Three sisters live an antiquated, disconnected existence on a remote island. Their lives are ruled over by their autocratic parents, who mete out medieval punishments and force them to compete in bizarre rituals of sufferance.
The girls are introduced to us one by one, their narratives unfolding, sad and lonely as their large, dilapidated home; all empty rooms and creaking floorboards. It is unclear why the family has secluded itself on this remote spot and what exactly they have to fear from the ‘toxic’ mainland and its men, but unease lurks like sea mist in the mind of the reader as the sisters piece their parents’ hints and their own memories together in an attempt to understand what is true.
Then three male castaways wash up on their lonely shore and the spell their parents have worked so hard to craft, begins to unravel.
“It will always be a woman who saves us, we know that now. The protections of men are only ever flimsy and self-serving.” The Water Cure
The story is heavy with female longing, with the desperation for salvation through love and the giving over of oneself to something bigger. It is a quiet, potent story, one of those incisive pieces of speculative fiction that speaks of something too painfully real, too true, for realism.
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Buy on kindle £3.99
Buy from Waterstones £8.99
Follow the author at @fairfairisles
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