‘Until We Drown’ by Ava Morwood

Published by HarperNorth,
9 April 2026.
ISBN:‎ 978-000872467-2 (HB)

Until We Drown is an astonishing novel, its eloquent and elegant prose a delight for those who love poetry, its meditations on life and love transforming a tale of betrayal and revenge into an enthralling work about coming to terms with the vicissitudes of human existence. 

The myth and folklore of the Peak District where Until We Drown is set saturate the story, but its underlying template is the Danish Hans Christian Andersen’s literary fairy tale The Little Mermaid. First published in 1837, it is the ultimately tragic story of a young mermaid princess willing to relinquish her life in the sea – and her voice – to gain an immortal soul and win the love of a human prince. Predictably, Disney has given The Little Mermaid a happy ending, but Andersen was less inclined to sentimentality, and his mermaid had to pay a heavy price for the fulfilment of her dreams. 

Mermaids! Those mythical aquatic creatures crowd the story, which is also replete with imagery of water. At the beginning of the novel Ellie Kellaway, her handsome husband Ethan and their two children, the teenaged Zack and four-year-old Libby as well as a sweet mongrel named Jasper, leave behind their idyllic seaside home in Sandsend to begin a new life three hours’ drive away in an isolated dwelling in the heart of the Peak District. Ellie has not even begun unpacking before Libby finds a crude carving of a mermaid hidden behind a wooden stairway. It is pagan rather than pretty and arouses unpleasant reflections. It was the appearance of a ‘mermaid’ in their lives that had made Ellie decide she and her family must relocate from their happy life near the beach to a house surrounded by pastures, moorland and rough, rocky outcrops. That ‘mermaid’ was a member of a wild swimming group Ethan belonged to in Sandsend, and with whom he’d begun an affair. 

Libby is obsessed with mermaids and delighted when she realizes the Peak District, while landlocked, houses three pools associated with ancient tales of mermaids. Ellie is less entranced, particularly when she learns these mermaids are dangerous creatures fond of luring humans to their deaths in the deep, dark waters. Also, lurking in her own background, Ellie harbors a painful reason to fear drowning. 

With the novel told entirely from Ellie’s perspective, the reader finds her dream of a contented, close-knit family life in their new home shattered almost immediately. It’s not only the ugly carving of the mermaid. She also spies a mysterious figure at the bottom of their garden. Zack begins acting strangely, and Jasper disappears. On a hike, Ellie finds the body of a male figure that, at first sight, from a distance, she fears might be her son. Instead, it is a local man, but the circumstances of his death are unexplained. 

Until We Drown is a treat with its accumulation of twists and turns and acute observations on jealousy and rage and the power of love. Highly recommended.
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Reviewer: Wendy Jones Nakanishi/aka Lea O’Harra.

Ava Morwood was raised in Penistone, South Yorkshire, and still lives locally in a house of creaking doors and crooked walls, with her partner Fergus. She loves exploring the hills and dales with her two hugely enthusiastic Dalmatians and has a penchant for books on folklore and weird history, Earl Grey tea and semicolons. She has won the Shirley Jackson Award for Short Fiction, and her debut thriller The Cold Season, written under the name Alison Littlewood, was a R&J pick.

Lea O’Harra.  An American by birth, did her postgraduate work in Britain – an MA in Lancaster and a doctorate at Edinburgh – and worked full-time for 36 years at a Japanese university. Since retiring in March 2020, she has spent part of each year in Lancaster and part in Takamatsu on Shikoku Island, her second home, with occasional visits to the States to see family and friends. An avid reader of crime fiction since childhood, as a university professor she wrote academic articles on it as a literary genre and then decided to try her hand at composing such stories herself, publishing the so-called ‘Inspector Inoue mystery series’ comprising four murder mysteries set in rural, contemporary Japan. She has also published two standalone crime fiction novels. 

Lea O'Harra – Mystery writer