What is Anne Berry reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: Anne Berry, author of The Water Children.

Her entry begins:

Every so often you read a book that you know will stay with you for the rest of your life, a book of more worth than any treasure trove, a book that makes you breathless it is so full of light and life. For me that book is How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn, published in 1939, which I finished with immeasurable sadness a fortnight ago. You know that you have an exceptional read in your hand when, like an ecstatic audience you scream for an encore. Set in a mining community in South Wales during the reign of Queen Victoria, it is the story of Huw Morgan and his large mining family, told in his own voice, with infinite love and sensual tender pleasure. This amazing writer is a paint box, an orchestra, a gourmet and a heartbeat in a single sentence. There is such music in his voice, the...[read on]

About The Water Children, from the publisher:

WHAT WILL DESTROY ONE CHILD WILL BE THE MAKING OF ANOTHER.

From the icy banks of a secluded country pond to the fevered core of a historic London heat wave and immersion in an abandoned underwater village in the Tuscan mountains, four young people—each of whose lives has been irrevocably altered by water— converge in this brilliantly plotted 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 feels, as she says, “permanently trapped under the ice.”

Sean grew up on a farm in Ireland. Learning to swim in the River Shannon was his way of escaping the bitter poverty of his childhood, but communing with the river spirits incurred his superstitious father’s wrath.

Naomi never feared the water. She was orphaned, cruelly abused, and the sea offered a cleansing balm; 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.

Learn more about the book and author at Anne Berry's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Water Children.

Writers Read: Anne Berry.

--Marshal Zeringue