{"id":7135,"date":"2016-10-31T11:00:06","date_gmt":"2016-10-31T11:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=7135"},"modified":"2016-11-07T11:55:01","modified_gmt":"2016-11-07T11:55:01","slug":"dark-water-by-sara-bailey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=7135","title":{"rendered":"Dark Water by Sara Bailey"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Published by Blackbird Books\/Nightingale Editions 3 October 2016<\/strong><\/p>\n

Paperback, \u00a38.99<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reviewed by Rachel Hore<\/strong><\/p>\n

Click here to buy this book<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Helena Chambers returns to her old home in Orkney after many years\u2019 absence because her aging father has suffered a heart attack. Now in her late twenties, with a glamorous public relations career in London, it quickly becomes apparent that when she left Orkney to attend university, she was escaping the aftermath of a tragedy – the drowning of her school pal Anastasia – for which she still feels in some way to blame.<\/p>\n

In this fictional debut Sara Bailey builds a vivid portrait of the Orkney mainland community into which Helena has blown like an exotic bird off-course. \u00a0She and Anastasia had been incomers together when the girls were already in their teens, so she does not feel her roots are here.\u00a0 It\u2019s different for her heroically cheerful dad David, a retired GP, and her quiet, practical stepmother Kate, now thoroughly bedded down here. Kate had once been David\u2019s secretary, but stepped into the shoes of Helena\u2019s elegant mother Lorna, after Lorna\u2019s untimely death, only to find she couldn\u2019t fill them.\u00a0 The edgy, watchful relationship between Helena and Kate is sensitively drawn as they conduct a low-key tug-of-war over the invalid David and boxes of memories of Lorna that Kate keeps hidden away in the attic.<\/p>\n

As Helena reacquaints herself with the islands, she encounters a vivid cast of individuals from her youth. Larger-than-life neighbour Mrs Kirkpatrick still asks blunt questions that hit tender places.\u00a0 Lecherous Phil, a year or two older than Helena, still dubs her \u2018Hell Cat\u2019 and drips innuendo. Old flame Dylan is now married and scratching a living taking boats out for tourists. Vhari, one-time party girl, has settled happily to marriage and motherhood and assumes Helena will attend the imminent school reunion she has organized. \u00a0And in a cunning fictional touch, every now and then Helena glimpses a distant figure on the shoreline, who causes her to think of Anastasia.<\/p>\n

Between increasingly painful events in the present, scenes from the past are expertly slid.\u00a0 At sixteen, Helena and Anastasia were archetypal soulmates, bright rebels, authors of practical jokes and breathtaking dares, the most dangerous of which involved swimming out amongst the sinister wartime wrecks that stud the perilous waters of Scapa Flow.\u00a0 Anastasia, complex, highly strung, sets the pace, leading the more sensible Helena on.\u00a0 It\u2019s an intense, but unstable relationship, deftly realized, that breeds jealousy and rivalry as well as deep attachment. The reader, however, like Helena, is puzzled by Anastasia\u2019s obsession for shallow, unappealing Magnus, and the girls\u2019 relationship stretches to breaking point.<\/p>\n

Dark Water<\/em> is a slow burn of a suspense novel whose pleasures repose in evocation of character, landscape and language rather than in spectacular narrative turns.\u00a0 It is not afraid to go to dark places, however, and, the ultimate revelation, when it comes, is both convincing and quietly devastating.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Rachel Hore<\/p>\n

At sixteen, Helena and Anastasia were archetypal soulmates, bright rebels, authors of practical jokes and breathtaking dares, the most dangerous of which involved swimming out amongst the sinister wartime wrecks that stud the perilous waters of Scapa Flow. Anastasia, complex, highly strung, sets the pace, leading the more sensible Helena on […] in Reviews<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-fiction-and-non-fiction","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7135"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7142,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7135\/revisions\/7142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}