#BlogTour ‘Down By the Water’ by Elle Connel

About the book…

They wanted to get away. But now they can’t get out.

A page-turning thriller perfect for fans of Ruth Ware‘s ‘In a Dark, Dark Wood’ and Lucy Foley‘s  ‘The Hunting Party’.

“Down By The Water takes the reader on a weekend trip from hell… I loved the classy writing and ever-growing sense of unease in this clever subversion of a classic country house mystery” Harriet Tyce

“Sinister and atmospheric” Chris Brookmyre

“Tense, mesmerising and heartbreaking, I was truly gripped” Susi Holliday

Seven friends gather at a castle in the Scottish Borders. One last girls’ weekend before Georgina’s wedding. Near the castle, through a path in the woods, is a loch. After a few drinks, they head down to the water to take photos. The loch is wild, lonely, and stunningly beautiful. They set their camera to self-timer and take some group shots. Later, looking back at the pictures, they see something impossible.

Behind them, eyes wide, a small, drenched boy emerges from the water.

But none of them saw him, and nobody knows where he went. They’re miles from the nearest town. How did he get there? Where did he go?

As the weekend unravels and terrible secrets come to light, it soon becomes clear that their perfect weekend is turning into a perfect nightmare. They’re desperate to leave – but someone won’t let them.

Huge thanks to Anne Cater of Random Things Tours for the blog tour invite and publishers Wildfire, for the gifted review copy of ‘Down By The Water’ which is out in ebook and hardcover formats from July 8th.

There is huge rate of personal growth which occurs between leaving school and going to university, a whole new world where you have the chance to re-invent yourself and shed the cocoon of childhood and parental expectations. And then, as a grown up, the friendships you make are often mistaken for genuine closeness because a part of you is clinging to a time which no longer exists, a time when you were somehow freer than you ever had a chance to be again.

This is what ‘Down By The Water’ explores, the contrast between the friends who knew each other since university, and yet, beyond Whatsapp chats, haven’t seen each other for the best part of a decade or more. Tessa,now an anaesthetist, has been charged with finding a suitable venue for the hen weekend and picks a Scottish castle, not far from where 6 of them went to uni. Alice, an unknown quantity who studied maths and computer science, is working in a job she is not allowed to explain. Mel is a vet, Georgie works in fashion, Harriet was an author and now writes a ‘mummy blog’, and Bea is a librarian. Completing the group is Rachael, a doctoral candidate who studies pumas and is married to Alice, who wedged her into this group, making her a token outsider.

The scene and tone is set right from the start, will the women fall into their assigned roles or have they moved on now that they have adult responsibilities such as partners, children, professional jobs?

Tessa is identified as the ‘mum’ of the group, the one others turn to when they are in trouble and this is shown from the beginning where she refuses to join the others in acquiring, or taking ketamine on the train journey to the hen weekend. It is her and Bea’s voices which come through as the protagonists , in contrast to the bitterness, bickering and underlying tension which mars almost every conversation.

Georgie is marrying her long term boyfriend, Jack, and all the women have come laden with premium quality food stuffs, wine, champagne and more ketamine. The castle they are staying in is absolutely cut off, no wi-fi, no internet, no calling for help. Immediately you are concerned about how many of them will be coming back on the return train….

When estate keeper Tom comes and tells them the weekend needs to stretch until Monday due to a fallen tree that cannot be moved until then, the women are on tenterhooks. The isolated setting, the unexplainable boy who has appeared in a picture at the loch’s edge, and bizarrely missing food acts as a fuse to the steadily increasing levels of bitterness. Add in narcotics, too much alcohol and hidden passages and suddenly it seems as if the castle was chosen for them, with a specific aim in mind.

But whose?

And what are they aiming for?

An apology or revenge in the form of murder?

This is such a deeply affecting novel, which looks at the internal and external pressures which women put on each other in the context of friendships. It is very realistic, the awkwardness of them all meeting up, and not only being aware of how much they have grown, but also why they have not been as close as maybe you would expect them to be.

It is also desperately sad for reasons which I cannot go into(spoilers, sweetie!), and explores the nature of identity, conformity and growing up but not necessarily growing older. This is a weekend of hedonism and relaxation in preparation for a wonderful occasion, however, there is a darkness under the surface which firstly threatens, and secondly springs up in the women’s faces like a time bomb waiting for the perfect moment to ignite.

I would absolutely recommend it, I devoured the entire novel over the course of an afternoon, through into the early hours of the next morning and found it deeply affecting.

About the author…

Elle Connel is the pseudonym of Lucy Ribchester, whose previous novels, ‘The Hourglass Factory’ and ‘The Amber Shadows’, were historical thrillers. She has a first class degree in English from the University of St Andrews and a Masters in Shakespeare Studies from Kings College London.

Her previous work has won her a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award, a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship, and short-listings for the Costa Short Story Award and Manchester Fiction Prize.

She lives in Edinburgh with her partner and two sons. Down by the Water is her first book as Elle Connel.

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