Four teenagers and a feral cat navigate life in Gorbachev’s USSR, in this tragicomedy set against a backdrop of civilizations in decline. The Girl in the Water has launched the award-winning series Next Year’s Snow, a multigenerational saga about innocence, survival, oppression, and choice at the flashpoints of a madly fractured world.

At the centre of this debut is Nadia, a Soviet girl who witnesses her friend’s near-drowning on a remote northern beach. Nadia is an abstract thinker coming to terms with the harsh realities around her. She is a bookworm, a prankster, a wanderer, and a note-taker. She sees people gambling with life and soul for little apparent gain and wonders what she can do to make a difference. Progressively, her life is pulled apart by her family’s migration to Ukraine, a dubious courtship, the Chernobyl disaster, police surveillance, and an Afghan war.

As Nadia comes of age, she finds that the bonds of family and friendship create an inseparable fate: to rescue one another or to drown.

Winner of the 2023 Independent Press Award for Literary Fiction

Winner of the 2023 IAN Book of the Year Awards for Outstanding Multicultural Fiction

“The author includes emotional, compelling scenes with every character.” —Audrey Davis, Independent Book Review

“Joseph Howse evokes the literary styles of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky.” —Rob Errera, IndieReader

“a captivating story that sheds light on the complexities of human nature in times of great change” —Benji Allen, Waikato Independent

“wonderfully written” —Chris Reed, NZ Booklovers

“quite lovely” —Nicky Walker, Radio New Zealand Nine To Noon