All the Water in the World A Novel

A transformative and tender debut novel about a teenage girl and her mother, All the Water in the World is “an exquisite tracing of the tangled lines of mother-daughter love, loss, and grief” (Kirkus Reviews).

Maddy is sixteen. Smart, funny, and profound, she has loyal friends, a mother with whom she’s unusually close, a father she’s never met, devoted grandparents, and a crush on a boy named Jack. Maddy also has cancer. Living in the shadow of uncertainty, she is forced to grow up fast.

All the Water in the World is the story of a family doing its best when faced with the worst, told in the alternating voices of Maddy and her mother, Eve. Hungry for experience, Maddy seeks out her first romantic relationship, finds solace in music and art, and tracks down her father. She continually tests the depths and limits of her closeness with her mother, while Eve has to come to terms with the daughter she only partly knows, in a world she can’t control.

“Readers who loved YA novels like John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars and Nicola Yoon’s Everything, Everything will fall for All the Water in the World, which is heartbreaking and heartwarming in equal measure” (Booklist, starred review).

Karen Raney recently gained an MA in creative writing from Goldsmiths, University of London, with a distinction and was awarded the 2017 Pat Kavanagh Prize for All the Water in the World when the novel was still a work in progress. Born in Schenectady, New York, Raney attended Oberlin College, graduated from Duke University, and worked as a nurse before moving to London to study art. She lives in London, and teaches at the University of East London.