Tide

Tide is an 'urgent and powerful' (Kiran Millwood Hargrave) novel about motherhood, marriage and the perils of surrendering your own reality, that will appeal to readers who inhaled Soldier Sailor, the edginess of Lullaby and the twisting of truth in Disclaimer.

WHAT KIND OF MOTHER IS SHE?

In present-day West London, Imogen struggles to connect with her young son, preferring her stay-at-home husband to take the lead. Imogen is all edges: lacking maternal instinct, more invested in her work than her family, short-fused and brittle. At her husband's insistence, she agrees to take her son to the river to mudlark, only to watch in horror as he is dragged into the water, never to be seen again.

As the police search unfolds and something dark and festering appears in Imogen's vision of the water's edge, her sanity is called into question. She forces herself to alter her story, believing that doing so will hold what's left of her family together. Instead, lies beget lies, and the frayed edges of her marriage threaten to unravel altogether.

Propulsive and unnerving, Tide shows a relationship in ruin and a mother, reeling and unmoored, who just wants to be believed. Anna Richmond asserts a fresh and haunting impression of what it means to be unseen in a marriage and how far one woman will go to reclaim herself.