Book Review: The House of Water by Fflur Dafydd

Molly Stubbs 

I’m fascinated by dark stories set in Wales. 

There’s something about this country that meshes with murder. A thinner line between mother nature’s unforgiving hand and the strange, passionate, morbid emotions/actions that so often lead a person to step over moral lines. Maybe there’s a novelty here not found in the alleyways and industrial estates of East London. The weather’s usually always grey, too, which I presume makes the genre’s dull colour grading a lot cheaper.

But any place, if you think about it hard enough, could be the perfect setting for some twisted tale. Even the bright beaches of Death in Paradise and White Lotus provide a delicious antonym to death.

So … why Wales?

Well, I’m pleased to say that author and screenwriter Fflur Dafydd has added a new layer to that question and answered it all at once in her newest book, The House of Water. 

Floods

The House of Water begins as teenager Iona Griffri returns home from a night with her boyfriend. She plans to spend her last night with her family hiding in her room before she heads off to start university life at Cambridge. But as she enters the house, built on the side of a mountain to escape from the flood-prone Sulyn river, she finds a torrent of water running out of the door and a foot of it on the floor. Her brother Urien lies dead on the landing, her mother Lisa in the bath, her little sister Briall under the covers, and in Iona’s own bed the corpse of a girl she’s never seen before. 

Iona’s father, Eurov, who quickly becomes the main suspect in this tragedy, is nowhere to be found. And it seems neither is the Encyclopaedia of Wales he’s been working on for seven years. To add to this, he’s still grieving his childhood home in Capel Celyn, which now lies at the bottom of a reservoir, and has a slightly unhealthy obsession with floods. Contrast this with Iona’s mother’s irrational fear of floods, and we’re on to a thriller for the ages. 

How did the house flood? Who’s this Jane Doe in Iona’s bed? And where is her father? With the help of Cain, the local morgue attendant and grief counselling group leader who lost his own family to the river, Iona sets out to answer these questions and, in the process, find out who she is after such a life changing event. 

Mysteries

First off, let me explain the love/hate relationship I have with murder mysteries and psychological thrillers. Aside from over-exposure — is it possible to search for a new book anymore without coming across the ‘next best thing’ in crime fiction? — I’ve never really been a fan of the, at best morally-grey, tendency to reduce a victim of violence to the starting point for an adventure. Nor do I particularly enjoy police propaganda, no matter how disillusioned or likeable the detectives are. 

Fflur Dafydd, thankfully, mercifully, expertly, has sidestepped these tired tropes and created a story that’s dripping in empathy. Iona’s emotional journey is the focal point, and her arc doesn’t involve her suddenly learning how to investigate murders. Instead we sit with her as she goes through the horrifying aftermath of that night, moving in with her aunt, dealing with parasitic paparazzi, and losing touch with just about everyone who can’t understand what she’s going through. 

Additionally, police presence is reduced to an absolute minimum. Iona’s only contact in the force is the family liaison officer who pops in every now and then to completely change the course of the story and give Iona yet more emotional baggage to haul around.

We also get a glimpse into the last days of Iona’s family members, even if this is only to push the story forward. As well as allowing us into the minds of Urien and Lisa, and Eurov, the perspective-switching chapters give the book a wholly cinematic feel. Cain’s are the only sections that use first-person prose, and his attitude to loss provides a surprisingly warm and refreshingly welcoming respite from Iona’s present hardship. 

Skill

As a budding writer myself, Fflur Dafydd’s most envy-inducing skill is that she manages to make her books blissfully readable without ever sacrificing any necessary introspection. The tightly-wound tension rarely lets up, and yet we see straight to the heart of our two protagonists through stunning, balanced prose.

You’d think this would make The House of Water a slower read. However, even though it doesn’t follow the prescribed path for books of its genre, there are still twists aplenty to keep the pages turning. As the narrative tone demands, unwilling as it is to ignore the difficult bits, the aforementioned emotional baggage is unpacked gently and realistically if not always neatly. 

Coming back to what I said about the marriage between Wales and crime, Fflur Dafydd has unpicked this connection, posing some very poignant questions about the oft-ignored agony of being Welsh in modern Wales. Family, loss and grief, life and death are all themes that get due attention, but by far the most effective, heart-breaking and healing for a domestic reader is the discussion of nationhood. The metaphors may be delicate, but their implications are obvious, providing much for an analytical brain to cling onto in the days after reading. 

As Fflur writes, “Perhaps that’s just what this small country was all about: submersion, drowning, being unable to keep our heads above water.” 

Having said that, there are concessions made to the reader who may not be able to relate so deeply to the Griffri family’s plight. The author includes pronunciations for characters’ names, and the excerpts from Eurov’s encyclopaedia provide an edifying look into Welshness.

Emotional

The House of Water has been named on The i Paper’s list of top crime and psychological thrillers to read in May, and I wholeheartedly agree. Even for those of us who are tired of these books, I can’t help feeling this one deserves a shelf all to itself. 

The emotional angle is admittedly heavy, but the chapters never linger long enough for fatigue to set in. Take it from me, the self-described hater, I read it easily in one day and wished I could forget it all, if only so I could relive the experience of reading it again for the first time. Even now it’s hard to believe that Iona, her family, and her home town of Pont Sulyn aren’t real, because they’ve been so effortlessly supplanted into my imagination. 

Let’s hope this one gets optioned for a series, and fingers crossed it’ll change my mind about the genre’s TV shows too. 

The House of Water was released on 15 May, is published by Hodder & Stoughton and is available from all good book sellers.