Into The Water by Paula Hawkins @PaulaHWrites @DoubledayUK @alisonbarrow

The addictive new psychological thriller from the author of The Girl on the Train, the runaway Sunday Times No. 1 bestseller and global phenomenon.

In the last days before her death, Nel called her sister. Jules didn’t pick up the phone, ignoring her plea for help.

Now Nel is dead. They say she jumped. And Jules has been dragged back to the one place she hoped she had escaped for good, to care for the teenage girl her sister left behind.

But Jules is afraid. So afraid. Of her long-buried memories, of the old Mill House, of knowing that Nel would never have jumped.

And most of all she’s afraid of the water, and the place they call the Drowning Pool . . .

With the same propulsive writing and acute understanding of human instincts that captivated millions of readers around the world in her explosive debut thriller, The Girl on the Train, Paula Hawkins delivers an urgent, satisfying read that hinges on the stories we tell about our pasts and their power to destroy the lives we live now.

Into The Water by Paula Hawkins is published in hardback by Doubleday on 2 May 2017 and is the author's second psychological thriller novel. I read and reviewed her first; The Girl on the Train, here on Random Things back in January 2015.

There can't be many people who have not heard of Paula Hawkins and her amazingly successful novel, The Girl on the Train. It has sold millions of copies, it was adapted for film by Hollywood, it has been such a huge hit. Imagine having to come up with a story to equal that? There will be critics, readers, bloggers and reviewers waiting to pounce, to dissect every word and to compare the two.

So, it was with a little anxiety and a touch of nervousness that I took a huge breath and opened up my advance copy of Into The Water. See, I wasn't the hugest fan of The Girl on the Train. Looking back at my review, I see that I loved the writing and the beauty of the detail, but the thriller element didn't really impact on me that much. I've been looking forward to this next book so much.

Into The Water is excellent! My very early teaser review on Goodreads said; 

"I've spent the past two days absolutely transfixed by Into The Water. It is sublime. Dark, creepy and sinister with characters that will eat into your soul."

Jules returns to her home village after the death of her sister Nel, to care for Nel's teenage daughter. Jules and Nel did not speak for years, and returning to the place that holds so many bad memories is not something that Jules is looking forward to.

The police say that Nel jumped into the part of the river known locally as The Drowning Pool, but her daughter Lena is convinced that Nel would not do that. Nel had been obsessed with the history of the river, and had ruffled many feathers in this small community by beginning to write a book about all of the women who had died in the pool.

Water and the river are the constant, central theme to this story, totally enveloping each character and each part of the plot, providing a link that cleverly knits everything together.
Books and stories can be compared to the course of a river, with a flowing plot, and hidden depths, and Paula Hawkins has certainly incorporated all of these into this alluring and quite stunning novel.

Told in the multiple voices of the vast cast of characters, the reader glimpses different angles of the same story and it is this complexity that delighted me the most whilst reading. Multi layered, but finely bound together, the author tantalisingly drip feeds her clues and reveals, whilst gently exposing the characters and their histories.

As I said in my earlier review snippet; this really is a sinister read, the darkness and danger of the water is conveyed perfectly, along with the gripping exploration of past events, tied in with and linked to the current deaths in the village.

So so dark, yet stylish and slick. Into The Water gripped me, twisted me and totally consumed me.
Absorbing, moody and atmospheric.  I loved it.

My thanks to the publisher who sent my copy for review.

Paula Hawkins worked as a journalist for fifteen years before turning her hand to fiction. 

Born and brought up in Zimbabwe, Paula moved to London in 1989 and has lived there ever since. Her first thriller, The Girl on the Train, has been published in over forty languages, has been a No.1 bestseller around the world and is now a major motion picture starring Emily Blunt. Into the Water is her second thriller.

Follow her on Twitter @PaulaHWrites

Instagram @paulahawkins2010