concept - I just wish I was aware of this from the start!
So in Water, we are introduced to the central character Vanessa Carvin who is running away from her past. As the story unravels we slowly find out the terrible events that caused her to run away and the guilt she constantly feels surrounding them.
Although I enjoyed the book, I didn’t really feel I connected with the other characters or their stories as it was so short. When a book is longer, I get more absorbed with the content and the characters and they stay with me long after I’ve reached the end.
I’m interested to read the other 3 books to see if the characters overlap with each other.
With thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for this arc in exchange for an honest review.

TW: Child sexual abuse, suicide.

"He is breathless for the life he is entering into and I hope that he will not know pain or betrayal or disappointment, but of course he will, because he's alive and that's the price we pay"

There was little doubt before but this book cements John Boyne as my favourite author. I genuinely can't believe that book was only 176 pages long as I feel I have lived an entire life whilst reading that.

The book starts out with Vanessa Carvin stepping onto a new island, clearly trying to leave behind a difficult life. She changes he name, cuts her hair and we slowly come to understand what brought her onto the island. Her husband was convicted of horrific crimes and Vanessa (now Willow) still lives with the shame and guilt of what her husband was and is.

I don't want to go into too much more detail however this book just moved me in a way very few authors can. I genuinely don't know how Boyne could have achieved that within such a short book.

The conflicts within Vanessa just jump off the page or, more accurately, they sneak off the page without you knowing and get inside your mind. I am so curious to find out what other people think of her and her actions. I genuinely felt for her and her pain was just indescribable yet so real.

A truly amazing novel which will stay with me forever.

Thanks so much to Netgalley and Random House, Doubleday for an ARC in exchange for an honest review

John Boyne’s Water begins with a woman arriving on an island whose first act is to change her name. Willow – once Vanessa - carefully mingles with the islanders in the hope of defusing gossip, obsessively checking her daughter’s social media profile and sending her texts which are more often than not ignored. Naturally the islanders are intrigued, some recognising her as the wife of the disgraced director of the National Swimming Association, jailed for molesting young girls, but while Willow may have dodged the judgement of Dublin’s elite, she’s unable to escape the family tragedy ensuing from Brendan's abuse, faced with the prospect of her own complicity.

Boyne has chosen a controversial theme for the first in his planned series of four interlinked novellas. We’re not immediately aware of what it is that Willow is escaping, details of Brendan’s abhorrent behaviour slowly emerging. Over the course of her stay on the island, Willow comes to face the possibility that the choice of an easy life made her wilfully blind to Brendan’s crimes, not least under their own roof. It’s a powerful theme couched within a story unfolded with Boyne’s customary wit but despite the seriousness of its subject it felt a little slight to me; characters, particularly men, are somewhat two-dimensional, not given the space to be fleshed out. That said, I enjoyed it enough to read the second in the series when it appears, keen to see the next theme tackled.