I was caught by surprise and utterly delighted to see In Great Waters by Kit Whitfield named as a finalist for this year’s World Fantasy Award for Best Novel. Not because it isn’t a terrific book, which it is, but because aside from a few excellent reviews that came out both here and in the UK, there hadn’t been much buzz about this book. Thank you, WFA jury, for altering that situation.
In Great Waters is Kit’s second novel. Her first, published in England as Bareback and in the U.S. as Benighted, concerned a contemporary version of society in which the huge majority take on wolf form once a month and only a few do not. The minority who cannot shapeshift are looked down upon as less than “human,” despised and taken advantage of. Warner Bros. bought the book outright for film development, although no news has come out of that lately.
In Great Waters is something very different, involving intrigue and betrayal in a fantasy analog to Renaissance Europe. In this alternate history, the legends of the deep are true–the people of the ocean are as real and as dangerous as the people of the land. It’s the tale of Anne, the youngest princess of a faltering England, struggling to survive in a troubled court, and Henry, a bastard abandoned on the shore to face his bewildering destiny, finding himself a pawn in a game he doesn’t yet understand.
Congratulations, Kit! You well deserve the notice.
