The Watermark

(Paperback)

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Description

Rachel and Jaime: their story isn't simple. It might not even be their story.

Augustus Fate, a once-lauded novelist and now renowned recluse, is struggling with his latest creation. But when Jaime and Rachel stumble into his remote cottage, he spies opportunity, imprisoning them inside his novel-in-progress. Now, the fledgling couple must try to find their way back home through a labyrinthine network of novels. 'And as they move from Victorian Oxford to a utopian Manchester, a harsh Russian winter to an AI-dominated near-future, so too does the narrative of their relationship change time and again. Together, they must figure out if this relationship of so many presents can have any future at all.

The Watermark is a heart-stopping exploration of the narratives we cling to in the course of a life, and the tendency of the world to unravel them. Kaleidoscopic and wildly imaginative, it asks: how can we truly be ourselves, when Fate is pulling the strings

Reviews

A novel of scope and ambition... Mills' protagonists treat their absurd bind with absolute seriousness. Farce on the outside, tragedy within: this book is full of horrid laughter * The Times *
Virtuosic... If you love Doctor Who, you will love this book. It whirls you off on a similarly breathless Technicolor tumble through different eras and genres... really clever * Guardian *
If you are a fan of geeky, meta-fictional gameplay - and really, why wouldn't you be - then Mills's dazzlingly inventive genre-hopping caper will keep you pleasurably on your toes... Mills's vaulting ambition delivers huge brain-addling rewards * Daily Mail *
Playful, romantic and very, very clever. Like Inception for booklovers. Sam Mills packs more ideas into one work of metafiction than most writers would manage in several lifetimes -- Clare Pollard
Dizzying... engaging... There's an audacity to The Watermark -- John Boyne * Irish Times *
There are books within books within books in this inventive fantasy with echoes of The Matrix and the works of Susanna Clarke * Mail on Sunday *
If you've ever heard the phrase "lost in a good book" and thought, "Great, where do I sign up', this one's for you... It's all good clean metafictional fun - an impressively confident performance with a very clever ending * SFX magazine *
A deeply ambitious work... a proper page-turner... The individual stories are entertaining and inventive, and masterpieces in authorial ventriloquism... A five-star triumph * Bookmunch *
Sam Mills... Knows how to tap into [Philip K] Dick's madcap energy... A novel of... scope and ambition... I especially appreciate how Mills' protagonists treat their absurd bind with absolute seriousness. Farce on the outside, tragedy within: this book is full of horrid laughter * The Times *
Mills crafts each world with rich layers... The Watermark leaves us with a reminder to take control of our personal and romantic narratives before somebody else does... Mills' ambitious work of metafiction, packed with characters gone awry and a romance tested by a whiplash trajectory, offers a colourful, dizzying adventure plot, but also philosophical questioning of our connection to reality and truth * NB magazine *
A very clever and entertaining romp * Shiny New Books *
A thrilling and original novel: an existential mystery, a love story, an absurdist quest.... A playful enquiry into ideas about freedom, fate, utopias, dystopias, AI, ethics and where truth might reside in a world of fakes. Richly imagined, wild and wise -- Joanna Kavenna
A story about stories, an ingenious genre-tumble through literature, artistic expression, free-will, and how far-how deep-we will go for love. A compulsively readable, dizzyingly inventive novel that is both gloriously immense, and immensely, heart-wrenchingly intimate -- Glen James Brown

Author Bio

SAM MILLS is the author of The Quiddity of Will Self, along with three young adult novels, including the award-winning Blackout. Her memoir about being a carer, The Fragments of My Father, was published in 2020. Sam has written for a number of publications, including the Guardian, Independent, 3 AM and London Magazine. She is the co-founder of the independent press Dodo Ink and lives in London looking after her father and cat.