C.J. Harter Rowan’s Well

I had the very great pleasure of meeting C.J. yesterday at FACT and the interview can be found here .

Her book Rowan’s Well  is a rip roaring psychological thriller very much in the style of

of Iain Banks or Donna Tartt.  What impressed me the most was the central character of Mark and how difficult it is to keep an audience attached to a chief protagonist who isn’t very likeable.  This lead me to a very though provoking article in the Huffington post by Prof Gottlieb Do we need to Identify with a Protagonist to enjoy a novel? on reader identification and how we contextualise a character.  Mark is certainly a flawed human being, and his actions although aberrant and abhorrent are not just motivational to the character and the plot but intrinsic in our ability to identify and empathize with him.  Mark is flawed but so are we all, in a sense the devil does have the best lines and C.J. goes on to prove this.  Mark is very reminiscent of Alex, the droog protagonist and first person narrator of A Clockwork Orange.  But what makes this book more horrifying and more captivating is that the dystopia it is set in is now and here.  C.J. will be coming to our event Coffee and Books on the 22nd of March but until then I leave you with a little extract from the text  pdf Rowan’s Well by CJ Harter extract.