the drowning people by Richard Mason

“Unthinkable, unseeing, unknowing, I drifted through life until I met Ella. It was she who baptized me; it was she who threw me into the sea of life. And she did it quite unthinkingly, little caring or even knowing how much good or how much harm she might do.”

At twenty-one, James Farrell has the world at his feet. A gifted violinist, his successful career seems assured. Until a chance encounter with Ella changes everything. Ella, bewitching, irresistible, haunted by the ghosts of her family’s past – James cannot help falling in love with her, and she with him. But as the power and dangerous fragility of their relationship overwhelm them, James can only watch helplessly as the most beautiful thing in his life is strangled by deception, betrayal and ultimately murder…