A poignant novel about infatuation, class, and obligation.

On a summer’s day in 1955, in the village of Starome, the drowned body of young Danny Masters is discovered by three of his teenage friends: Alexander, the volatile heir to Richmond Hall, the country estate that neighbours Starome, and sister and brother, Lennie and Tom, whose father is land agent to the Richmond family. How did Danny Masters die?

‘Child of nature’ Lennie is in love with volatile Alexander, but is he in love with her or merely playing with her? Alexander’s mother has been a widow for less than a year, and yet her husband’s brother seems always to be by her side.

In the weeks that follow the tragic drowning, the river begins to give up its secrets. As the circumstances surrounding Danny’s death emerge, other stories gradually come to the surface, threatening to destroy an entire way of life.

Karen Powell
Karen Powell was born in Rochester, Kent. She left school at 16 but returned to education as a mature student to study English Literature at Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge. She lives in North Yorkshire. An early draft of The River Within was awarded a Northern Writers’ TLC ‘New Fiction Reads’ prize, which seeks to support work-in-progress by new, emerging and established writers across the North of England.

• Sep 23 2020
  “Evocative and engrossing”
  — Heat Review