The Water Cure
A Novel
Failed to add items
Sorry, we are unable to add the item because your shopping cart is already at capacity.
Add to Cart failed.
Please try again later
Add to Wish List failed.
Please try again later
Remove from wish list failed.
Please try again later
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
3 Months Free
$8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel anytime.
Offer ends on July 15, 2026 at 11:59 PT.
The Water Cure
Narrated by:
Hannah Murray, Gemma Whelan, Morfydd Clark
Buy Now for $21.97
-
Narrated by:
-
Hannah Murray
-
Gemma Whelan
-
Morfydd Clark
-
Written by:
-
Sophie Mackintosh
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR:
NPR • GLAMOUR • GOOD HOUSEKEEPING • LIT HUB • THRILLIST
King has tenderly staked out a territory for his wife and three daughters, Grace, Lia, and Sky. Here on his island, women are protected from the chaos and violence of men on the mainland. The cult-like rituals and therapies they endure fortify them from the spreading toxicity of a degrading world.
But when King disappears and two men and a boy wash ashore, the sisters’ safe world begins to unravel. Over the span of one blistering hot week, a psychological cat-and-mouse game plays out. Sexual tensions and sibling rivalries flare as the sisters are forced to confront the amorphous threat the strangers represent.
A haunting, riveting debut, The Water Cure is a fiercely poetic feminist revenge fantasy that’s a startling reflection of our time.
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_t1
What the critics say
A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2019 BY ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY, VOGUE, WASHINGTON POST, HUFFINGTON POST, VULTURE, LITHUB, REFINERY29 and more
"Ingenious and incendiary"
—THE NEW YORKER
“Sensational…Mackintosh’s taut novel turns a keen, unsparing eye on violence, patriarchy, and desire.”
—ESQUIRE (25 Most Anticipated Books of 2019)
“Eerily beautiful, this strange, unsettling novel creeps up and grabs hold of you.”
—PAULA HAWKINS, New York Times bestselling author of GIRL ON THE TRAIN
“An extraordinary otherworldly debut… [Mackintosh] is writing the way that Sofia Coppola would shoot the end of the world: Everything is luminous.”
—THE GUARDIAN
“[A] chilling, beautifully written novel…the tautness and tension of the writing are staggering.”
—Judges Panel Citation, the MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2018
“Mackintosh’s novel follows in the footsteps of The Handmaid’s Tale…but this debut has its own alluring style, which has prompted comparisons to The Virgin Suicides for its gauzy, heady sexuality; lacy, precise prose; and the luminous sisters at its core.”
—VOGUE
“Mackintosh’s entry [into feminist dystopian fiction] is among the best, not least because it gets to the root of the genre by dissecting a warped utopia…Three men arrive on the island, and twists ensue — not cheap pyrotechnics but reversals of moral structure, revelations that demonstrate why the subtlest fiction is often the most powerful.”
—VULTURE
"Sophie Mackintosh casts an exquisite, irresistible spell in her thrilling debut. Ablaze with beauty, desire, and dread, The Water Cure is a shattering look at patriarchal control and how far three sisters will go to free themselves from it".
—LENI ZUMAS, author of RED CLOCKS
“At once dreamy and disturbing, The Water Cure is a gripping work, a dizzying labyrinth of conflicting realities.”
—HELEN PHILIPS, author of THE BEAUTIFUL BUREAUCRAT
"Creepy and sexy in equal measure, The Water Cure is a hypnotic portrait of three young women waking up to the world, desire, and the power of their bodies."
—THE INDEPENDENT
"Ingenious and incendiary"
—THE NEW YORKER
“Sensational…Mackintosh’s taut novel turns a keen, unsparing eye on violence, patriarchy, and desire.”
—ESQUIRE (25 Most Anticipated Books of 2019)
“Eerily beautiful, this strange, unsettling novel creeps up and grabs hold of you.”
—PAULA HAWKINS, New York Times bestselling author of GIRL ON THE TRAIN
“An extraordinary otherworldly debut… [Mackintosh] is writing the way that Sofia Coppola would shoot the end of the world: Everything is luminous.”
—THE GUARDIAN
“[A] chilling, beautifully written novel…the tautness and tension of the writing are staggering.”
—Judges Panel Citation, the MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2018
“Mackintosh’s novel follows in the footsteps of The Handmaid’s Tale…but this debut has its own alluring style, which has prompted comparisons to The Virgin Suicides for its gauzy, heady sexuality; lacy, precise prose; and the luminous sisters at its core.”
—VOGUE
“Mackintosh’s entry [into feminist dystopian fiction] is among the best, not least because it gets to the root of the genre by dissecting a warped utopia…Three men arrive on the island, and twists ensue — not cheap pyrotechnics but reversals of moral structure, revelations that demonstrate why the subtlest fiction is often the most powerful.”
—VULTURE
"Sophie Mackintosh casts an exquisite, irresistible spell in her thrilling debut. Ablaze with beauty, desire, and dread, The Water Cure is a shattering look at patriarchal control and how far three sisters will go to free themselves from it".
—LENI ZUMAS, author of RED CLOCKS
“At once dreamy and disturbing, The Water Cure is a gripping work, a dizzying labyrinth of conflicting realities.”
—HELEN PHILIPS, author of THE BEAUTIFUL BUREAUCRAT
"Creepy and sexy in equal measure, The Water Cure is a hypnotic portrait of three young women waking up to the world, desire, and the power of their bodies."
—THE INDEPENDENT
Good premise- so-so delivery
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Dystopian and strange
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Tension
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.