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The Water Takes

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The Water Takes

By: Sarah Walker
Narrated by: Valerie Bader
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About this listen

AN UNIMAGINABLE APOCALYPSE.

A SCARED YOUNG GIRL.

A STUBBORN OLD WOMAN.

NEITHER WILL SURVIVE WITHOUT THE OTHER.

Pam is in her mid-seventies, widowed and hiding from the world behind a caustic sense of humour. Her health is declining, and she’s afraid of dying alone, but her most pressing concern is complaining to the council about her waterlogged garden.

When Pam’s ten-year-old neighbour, Charlotte, is foisted upon her, a tentative friendship begins to unfurl, cracking open Pam’s hard exterior.

But the puddles in the garden become pools, and then sinkholes. Nowhere seems safe. With no help coming, Pam and Charlotte can only shelter in place for so long – eventually, they know they must attempt to navigate a catastrophically altered world.

The Water Takes is a work of astonishing literary imagination with the urgent page-turning propulsion of a thriller. Full of surprises and revelations, with a sense of humanity that is never clichéd or sentimental, The Water Takeswill make you laugh and cry – and it will stay with you forever.

‘Made me laugh and roar and weep.’ KATE MILDENHALL

'Dizzyingly good.' JACQUELINE BUBLITZ
Dystopian Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Science Fiction Women's Fiction

Critic Reviews

‘Atmospheric and utterly harrowing, Walker has written a disquieting account of grief and fortitude in a drowning world. This book devastated me.’

(Emily O’Grady)
‘The Water Takes announces a new and exciting voice in Australian fiction. This beguiling, bedevilling novel about sinkholes and small towns had me gripped from the first page. Both a page-turning odyssey of survival and a heartfelt story of care and connection, The Water Takes is a novel we'll be talking about for years.’

(Dominic Amerena)
‘What do you do when the world starts drowning? The Water Takes is haunting, terrifying and still somehow hopeful. Seventy-something Pam is one of the most vivid characters I’ve ever encountered – she made me laugh and roar and weep. I am in awe of Sarah Walker and this book.’ (Kate Mildenhall)
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