Blog Tour: Water Born by Rachel Ward

Title: Water Born.
Series: The Drowning, #2.
Author: Rachel Ward.
Publication Date: August 7th, 2014.
Publisher: Chicken House.
Genres: Paranormal, Young Adult.

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Nic’s always loved the water, so being chosen for the swimming team means everything.When she begins to hear a disembodied voice in the pool, she turns to her dad for answers from a past he might not want to remember.

And when girls her age begin mysteriously drowning, Nic may be the only one who can uncover the murky truth...

 

About Rachel Ward

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I'm a fortysomething author of books for young adults. I live in Bath, England, with my husband, two teenagers, dog, cat and chickens. I've had 'sensible' jobs for 25 years, and now I'm a writer too. I've been writing for about 10 years, and have published the Numbers trilogy. The first book came out in the UK in 2009 and the USA in 2010.

My Numbers books explore the gift of being able to see death dates. If you looked in somebody's eyes and saw the date of their death, would it change the way you felt about people? Would it change the way you lived your life?

 

Writing As A Boy by Rachel Ward

The Drowning was recently shortlisted for the Sussex Coast Schools Amazing Book Award. Sadly, circumstances conspired against me and I wasn’t able to go to the presentation evening, which was, by all accounts a great ‘do’. However, I was sent a question and I emailed my answer which was read out on my behalf. The question was, ‘What made you decide to narrate The Drowning from a boy’s point of view?’ It’s a good question, particularly as I’ve written five books in the first person (usually first person, present tense).

My answer was: 'I'm not sure I actually decided this! When I knew what the story was, it was clear to me that Carl was right at the centre of it, and when I started writing an exploratory chapter, he was the one telling the story. I wanted to show his journey from amnesia to understanding, and really that could only be told from his point of view. I liked having him as an 'unreliable' narrator – so that the reader isn't quite sure whether Rob is really haunting Carl, or whether he is a product of Carl's guilty and tortured mind...’

Carl is a boy with amnesia, a boy who has to put the pieces of the past back together and doesn’t necessarily like what he discovers. In the sequel to The Drowning, Water Born, my narrator is Nic, a talented swimmer. She finds out that her parents aren’t who they say they are and has to unpick the web of secrets and lies that her life is built on. Again, I don’t think I chose Nic as my narrator. It was very clear to me that Water Born is her story and I wanted the reader to see it through her eyes (although if you’ve already read The Drowning, you know a great deal more about her parents’ history than she does).

I think it’s almost true to say that I’m equally comfortable writing from a male or female viewpoint. In two books (The Chaos and Infinity), I have alternated chapters, male and female. Maybe it is marginally easier for me to write as a female. I remember struggling when I was trying to write The Chaos as I couldn’t seem to find an authentic voice for Adam. I wondered then whether Jem in Numbers had actually been me, or at least an expression of part of my character. Now I’m not sure.

If you write in the first person, you are in effect writing a sort of monologue and in that respect writing is a lot like acting. You need to understand your character, inhabit their skin, learn to think and react like they would. You don’t need to be (like) the person you are writing about, you just need to use your imagination, fed by all the observations you’ve made over the years of other people and the way they speak and act.

Starting to write a book is quite daunting, and so at the beginning of a book, I usually do a bit of ‘exploratory writing’. I tell myself that I’m writing something, anything just to test the water, get a feel for the book. Quite often this turns out to be the first chapter, but if I sat down at a blank screen and wrote ‘Chapter 1’ at the top of the page, I think my mind and body would be frozen until someone came to tuck a blanket over my knees and turn out the lights at the end of the day. Usually the voice I use, and the character I inhabit, for that first bit of writing sets the tone for the rest of the book.

For my next book, I’m experimenting with writing in the third person. Again, this decision sort of chose itself, but it took a bit of getting used to. I kept getting in a muddle and automatically switching to ‘I’ even though I didn’t want to. However, now I’m finding that there’s something liberating about taking a step back as a narrator and being able to see the bigger picture, which you can’t do if you are writing in the first person. I’m enjoying it, which is a good sign. I wonder if readers will even notice, and if they do, if they’ll like it. Anyway, that’s a question for some time in the future. For the moment, I’m wondering whether readers will enjoy getting to know Nic, in Water Born, and whether they will share her confusion and alarm when she starts to hear a voice in the water...

