The Water House

A Novel

By: Nneoma Ike-Njoku

An unexplained tragedy. A handsome stranger. A house of ghosts and memories. In this fresh take on the Gothic tale, a young Nigerian woman returns to the family mansion where her brother died—only to find the past ready to consume her.

1967, Nigeria. Celia has been estranged from her family since they banished her to St. Agnes’s reform school after her brother’s death. When the school closes down, she has nowhere to go and no one to write for help.

She secures a job as a typist, marking the beginning of a new chapter; she hopes to leave behind the demons of her past and become a normal, happier person. And when a charismatic yet secretive aspiring politician hires her to be his fiancé, Celia begins to dream of a possible new future. But everything falls apart and Celia, in desperation, returns to her childhood home, the Water House.

There, Celia is confronted by her hostile mother, a past love, and the horrors that the house holds deep in its walls. As a civil war brews in the outside world, Celia begins to suspect that the truth behind her brother’s death might be more sinister than she imagined. In a twist on Jane Eyre and Rebecca, Nneoma Ife-Njoku weaves a mesmerizing story of a woman confronting a home where the past refuses to stay buried.