Water and Blood: who will survive after the flood

by Rik Lonsdale

“Water and Blood” is not for the faint hearted but I couldn’t put it down.’ – Penny Mountain
When the flood came people drowned; or starved.
Few were prepared when water ravaged the world. Lucy Marchand and her family believed they were the lucky ones.
Isolated in their North Cornwall smallholding the family thought they had enough to survive the bleakest of winters.
Shortages, attacks, and sibling rivalries bring out the best, and the worst, in the family, forcing Lucy to make impossible choices.
When starvation looms, taboos are broken.
A story too plausible to be ignored.
Compelling and fast paced, “Water and Blood” is both thrilling and horrific.

318 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 22, 2023

Reviews

[Marian Thorpe · Rating 5 out of 5]

When disaster strikes, you want your family around you—don’t you?

When the collapse of an Antarctic ice sheet causes catastrophic, world-wide flooding and the disintegration of society, Lucy Marchand thinks she’s safe on her family’s smallholding in the west of England. But family tensions that could be ignored when they were buffered by a larger society begin to become evident when her older brother Ben flexes his way to a position of power within the family.

Set against a dystopic world all too easy to imagine—and already real in parts of the globe—Water and Blood is a psychological study of narcissism, manipulation, and the responses of a family trying to survive, and trying too to believe that one of their own has their best interests in heart.

The choices made by each individual in on the smallholding are distinct, and the reasons behind their decisions believable and layered. Each person has a point at which they either say ‘no more’ or embrace the philosophy of the leader. Many things influence that choice, especially when it becomes a question of your own life or death. As winter deepens and starvation threatens, does morality matter at all?

I read Water and Blood in two days, and found it hard to put down. Well-paced, it asks some probing questions about how societies, even in microcosm, work. A solid debut novel. My thanks to the author for an advance review copy.

[Gail · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Rik Lonsdale’s post-apocalyptic novel, we see the best and worst of human behaviour when characters struggle for survival. It is a grizzly read – I found myself wincing at some of the descriptions – but the powerful plot kept me turning the pages. The characters are well drawn: some are devious, manipulative and scheming and even those with good intentions are pushed to the very edge. Family and community connections are stretched and some withstand the challenges. A thought-provoking read.

[Chris Towndrow]

Certainly a plausible post-apocalyptic survival story. Interpersonal tension throughout, some outcomes less expected than others, and nicely free of cliches and tropes.