A Dark and Drowning Tide on September 17, 2024
Genres: fantasy
Pages: 384
Goodreads

Lorelei Kaskel, a folklorist with a quick temper and an even quicker wit, is on an expedition with six eccentric nobles in search of a fabled spring. ...

Lorelei Kaskel, a folklorist with a quick temper and an even quicker wit, is on an expedition with six eccentric nobles in search of a fabled spring. The magical spring promises untold power, which the king wants to harness to secure his reign of the embattled country of Brunnestaad. Lorelei is determined to use this opportunity to prove herself and make her wildest, most impossible dream come to become a naturalist, able to travel freely to lands she’s only ever read about.

The expedition gets off to a harrowing start when its leader—Lorelei’s beloved mentor—is murdered in her quarters aboard their ship. The suspects are her five remaining expedition mates, each with their own motive. The only person Lorelei knows must be innocent is her longtime academic rival, the insufferably gallant and maddeningly beautiful Sylvia von Wolff. Now in charge of the expedition, Lorelei must find the spring before the murderer strikes again—and a coup begins in earnest.

But there are other dangers lurking in the forests that rearrange themselves at night, rivers with slumbering dragons waiting beneath the water, and shapeshifting beasts out for blood.

As Lorelei and Sylvia grudgingly work together to uncover the truth—and resist their growing feelings for one another—they discover that their professor had secrets of her own. Secrets that make Lorelei question whether justice is worth pursuing, or if this kingdom is worth saving at all.

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First off, sucker for this cover. Beautiful. Ugh.

Second off, sucker for the writing. Atmospheric. Ugh.

I am shouting about how ethereal the writing of A Dark and Drowning Tide is. Everybody listen to me, please. From page one, you can feel the story wrap around you like a dense fog. This is what I want gothic writing to feel like to me. It just felt so alive.

The characters all had unique personalities and quirks (and trauma). While we got some world building, enough to know what’s happening and enough to understand how it impacts Lorelei specifically, I feel like there’s a whoooole lot of lore we’re missing. And I don’t mean that in a bad way, I mean I want that lore. I appreciate that it didn’t take up a lot of room in this book since it would have taken away from the questing nature of the story, but it’s definitely something I’d love to read more about. I want to be explore the world with Lorelei, documenting all the folklore tales or whatever she chooses to do in the future. There’s unlimited stories to be had.

I will say, the ending was a bit disappointing. Not really the ending itself, but how it played out. It just seemed like a weird miscommunication, or like Saft sort of forced the narrative to get the ending she had in mind. It wasn’t a bad ending, it just pulled me out of the story a little bit with how it happened.

Still, a book worth picking up. Maybe just so you can stare at the cover like I did for awhile. I need artwork in this style, and of these two.

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