A beautiful, painful novel that shows the long lasting impact of childbirth- related trauma and postnatal mental health issues. . Great characterisation and an evocative setting.

A great debut book from a new author that may be worth keeping a watch out for.

This book keeps you drawn into the characters and the plot. We recommend.

STILL WATER by Rebecca Pert
DEBUT NOVEL
Published date: 23 June 2022
NO SPOILERS

I stopped and started this novel. I could not connect with the storyline. Then, 50% through the book, BANG, I had to finish reading! With believable characters, confusion, annoyance with uncomfortable descriptions in the storyline, I found my emotions taking over. The writing style is not quite to my liking but I had to finish, and I did with tears running down my face.

I give a 4 star rating.

I WANT TO THANK NETGALLEY FOR THE OPPORTUNITY OF READING AN ADVANCED COPY OF THIS BOOK FOR AN HONEST REVIEW

'Still Water' by Rebecca Pert deals with the long-term aftermath of a tragic incident of postpartum psychosis compounded by grief. Chilling and unsettling, this novel is also unflinching in confronting this condition. Set in the Shetland Islands, the novel's greatest achievement is in its sense of place, beautifully and evocatively captured.

Still Water follows Jane Douglas who has returned to the Shetlands from Devon. She has clearly suffered from trauma and this is alluded to early on in the book, with clear signs of what has happened. The book is told through two perspectives - Jane's perspective in the present, and the diaries of her mother which she has found and is reading through to try and gain an idea of why the traumatic events in her life have happened, and how they are likely to affect her life moving forward.

The story is gripping and I didn't want to put it down until I had finished. The two perspectives work really well - Jane sees her mother as evil due to events in her childhood and she is unable to move past that point of view. However, the diaries provide a searing reflection on the treatment of women suffering from post partum depression and show the level of misunderstanding in the 70s and 80s. There are really interesting questions around intergenerational trauma, nature vs nurture and the use of medication.

The subject matter is dark but the ending is hopeful (albeit it felt slightly rushed). I would recommend that people check out the trigger warnings before reading the book, as I found some elements difficult, but I also felt they were incredibly accurate, especially the diary entries which document a slow decline and show so many opportunities where I would hope that interventions would today be put in place.

TW - baby death / self harm / suicide / prem birth / murder

"Like running to the highest room in the burning building, the flames will reach her eventually."

Trigger warning: depression, death of a child, abortion

Pert delivered a harrowing non-fiction where we see the protagonist handle generational trauma whilst seeing the effects of post-partum depression play out. It's so rare to read such a dark, consistent unravelling with a happy ending that feels organic, yet Pert writes in a way that has the reader rooting for nothing less.

The book offers a sympathetic look at a woman messed around and left to fester by society and the naturally bleak results that should be expected when medicine and society turn their back on you. Consequently, we meet our protagonist, a woman bruised by her childhood and again, left to the side but this time empowered to make a change and reverse her fortune. The book is dark, it's messy, but in a roundabout way, it's an empowering read.

Thank you to NetGalley for the Arc.

📚 Review - Still Water - Rebecca Pert
Release Date : June 2022
3 🌟🌟🌟
Trigger Warnings : Mental Health - Suicide - Murder - Child Death - Abortion.
Firstly thank to @netgalley for this early copy of the debut from @rebecca_pert_author 👍🏼
👇🏽 Review 👇🏽
A very atmospheric and haunting slow burn. Really well written and Rebacca's use of imagery creates a deep connection by drawing you in to the story and the characters thoughts and experiences.
I enjoyed the dual time line between Jane's mother's diaries and Jane's present day living with the aftermath of her mother's actions .

You are always reading with that sense of foreboding as you as the reader know something terrible has happened and that many people have suffered trauma throughout, whether they are looking back on it or living through it.

Rebecca mentioned in a post that she wrote this whilst pregnant, and a lot of the ideas and feelings came from the anxiety and worry that comes with being pregnant..and I can vouch for that, ( and the crazy dreams you get when pregnant!!...that's my experience anyway!! )...However, my God if you are pregnant or a new mother then please known it's not always as traumatic as Jane's mother found it. I liked however that it also reiterated that nowadays help is there for those who struggle.
A good story, well written 🙌🏽
I'll look forward to the next one from Rebecca Pert 👍🏼

Very good read, really well described. Sometimes a little hard to follow, but well written and very descriptive and build the atmosphere well.

i really enjoyed this book. It was really unusual and had beautiful imagery. The diary parts were just as gripping as the main story which worked very well and is unusual - in general i find two timeframes frustrating. I do agree with the other reviewers that perhaps the ending was tied up a little neatly, but regardless I thought it was a stunning debut.

Very readable, I finished it in a few hours.
There's a sense of unease,as you know that things are never going to end for some of the characters,but it dragged the finding out exactly what happened a bit,with pages filled with slightly dull day to day diary entries.
But aren't day to day lives dull as a whole.
Mostly I've positive thoughts about this book,and will definitely pick up this authour again based on this. .

Amazon blurb: 'When Jane Douglas returns to the Shetland Islands, she thinks she has escaped the dark shadows of her childhood. She carves out a simple life on the bleak, windswept island, working at the salmon fishery and spending quiet evenings at home. And for the first time in her life, she’s happy. Then the body of Jane’s long-missing mother is found in a flooded quarry. Her mother disappeared when Jane was a teenager, following the death of Jane’s baby brother. Jane has spent her life running from her past, living in fear that she has inherited her mother’s demons. Now, Jane must face what actually happened on that fateful, tragic day twenty years ago…'

For me, this is a commute read: enough of a page-turner to distract but ultimately straightforward and too neat and easily resolved to be anything more provocative or exciting. The story uses familiar tropes: the daughter reading her mother's diaries so that we effectively get a dual time narrative, one set in the 1970s, one in the 2000s; the 'that day' structure so often utilised in crime/psychological thrillers where artificial suspense is created by withholding what happened from the reader though the main character remembers it acutely.

With lots of dramatic happenings this teeters on the edge of melodrama, and there are lots of emotional buttons being pressed especially around maternity and pregnancy. The writing is plain and neutral, there's nothing individual or distinctive to give it personality. And while there is significant trauma experienced by Jane, it seems to get resolved instantly at the end which simplified the psychology of the character who sort of snaps out of an emotional state which has haunted her into her thirties - there's a sort of miraculous, with one bound she was free feel about it. The stunning cover is fitting for the story being told, but the text itself is more mundane and familiar that I'd hoped. A bit soap opera for me, but I'm sure plenty of readers will love this.