The Watermark

Paperback Published on: 14/08/2025
Price: £9.99
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Synopsis

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?

Publisher information

  • Publisher: Granta Books
  • ISBN: 9781783789672
  • Number of pages: 544
  • Dimensions: 198 x 129 mm
  • Languages: English

Customer Reviews

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The Watermark
Ambitious but flawed near-fantasy novel
This year alone, I've read about a dozen books with meta- or semi-metatextual structures, some more successful than others. This is not one of those. ... READ MORE
Huttson Lo
The Watermark
Beautifully written and fizzing with ideas
‘Our ending is inevitable: he will leave and I will shock him with a coward’s goodbye and here I will stay, drifting through books as I grow old alone, see... READ MORE
B Wright
The Watermark
Maybe too clever for me
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy of this book. I really struggled with this and it has taken me ages to read. I am just not abl... READ MORE
am/am/am
The Watermark
maybe too clever for me, I was bewildered
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy of this book. I really struggled with this and it has taken me ages to read. I am just not abl... READ MORE
am/am/am
The Watermark
An original and playful novel, how much you'll like it will depend on whether you like all the different genres contained within it
Many thanks to the author, netgalley and the publishers (Granta) for an ARC of this wonderfully original novel, which was published in August. Young jou... READ MORE
Maria Connolly