An unimaginable apocalypse. A scared young girl. A stubborn old woman. Neither will survive without the other.

THE WATER TAKES
by Sarah Walker
Summit/Simon & Schuster Australia, March 2026
(via Wolf Literary)

Pam is in her mid-seventies, widowed and hiding from the world behind a caustic sense of humour. Her health is declining, and she’s afraid of dying alone, but her most pressing concern is complaining to the council about her waterlogged garden.

When Pam’s ten-year-old neighbour, Charlotte, is foisted upon her, a tentative friendship begins to unfurl, cracking open Pam’s hard exterior.

But the puddles in the garden become pools, and then sinkholes. Nowhere seems safe. With no help coming, Pam and Charlotte can only shelter in place for so long – eventually, they know they must attempt to navigate a catastrophically altered world.

THE WATER TAKES is a work of astonishing literary imagination with the urgent page-turning propulsion of a thriller. Full of surprises and revelations, with a sense of humanity that is never clichéd or sentimental, The Water Takes will make you laugh and cry – and it will stay with you forever.

‘What do you do when the world starts drowning? THE WATER TAKES is haunting, terrifying and still somehow hopeful. Seventy-something Pam is one of the most vivid characters I’ve ever encountered – she made me laugh and roar and weep. I am in awe of Sarah Walker and this book.’ – Kate Mildenhall

‘The Water Takes is a beautifully written blend of looming menace and sharp humour, along with a tender and timely reminder that connection is what saves us when catastrophe hits. This is dystopian fiction that feels as real, as human, as anything I’ve read. A dizzyingly good debut.’ – Jacqueline Bublitz

Sarah Walker is a Naarm/Melbourne-based writer and artist. Her first book, The First Time I Thought I Was Dying, a collection of non-fiction essays about the unruly body in late capitalism, won the 2021 Quentin Bryce Award. She was runner-up in the 2019 Calibre Essay Prize and received the 2020 ABR Victorian Rising Star award. Her work has been shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, the Walkley Awards, the Hammond House International Short Story Prize, the Nillumbik Prize, the Disquiet Literary Contest, the Alpine Fellowship Writing Prize and the Darebin Mayor’s Writing Award. She has been published in The Monthly, Overland, Meanjin, Island Magazine, Kill Your Darlings, the ABR, the AFR, and The Guardian. She is also an award-winning photographer and fine artist, whose work has been commissioned across multiple countries. She is a PhD candidate at RMIT.