The River Within

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Description

Laughter, sharp like a fox bark. She had not seen him so happy in days.

Set in North Yorkshire in the 1950s, The River Within is a piercingly evocative literary novel centred around the lives of two women.

On a summer's day in 1955, in the village of Starome, the drowned body of young Danny Masters is discovered by three of his teenage friends: Alexander, the volatile heir to Richmond Hall, the country estate that neighbours Starome, and sister and brother, Lennie and Tom, whose father is land agent to the Richmond family.

How did Danny Masters die

'Child of nature' Lennie is in love with volatile Alexander, but is he in love with her or merely playing with her Alexander's mother Venetia has been a widow for less than a year, and yet her husband's brother seems always to be by her side.

In an interweaving narrative that moves across the months before and after Danny's death, village secrets gradually come to the surface.

Reviews

'Powell has not written a pale imitation of The Crown or Downton Abbey. The River Within contains multitudes; it's a fresh look at the pressures our caste systems place upon all of us, no matter where we come from.'
-Los Angeles Times

'Hamlet comes to fifties Yorkshire in this compelling riff on love, grief and family strife. Powell is a talent to watch.'
-Lisa Appignanesi, author of Everyday Madness

Author Bio

Karen Powell was born in Rochester, Kent. She left school at 16 but returned to education as a mature student to study English Literature at Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge. She lives in North Yorkshire. An early draft of The River Within was awarded a Northern Writers TLC New Fiction Reads prize, which seeks to support work-in-progress by new, emerging and established writers across the North of England.