Bodies of Water

Relishing in its genre coding and richly atmospheric, Bodies of Water is a fascinating debut and demonstrates the promise of V.H. Leslie as a novelist. It's a book for reading by the fire with a blanket ready to draw around yourself as the brilliant chill sets in and takes hold.

Bodies of Water is a modern Gothic masterpiece, a haunting and moving story filled with rich, tender writing and an ending that manages to be both melancholic and uplifting at the same time, it is a confident start to Leslie's novel writing career.

it excels is in its commentary on the treatment of Victorian women as well as its hair-raising and unsettling tone.

Bodies Of Water is a solid article. It's well-researched and it puts a different spin on a well-used format. It's got enough of the history that intrigues many people without treading the same path. Recommended.

And, in the end, neither the heart of this book nor the nature of woman can possibly be reached, for to reach such ends would be to destroy them. The book's ramifications shimmer on - frightful and transcendent in tidal irresistibilities.

The writing is simply gorgeous, at times lyrical and beautiful in its simplicity, with hints of magical realism/folklore and fantasy and the tension was always present throughout. It is quite a creepy, eerie and very atmospheric read and, for someone who has never liked the water much, a damn scary one at times.

Millie remains a haunting presence and influences both outcomes for Evelyn and Kirsten. A real ghostly presence or imagined through some mental disintegration of our protagonists? I'm not quite sure and I don't think it matters. For some reason that I can't articulate, I really liked the book, even though it is a million miles from my preferred reading genre.