Under the Water

What does the perfect family have to fear most? The perfect stranger.

From the outside, Frank and Grace seem to have the perfect family. He’s a loving husband, she’s a devoted wife, and together they have two happy children. But appearances can be deceiving. A strange series of misfortunes has left them reeling: an unexplained break-in, a catastrophic accident, and a bizarre poisoning that’s left Grace feeling especially unnerved. Packing up their RV for a move across the country, they’re ready for a fresh start, expecting to leave all their problems safely behind.

Then one night on the road to their new home, the figure of a young woman emerges from the darkness, causing them to swerve off the road. The injured stranger says her name is Mara. Miles from help, they invite her to stay. But Mara is hiding a secret. And she is not the only one.

Was it all just another inexplicable accident? Or have they opened the door to an escalating family nightmare designed to tear their perfect world apart?

Paul Pen is a bestselling Spanish author whose four novels have been translated to English, German, Italian, Russian, and Turkish. His book The Light of the Fireflies has sold more than one hundred thousand copies worldwide, and his debut novel The Warning, which is soon to be published in English for the first time, was adapted to the big screen in 2018. Motion pictures of The Light of the Fireflies and Desert Flowers are also in development, the latter scripted by Pen himself. In his capacity as scriptwriter, Pen is working on a forthcoming Netflix series. The author returns in fall 2019 with the international release of his new novel Under the Water, bringing his unmistakable brand of literary suspense to readers around the globe.

Simon Bruni is a literary translator from Spanish, a language he acquired through “total immersion” living in Alicante, Valencia, and Santander. He studied Spanish and Linguistics at Queen Mary University of London and Literary Translation at the University of Exeter.

Simon’s many published translations include novels, short stories, videogames and nonfiction publications, and he is the winner of three John Dryden awards: in 2017 and 2015 for Paul Pen’s short stories “Cinnamon” and “The Porcelain Boy,” and in 2011 for Francisco Pérez Gandul’s novel Cell 211. His translation of Paul Pen’s novel The Light of the Fireflies has sold over one hundred thousand copies worldwide.

For more information, please visit www.simonbruni.com.