Into the Water.

There's something a little sinister about the picturesque English village of Beckford set on a river. At it's center is the Drowning Pool, a deep turn in the river, where centuries ago young women who were suspected of witchcraft were drowned. Over the years quite a few troublesome women have met their end in the same water...

Then, over the course of a recent summer, the pool takes the life of a teenage girl, and a single Mother who is obsessed with the pool and it's history. Did the two women commit suicide or is there a more sinister explanation of their untimely deaths?

Into the Water is the much awaited follow up to Paula Hawkin's wildly successful The Girl on the Train. It is a very different type of story but I found it to be just as dark and captivating. 

Told in a series of short, almost bite sized, chapters by the inhabitants of Beckford the story leaps backwards and forwards in time. It is a complex tale with many layers and narratives that fuse together drawing a dark picture of life in a village touched by sinister mysteries, secrets and witchcraft.There's also a truly unpredictable ending, revealed as the intertwining threads of the characters stories mesh together, that is very satisfying.

Into the Water was expertly plotted and written and I was engrossed in the tale until the very end. I found it to be a very satisfying book that stood up to the hype surrounding it. Do you know, I think I even preferred it to The Girl on the Train?

Recommended.