Winner of the 2023 Independent Press Award for Literary Fiction. "Joseph Howse evokes the literary styles of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky in THE GIRL IN THE WATER, a sprawling, complex and compelling tale of a young Ukrainian girl in the late 1980s at a personal and cultural crossroads. ... The author has composed a book like Tchaikovsky would a symphony; tight, disciplined, yet bubbling with unspoken passion and near-magical allegory." -Rob Errera, IndieReader