The Watermark

By: Sam Mills

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Paperback | 14 August 2025

At a Glance

Paperback
544 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
19.8 x 12.9 x 3.5

Paperback

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Rachel and Jaime: their story isn't simple. It might not even be their story.

Augustus Fate, a once-lauded novelist and now renowned recluse, is struggling with his latest creation. But when Jaime and Rachel stumble into his remote cottage, he spies opportunity, imprisoning them inside his novel-in-progress. Now, the fledgling couple must try to find their way back home through a labyrinthine network of novels. 'And as they move from Victorian Oxford to a utopian Manchester, a harsh Russian winter to an AI-dominated near-future, so too does the narrative of their relationship change time and again. Together, they must figure out if this relationship of so many presents can have any future at all.

The Watermark is a heart-stopping exploration of the narratives we cling to in the course of a life, and the tendency of the world to unravel them. Kaleidoscopic and wildly imaginative, it asks: how can we truly be ourselves, when Fate is pulling the strings?

Industry Reviews

'A novel of scope and ambition... Mills' protagonists treat their absurd bind with absolute seriousness. Farce on the outside, tragedy within: this book is full of horrid laughter' - The Times
'Virtuosic... If you love Doctor Who, you will love this book. It whirls you off on a similarly breathless Technicolor tumble through different eras and genres... really clever' - Guardian
'If you are a fan of geeky, meta-fictional gameplay - and really, why wouldn't you be -then Mills's dazzlingly inventive genre-hopping caper will keep you pleasurably on your toes... Mills's vaulting ambition delivers huge brain-addling rewards' - Claire Allfree, Daily Mail
'Playful, romantic and very, very clever. Like Inception for booklovers. Sam Mills packs more ideas into one work of metafiction than most writers would manage in several lifetimes' - Clare Pollard

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