After Me Comes the Flood

The debut novel by the bestselling author of THE ESSEX SERPENTOne hot summer's day, John Cole decides to leave his life behind. He shuts up the bookshop no one ever comes to and drives out of London. When his car breaks down and he becomes lost on an isolated road, he goes looking for help, and stumbles into the grounds of a grand but dilapidated house. Its residents welcome him with open arms - but there's more to this strange community than meets the eye. They all know him by name, they've prepared a room for him, and claim to have been waiting for him all along. Who are these people? And what do they intend for John?Elegant, gently sinister and psychologically complex, After Me Comes the Flood is the haunting debut novel by the author of The Essex Serpent.

'A beautiful, dream-like narrative. Rarely do debut novels come as assured and impressive as this one., Just occasionally you pick up a novel that is inexplicably gripping from the first page - and Perry's debut is one of them, What makes this novel truly remarkable is its unique vision, its skilful and sophisticated characterisations, and the creation, without unseemly effects, of an atmosphere that will haunt the reader long after the final page, An original and haunting book ... a mix of elegant, alluring, but subtly sinister characters ... a talented writer, A dark, marvellous novel ... Perry evokes the oppressive atmosphere in precise, elegant prose ... This mesmeric quality recalls Sebald's writing, but Gothic-smudged ... It is not good for a first novel, just very good full stop. So pour yourself a cool drink and bask in a dazzling new writing talent.

Sarah Perry was born in Essex in 1979. She has been the writer in residence at Gladstone's Library and the UNESCO World City of Literature Writer in Residence in Prague. After Me Comes the Flood, her first novel, was longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and the Folio Prize, and won the East Anglian Book of the Year Award in 2014. Her latest novel, The Essex Serpent, was a number one bestseller, Waterstones Book of the Year 2016 and both Fiction book of the Year and Overall Book of the Year 2017 at the British Book Awards. It was then nominated for a further eight literary prizes, including the Costa Novel Award 2017, and the Bailey's Women's Prize for Fiction 2017. Her work is being translated into fifteen languages.