’Til the Well Runs Dry

The New York Times Sunday Book Review Shortlist
Black Caucus of the American Library Association 2015 Honor Book in Fiction

Booklist Starred Review
O, The Oprah Magazine “10 Titles to Pick Up Now”

A glorious and moving multigenerational, multicultural saga that sweeps from the 1940s through the 1960s in Trinidad and the United States. ‘Til the Well Runs Dry opens in a seaside village in the north of Trinidad, where young Marcia Garcia, a gifted and smart-mouthed sixteen-year-old seamstress, lives alone, raising two small boys and guarding a family secret. When she meets Farouk Karam, an ambitious young policeman (so taken with Marcia that he elicits help from a tea-brewing obeah woman to guarantee her ardor), the rewards and risks in Marcia’s life amplify forever. On an island rich with laughter, calypso, Carnival, cricket, beaches, and salty air, sweet fruits and spicy stews, the novel follows Marcia and Farouk from their sassy and passionate courtship through personal and historical events that threaten Marcia’s secret, entangle the couple and their children in a tumultuous scandal, and put the future in doubt for all of them.

Review
“You’ll hear the calypso music in this vivid debut about a spirited seamstress and devoted mother with a family secret.” ?People
“’Til The Well Runs Dry is unforgettable. Like the best poetry, it has all the high notes: a beautiful girl, a spell that leads to love and death, and a terrible secret — in language pierced with the cries and colors of the West Indies. But this is not just a story; it’s the author’s retelling of her own origins. Sweet, brutal, and unsparing, this is Lauren Francis-Sharma’s first book, yet she commands the page.” ?Jacquelyn Mitchard, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Deep End of the Ocean.

“An evocative and emotionally resonant family saga with one of the most compelling heroines I’ve met in a long time. A story of love, loss, and triumph set in a world of secret and moral consequence. Like the Obeah woman in her story, Lauren Francis-Sharma has cast a spell that refuses to release me. I won’t forget this story or the voice of this wonderful new writer any time soon.” ?Brunonia Barry, New York Times bestselling author of The Lace Reader.