In Great Waters

The intense and imaginative new novel from the author of the acclaimed Bareback.

Ms Whitfield [shows] undoubted powers of imagination and literary talent

It's a brilliantly realised picture of a medieval England that never was, and a Machiavellian meditation on what must be done to seize, wield and maintain power

Kit Whitfield is a graduate of Christ's College, Cambridge and completed an MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. Her first novel, Bareback (published in the US as Benighted) was shortlisted for the Authors Club Best First Novel Award, and longlisted for the Waverton Good Read Award. She lives in London.

In Great Waters is a fictional history both familiar and alien. 
 
In Kit Whitfield's stunning reimagining of the world, an uneasy accord holds between the people of the land and the people of the sea. Without deepsmen guarding its shores, no nation can resist invasion - and without princes born of the royal blood, part landsman and part deepsman, no nation can maintain its allies in the ocean. The royal strain is fiercely protected, and the penalties for unauthorised breeding between landsmen and deepsmen are terrible. 
 
But now the house of England is collapsing under centuries of inbreeding. Anne, its youngest scion, watches her mother's desperate fight to keep the throne stable and prays for a safer world. But hidden away on a secluded estate is Henry, bastard heathen, groomed all his cold, lonely life to make a grab for power. If either of them is to survive the coming conflict, they wil need more than faith alone.

Kit Whitfield

Bareback is neither [quite] horror nor supernatural fantasy, but more a cautionary tale which echoes The Handmaid's Tale or Nineteen Eighty Four...Her story resonates with real issues of power, responsibility and blame

A gutsy debut...it's hard not to cheer on Whitfield's nerve, especially when her plot, a hard-boiled thriller... rattles along at such a pace

Whitfield's debut is a stunning imaginative feat that immerses the reader in a dark, dangerous and entirely believable world

My quirky favourite of the year, a weird, astonishing book...This first novel, a brilliant start, sinks the teeth in and doesn't open its jaw until the last page

Fresh and beautiful... Take your time reading it... It puts you in that reading bubble, ever sought, not often found

Lola is an outstandingly well-realized central character. We get right inside her head, feeling all her emotions vividly... splendidly entertaining

Lola Galley is used to doing things she doesn't want. She certainly doesn't want to be assigned the case of Richard Ellaway, the man who, under a cold full moon, mutilated a good friend of hers. But being a bareback, what she wants and what she gets are seldom the same. 
 
For those born feet-first, life is comfortable, and one night a month they lock themselves in a secure room to fur up in peace. Barebacks, trapped in their human skin and drafted at eighteen into the Department for the Ongoing Regulation of Lycanthropic Activity, don't have it so easy. A full moon means patrolling the silent night in search of transformed citizens breaking the curfew. The rest of the month, DORLA agents mop up the after-effects of the trespasses, the fights and the maulings. 
 
Resignedly, she takes the case - but before Ellaway can be tried, her maimed friend is murdered. Lola wants justice. She'll settle for the truth. But in a divided world, asking for the truth may bring answers that you don't want to hear.

Kit Whitfield

Praise for Bareback

Bareback is neither [quite] horror nor supernatural fantasy, but more a cautionary tale which echoes The Handmaid's Tale or Nineteen Eighty Four...Her story resonates with real issues of power, ...

A gutsy debut...it's hard not to cheer on Whitfield's nerve, especially when her plot, a hard-boiled thriller... rattles along at such a pace

Gritty and original

Bareback is neither [quite] horror nor supernatural fantasy, but more a cautionary tale which echoes The Handmaid's Tale or Nineteen Eighty Four...Her story resonates with real issues of power, ...

A gutsy debut...it's hard not to cheer on Whitfield's nerve, especially when her plot, a hard-boiled thriller... rattles along at such a pace

Gritty and original

Bareback is neither [quite] horror nor supernatural fantasy, but more a cautionary tale which echoes The Handmaid's Tale or Nineteen Eighty Four...Her story resonates with real issues of power, ...

A gutsy debut...it's hard not to cheer on Whitfield's nerve, especially when her plot, a hard-boiled thriller... rattles along at such a pace

Gritty and original

Books by Kit Whitfield

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