Under the Waterfall

Welcome to Sally's book-a-day-for-2017 blog. If unfamiliar with the blog, scroll down.

Under the Waterfall (Post 87)

Under the Waterfall (2003) is the story of a teenager named Corrie and a younger boy named Athen. As the blurb has it...
Someone is out to kill Corrie. Athen Bard offers to help her, but why does he look so much like her disabled brother, Ethan? Why does everybody but Athen despise her? If Corrie is to survive, she needs to solve the mysteries, fast.
Athen Bard is amazed to meet a strange girl who looks just like his dead sister, Corrayo. In the world of Sisterin, women rule and men are unimportant. How can Athen deal with a girl who says she comes from another world?

Corrie, like Eden Raven in Shadowdancers (which will turn up in a different post) is suffering survivors' guilt. She remembers feeling ill done by when she's in hospital after a car accident and her mother doesn't stay with her, but opts to be with her brother. No one tells her her brother is likely to die. Fast forward to a camping trip Corrie is reluctantly taking with the family. Ethan is disabled and Corrie can't help resenting the way her freedom is curtailed as a result. When their parents leave them in the campsite while they go for a walk, Corrie, tired of Ethan's slowness, swims into a pool under a waterfall just to have a minute to herself. When she emerges, Ethan and the campsite are gone. Corrie, wearing only her swimsuit, ventures into a world where nothing is the way it should be and then, in the distance, she sees a boy she takes for her brother.

In the land of Sisterin, Athen Bard is proud of his position in a society that doesn't value boys. He has worked hard and his mother, Mem, shows him a little more favour than is usual. Athen feels guilty because his wilful sister, Corayo, died in a carriage accident some time ago while he survived. When he meets a strange girl who looks just like his lost sister, he is puzzled and frightened. 

Corrie and Athen try to discover the truth behind their apparent connection, but it seems someone, or something, is going to kill Corrie before they succeed.

Under the Waterfall is one of my alternative identity books with secrets and the past influencing the present. It asks questions about assumptions and heritage and is one of my own favourites. It's been available as an e-book since 2003 and will probably be available as a paperback in the future as the publisher is bringing much of the catalogue to print. Click here to buy.

As usual, some of my experience partly inspired this book. I once swam under a waterfall and found a haven of peace, and I too have spent time in a hospital (though I wasn't the one who was ill) and found it nearly impossible to get clear answers... or even a definitive ruling on whether a glass of water was permitted while we waited for attention.

If you're interested in the world of Sisterin and its places and language, go to this link to see the explanation I wrote several years ago before Waterfall (as it was originally called) was published.

About the Blog 

Sally is Sally Odgers; author, manuscript assessor, editor, anthologist and reader. She runs http://www.affordablemanuscriptassessments.com and Prints Charming Books. (Sally is me, by the way, and I am lots of other things too, but these are the relevant ones for now.)

The goal for 2017 is to write a post a day profiling the background behind one of my books; how it came to be written, what it's about, and any things of note that happened along the way. If you're an author, an aspiring author, a reader or just someone who enjoys windows into worlds, you might find this fun. The books are not in any special order, but will be assigned approximate dates, and pictures, where they exist. If you enjoyed a post, or want to ask about any of my books or my manuscript assessment service, post a comment and I'll get back to you.