'Anja is a young, ambitious antiquarian, passionate for the clean and balanced lines of mid-century furniture. She is intent on classifying objects based on emotional response and when her career goes awry, Anja finds herself adrift. Like a close friend, she confesses her intimacies and rage to us with candour, tenderness, and humour.
'Cast out from the world of antiques, she stumbles upon a beachside cottage that the neighbouring naval base is offering for a 100-year lease. The property is derelict, isolated, and surrounded by scrub. Despite of, or because of, its wildness and solitude, Anja uses the last of the inheritance from her mother to lease the property. Yet a presence – human, ghost, other – seemingly inhabits the grounds.
'Hydra is a novel of dark suspense and mental disquiet, struck through with black humour. Adriane Howell beguilingly explores notions of moral culpability, revenge, memory, and narrative – all through the female lens of freedom and constraint. She holds us captive to the last page.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
'Have you ever been really stoned with a complete stranger and even though, even in your heightened state, you know that everything that’s happening is just a bit of fun, there’s something so deeply off-putting about watching this stranger become unmoored from themself in front of you that you begin to panic? Consider the following passage from Hydra, Adrianne Howell’s debut novel, in which the protagonist, Anja, alone and unravelling in her secluded beachside property, prepares to take herself out on the town:...' (Introduction)
Adriane Howell for The Stella Shortlist
Astrid Edwards
(interviewer),
2023
26204851
2023
podcast
interview
'A suspenseful debut that explores loneliness, self-destruction and female agency.'
'The covers of two new Australian novels, Hydra and Faithless, play into a current design trend in Australian publishing. Faceless women in various states of melodramatic distress – either flung over furniture, or pictured against blurred or monochromatic backgrounds. Arms, hands or long, dishevelled hair conceal their faces. It’s a trend spurred on, no doubt, by the runaway success of Meg Mason’s Sorrow and Bliss.' (Introduction)
'Have you ever been really stoned with a complete stranger and even though, even in your heightened state, you know that everything that’s happening is just a bit of fun, there’s something so deeply off-putting about watching this stranger become unmoored from themself in front of you that you begin to panic? Consider the following passage from Hydra, Adrianne Howell’s debut novel, in which the protagonist, Anja, alone and unravelling in her secluded beachside property, prepares to take herself out on the town:...' (Introduction)
'A suspenseful debut that explores loneliness, self-destruction and female agency.'
Adriane Howell for The Stella Shortlist
Astrid Edwards
(interviewer),
2023
26204851
2023
podcast
interview
