THE WELL

Ruth Ardingly and her husband Mark move out from London – to start a new life. Mark has been cleared of an accusation (but it still casts a shadow from time to time) and Ruth is hoping to find a safe place where her troubled daughter Angie and grandson Lucien could have a home too.

I is an idyllic place; The well offers everything they could have hoped for. But not for long. Theirs is the only place where everything is verdant while the rest of the country dries up and shrivels.

So far so good. But the book seems to go backward and forward in time, not always well and the author introduces a group of Sisters of the Rose who have more and more influence on Ruth. This was the place where I started having doubts.

I felt sorry for Mark – all he wanted was a place in the country where he could follow his dream – farming.

Lucien, who is four years old at the start of the book, is a child who trusts the adults in his life but doesn’t like all of them; this is a very grown-up portrait of a small child.

Towards the end of the book I found the story line more and more unbelievable and at the end I felt irritated by all of it.

 A pity because I was really enjoying the book at the start.