A bold first novel bewitches Jaine Blackman

At the beginning of The Well, Ruth is alone, hated, and under house arrest. Set in a modern-day Britain where it has not rained for three years except on her piece of farmland — The Well — the story unfolds in flashback.

It tells how Ruth and husband Mark moved there looking for a sanctuary, how they dealt with the blessing and curse of rain in the face of a devastating nationwide drought.

It is part Aga saga, part psychological thriller, part dystopian vision ... and all round jolly good read. The memorable first novel by Oxford resident Catherine Chanter, 56, The Well is on the verge of being an international bestseller.

It’s published in the UK today and publishers have snapped it up in Australia, the US, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Spain, France, Italy, Japan and Turkey.

When it was chosen as winner of the 2013 Lucy Cavendish Prize for Unpublished Fiction, judge Allison Pearson said: “The Well was so astoundingly assured that we wondered if AS Byatt had adopted a pseudonym to see if the judges would overlook a brilliant writer. But we [the judges] didn’t.

“This riveting story has the pulse of a thriller combined with a futuristic evocation of a Big Brother society and a fable of humans faced with limited resources.”

With a mystical quality as Ruth is hailed as a “chosen” woman, it reminded me in some ways of Margaret Atwood’s writing.

Characters are very real despite unreal circumstances. And there is tension from the beginning, plus anticipation of a tragedy. The writing is so powerful I felt myself hoping it wouldn’t happen even as it approached.

I found myself skimming over some “mystical” sections, and if you like reasons and explanation for everything you will be disappointed.

But as a whole this book is thought-provoking, entertaining and likely to linger long in the mind.

The Well
Catherine Chanter
£12.99, Canongate