It Comes from the River

Infused with the folklore of Northern England, It Comes from the River is an unforgettable, uncanny debut about violence, resilience and hope - and the power of women when they work together.The three women flinch: feel something pass outside. A reek of singed fur, scorching damp. Flaming eyes. A creature. It knows these women. They feel its wanting.From the river it comes.To the river it always returns.Alex is trying to hold her growing family together with a husband who is becoming more and more difficult to keep happy. Lauren hopes that the new man in her life might present a fresh start for her and her two boys. And Nancy’s son has moved her into a care home where she feels entirely out of place, longing for her lost dog while dreaming of her own escape. But there is something else at play here. Something lurking in the water or at the end of an unlit street; a shadow in a bag of strangers’ clothing; a chorus of voices calling in the distance. As each woman’s world spirals from her grasp, they feel it getting closer, revealing the truth of what binds them together, and what must be done to set each of them free . . .

Haunting, lyrical and thoroughly gripping. At once heartbreaking and hopeful, poetic and skilfully plotted, this novel shines a compassionate and achingly honest light on three women's struggles with motherhood, poverty, and coercive control. These characters and their lives will stay with me for a long time, A rich, wild, completely absorbing novel that draws us into the troubled worlds of three very different women. An exploration of motherhood, abuse, poverty and age which had me hooked from the start, rooting for these women to find a way through their current situations to something better. Bower’s evocation of place, and the shifting darkness that seeps through the everyday, is extraordinary. Devastating and hopeful, she weaves light and dark into pure magic. I can’t recommend it enough, Bower fuses the burnished beauty of poetry, the rawness of realism and the sublime soul-wracking thrill of Gothic horror and offers us this novel which is as close to flawless as a novel can get. She distils the horror from the everyday domestic and offers it back to us in this immaculate trinity of women’s lives in a prose that burns with terror, rage and, somehow through all the devastation, immense love. The empathy and humanity with which Bower captures the very best and worst of humanity is truly astounding. This is a debut that heralds a masterful new literary great, The language of Rachel Bower’s debut novel surges from the river – carrying a powerful story that will leave you changed

Rachel Bower is an award-winning poet and short story writer from Bradford. She is the author of two poetry collections and a non-fiction book on literary letters. Her poems and stories have been widely published in literary magazines, including The London Magazine, The White Review, Magma and Stand. Bower won The London Magazine Short Story Prize 2019/20 and the W&A Short Story Competition 2020. She has also been listed for the White Review Short Story Prize 2019, the RSL V.S. Pritchett Short Story Prize and the BBC Short Story Prize.