The Water Giant

The Water Giant is a spellbinding family drama following the lives of two siblings – one of them allergic to sunlight – as they escape an abusive home in Pondicherry, spanning Tranquebar, Madras, London and Mumbai. It will draw readers who enjoyed The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy, Everything Under by Daisy Johnson, Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch, and The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak. 

Three fates, wildly braided: A young woman in the middle of her warring parents, her brother who lives in the dark, and a four-hundred-year-old whale.

Everyone knows about the cursed boy of Pondicherry. The boy who is allergic to light. Satya has never left the safety of the dark, his bedroom with windows papered against the sun. But when one of his Appa’s latest visits turns violent and their father reveals a worrying truth to his sister Kannagi, she knows she must make a choice: escape with Satya or risk his life staying there.

Secrets are hard to hear but easy to keep. Kannagi should know, she is her Amma’s daughter after all. In a family where deceit is second nature, Kannagi wrestles with whether to tell her brother about the danger his father poses to him. She can’t risk Satya trying to go back home. She must keep him safe, even if it means carrying on with the lie. Even if it means keeping him trapped all over again. Because Satya is getting over-confident, and if he is exposed to the sun he will die.

Meanwhile, in a museum at the Danish Fort in Tranquebar, the bones of a 400-year-old whale glint in the dark, waiting to be discovered. Satya and Kannagi will each have their own relationship with the bones, but the water giant has a story of its own to tell.