For fans of Audrey Niffenegger and Maggie O'Farrell, The Water Children is a sensual, richly atmospheric drama of passion, betrayal, revenge, and redemption. Owen is haunted by nightmares of the Merfolk. He believes they have stolen his little sister who vanished while he was meant to be watching her on the beach, but he was only a child himself. Is it fair for his mother to have blamed him all these years? Catherine's perfect Christmas was ruined when she went skating on a frozen pond with her cousin and the other girl nearly died. Yet it is Catherine who, for the rest of her life, feels trapped under the ice. Sean grew up on a farm in Ireland, the son of religious and superstitious people. Learning to swim in the River Shannon was his way of escaping the bitter poverty of his childhood, but communing with the river's "spirits" incurred his father's wrath. He flees to England to start a new life, but the Shannon's pull is difficult to escape. Naomi was orphaned and placed in a children's home and cruelly abused. Swimming offered her an opportunity to cleanse, to escape, and she reveled in the ocean's power. But Naomi has another secret, buried deep within her, and during one searing hot summer she will be the catalyst for the coming together--and tearing apart--of the water children.