The Water House: A Novel by Nneoma Ike-Njoku (Hardcover) (PREORDER)

Fiction - Gothic - Thrillers - Suspense - Literary 

RELEASE DATE: 10/13/2026 (WILL SHIP DIRECTLY FROM OUR SUPPLIER'S WAREHOUSE)

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.

AUTHOR BIO: 

Nneoma Ike-Njoku, PhD, was born in Lagos, Nigeria. A MacDowell Fellow, she was commissioned in 2022 to create an original short story for the Newman Wetlands Center, and is the recipient of a Betty Trask Award, as well as grants and residencies from Kimbilio, the Miles Morland Foundation, and Millay Arts, among others. She received her BA in Liberal Arts from St. John's College, where she studied literature, mathematics, and music, her MFA in Creative Writing from Cornell University, and her PhD in English Literature from the University of Georgia. The Water House is her first novel.

Review Quotes:
"With the threat of civil war looming, a young woman returns to the house where her brother died to confront the secrets of her past. Creepy and atmospheric, The Water House gives the gothic novel an intriguingly fresh twist." --Paula Hawkins, bestselling author of The Girl on the Train

"In this atmospheric tale, the mysteries of the past are always hauntingly present, diffusing a quiet dread that Ike-Njoku masterfully controls. The Water House is wonderfully aware of its gothic lit ancestors, and this book joins their ranks valiantly with its spare and unsettling style. I ate this up!" -- 'Pemi Aguda, author of One Leg on Earth and Ghostroots

"Stellar...Ike-Njoku makes the neogothic genre her own, perfectly adapting its tropes to a turbulent setting: the social suffocation and constriction, the supernatural, the high-definition suspense. The writing is starkly beautiful, impressionistic, and dreamlike."
--Kirkus Reviews (starred)