The Well

Drought helps create the drama in Chanter's debut novel about an England that no longer has rain. Narrator Nicola Barber makes this suspenseful and somewhat paranoid story all the more haunting with her expert delivery. Her performance perfectly matches the alternately hopeful and despairing main character, who leaves London with her husband in an attempt to rejuvenate their marriage and inadvertently ends up with a property called The Well, nearly the only place in the country where the water runs freely--as do the troubles, soon enough. Chanter writes beautifully and constructs her story equally well. Barber makes it come alive, leaving listeners on the edge of their seats for hours on end, trying to piece together exactly what has happened at The Well and why. J.L.K. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine

Starred review from March 2, 2015
British author Chanter’s extraordinary first novel envisions the U.K. so ravaged by drought that personal and civic life fracture. At midlife, Ruth and Mark Ardingly leave London for a small farm in the west of England called the Well, where they cherish nature and long visits with their five-year-old grandson, Lucien, the child of their troubled daughter Angie. As drought deepens into national disaster, the Well remains inexplicably verdant. Under the pressure from local attacks, government interventions, and media uproar, the couple’s marriage collapses. Then the Sisters of the Rose, a tiny extremist sect, arrives, claiming that Ruth is the chosen one who helps bring rain and demanding the Well be cleared of men. Thousands start following their worship online. Ruth is drawn so deeply into their beliefs that she begins to have religious visions. Might she have committed a murder in a mystical state? Combining gripping mystery, nuanced psychological drama, and striking prose, this debut is a mesmerizing read. Agent: Rachel Mills, Peters Fraser & Dunlop (U.K.).