 

Review: The Drowning by Rachel Ward

Title: The Drowning.
Series: The Drowning, #1.
Author: Rachel Ward.
Publication Date: May 2nd, 2013.
Publisher: Chicken House.
Genres: Paranormal, Young Adult.
Format: Paperback, 274 pages.
Source: Provided By Publisher.
My Rating:

When Carl opens his eyes on the banks of a cold lake, his brother is being zipped into a body bag. And a shovering wet girl is being helped nearby.

What happened in the water?

He can't remember. All he knows is that he must find out - before the truth comes back to drown him...

 
 

Review

The Drowning has to be one of the strangest books I’ve read this year, and that’s saying something! I definitely don’t mean this in bad way though; The Drowning was a compelling and wonderfully written novel that I couldn’t put down. I didn’t expect anything less from Rachel Ward, who has the ability to write stories that I’m sure everyone will love. This book is very different from Rachel’s other novel; Numbers, but also very similar at the same time with a fast-paced and action packed plot line. The Drowning is just as good as the other book I’ve read by her, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

Right from the first page we enter the action; Carl remembers nothing, not why he was in the lake in the first place, not who the strange girl he’s with is, or what happened in the lake to cause his brother to drown. Carl’s character was interesting to read about, but I’m not really sure if I liked him at all. I thought Carl was a little bland and immature. I know he’s only fifteen, but I would have imagined his brother’s death would have matured him slightly. Unfortunately, he was just like any other teenage boy – a slave to his hormones. I’m not saying this is bad, but it seemed like a hell of a lot of the book was centred around Carl fighting the urge to jump on Neisha. He seemed a little obsessive over her, which put me off a little bit.

Neisha is the love-interest throughout this novel, and I had mixed feelings about her character. She seemed like a nice girl; smart and funny, but she also annoyed me a little bit. Her boyfriend has just drowned, and not even a week later she’s all over his brother. I understand the circumstances, but you’d think she’d need a little longer to move on considering the fact that she never looked twice at Carl in a romantic way before his brother died. There’s nothing else really to criticize about Neisha’s character – but I do think that Rachel Ward needs to work on her character development - two bland and dry characters in one book? That’s a little too much in my opinion!

As for Rob, Carl’s brother who drowned – god I hated him. I think you’re supposed to hate him, but my hate grew stronger and stronger throughout the book! To be perfectly honest, if he wasn’t already dead – I think I would have killed him myself. Rob was an abusive, rude, obnoxious asshole with absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever. As much as I enjoyed reading The Drowning, I was put off by how much of a jerk Rob’s character was. Even though hating him has a lot to do with the story, I just wish he was a little better so I could at least feel a little remorse for him. I thought the ending of The Drowning was really quite confusing – I have a feeling, due to the fact that I’m already familiar with Rachel Ward’s writing, that I know what happened - but at the same time I’m really not sure. I don’t know whether the doubt and confusion was deliberate on Rachel’s part or not, but either way I kind of wished it’d had been a slightly clearer ending.

Overall, I really enjoyed reading The Drowning – it’s a fascinating, past-paced, creepy thriller that will have you constantly turning the pages to find out what will happen next. Although Rachel Ward’s character development needs a little fine tuning, her writing style is fabulous and such a pleasure to read. The entirety of this book is quite disturbing in a way and definitely freaked out in certain places. I believe The Drowning well and truly deserves the 4/5 star rating I gave it – if it weren’t for the few flaws that I’ve mentioned, I’m sure it would have gotten a higher rating. All the same, The Drowning is an amazing book, and I’d highly recommend anyone who loves a good thriller novel to pick this up. I can’t wait to read more from Rachel Ward in the future; she’s definitely an author everyone should know about!

Quotes

But it's not him. There's a girl in here now. She's looking right at me. Her make-up's smeared down her face from her eyes, like she's melting, but her lips are blue, her arms are covered in goosebumps and she's shivering. She's staring too, staring at me, then she blinks – once, twice – and starts screaming. - Page 2.

I open my eyes a little way, so there’s a narrow slit to see out of, and he’s there, half a metre away. White face, streaked with mud. The face that got zipped into the bag. My eyes open wide. My breathing goes shallow and fast.
I close my eyes again. I’m not seeing this. This isn’t real. - Page 71.

I kiss the top of her head, her temple, her cheek. She’s warm, so warm. She moves a little, tipping her face towards mine, and I find her lips. They’re soft and wet and taste of salt tears. I press my mouth against hers gently, ready to pull back at the first hint of rejection, but after a second of two she responds to me, angling her head a little more, kissing me back. - Page 142.