Gather the Daughters
Shortlisted for The Arthur C Clarke Award
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'An exceptional debut' Sunday Telegraph
'Obsessed with The Handmaid's Tale? This brilliant book is the one for you' Stylist
'An intriguing, gorgeously realised and written novel which inexorably draws you into its dark heart' Kate Hamer
On a small isolated island, there's a community that lives by its own rules. Boys grow up knowing they will one day take charge, while girls know they will be married and pregnant within moments of hitting womanhood.
But before that time comes, a ritual offers children an exhilarating reprieve. Every summer they are turned out onto their doorsteps, to roam the island, sleep on the beach and build camps in trees. To be free.
At the end of one of such summer, one of the younger girls sees something she was never supposed to see. And she returns home with a truth that could bring their island world to its knees.
'A skilful novel full of suspense' Guardian
'It's a richly envisioned world, the strange isolation of which Melamed is excellent at teasing out slowly' Independent
'Obsessed with The Handmaid's Tale? This brilliant book is the one for you' Stylist
'An intriguing, gorgeously realised and written novel which inexorably draws you into its dark heart' Kate Hamer
On a small isolated island, there's a community that lives by its own rules. Boys grow up knowing they will one day take charge, while girls know they will be married and pregnant within moments of hitting womanhood.
But before that time comes, a ritual offers children an exhilarating reprieve. Every summer they are turned out onto their doorsteps, to roam the island, sleep on the beach and build camps in trees. To be free.
At the end of one of such summer, one of the younger girls sees something she was never supposed to see. And she returns home with a truth that could bring their island world to its knees.
'A skilful novel full of suspense' Guardian
'It's a richly envisioned world, the strange isolation of which Melamed is excellent at teasing out slowly' Independent
- Published: Apr 05 2018
- Pages: 448
- 196 x 126mm
- ISBN: 9781472241726
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Press Reviews
Kate Hamer
An intriguing, gorgeously realised and written novel which inexorably draws you into its dark heart
Julie Cohen
Gather The Daughters is extraordinary, powerful, and harrowing-and yet hopeful in its portrait of the human spirit and the endurance of love. This is a visceral book on all levels and it is haunting me still
- Kirkus Reviews
A terrifying work of speculative fiction ... Melamed is a masterful writer, and she establishes a hauntingly vivid atmosphere....This is a haunting work in the spirit of The Handmaid's Tale-but Melamed more than holds her own. Fearsome, vivid, and raw
- Publishers Weekly
Melamed's haunting and powerful debut blazes a fresh path in the tradition of classic dystopian works...a searing portrayal of a utopian society gone wrong...Melamed's prose is taut and precise. Her nuanced characters and honest examination of the crueler sides of human nature establish her as a formidable author in the vein of Shirley Jackson and Margaret Atwood
- Red Magazine
Gather the Daughters is an always-compelling and sometimes-shocking read as the horrific secrets of the island are slowly revealed. I read it in one sleep-deprived sitting
- The Big Issue
At times harrowing in its depiction of cruelty, at other times joy-filled and buoyed by the spirit of liberated girlhood, this is an exhilarating, feminist cry-out, which I hope finds a wide readership
- Daily Mail
A chilling, vividly realised feminist novel that propels the reader into the dark heart of a cruelly repressive and sinister society
- Irish Independent
An assured, lyrical and vivid debut
- Stylist
Obsessed with The Handmaid's Tale? This brilliant book is the one for you
- Independent
It's a richly envisioned world, the strange isolation of which Melamed is excellent at teasing out slowly
- Sunday Telegraph
An exceptional debut
- Guardian
A skilful novel full of suspense
- Daily Express
[A] dark, compelling debut... At a time when it feels as if women's rights around the world are being slowly eroded this absorbing novel is both gripping and to-the-bone chilling. Melamed is definitely a talent to watch.
- Daily Mail, top debuts of 2017
An obvious comparison is Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, and Melamed is more than equal a writer. Her prose is exact, the premise chilling and her characters all too plausible