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adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
alexa play "what is this feeling?" from wicked: the musical soundtrack
Thank you to Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group for providing me with a digital ARC of this book!
Thank you to Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group for providing me with a digital ARC of this book!
An alluring blend of folklore and magical intrigue, A Dark and Drowning Tide is a sapphic fantasy romance perfect for fans of Ava Reid and Freya Marske.
We are drawn into a world of fantasy, fairytale, and politics inspired by nineteenth-century Germany as Brunnestaad is still in its infancy after its king, Wilhelm, completed the campaign for unification his late father had started, unifying the different provinces under one kingdom. With unification tenuous and threats still beyond their borders, Wilhelm orders an expedition to find the Ursprung, a mythical spring that can grant unbridled magical power in order to secure his reign.
Enter Lorelai Kaskel: a folklorist tormented by guilt and grief at the murder of her younger brother, turned cynical by the path she chose that led her to be named co-leader of the expedition alongside her mentor, Professor Ziegler. Succeeding in finding the spring is her one chance at freedom. Lorelai is a Yevani, a ethnoreligious minority in the world of Brunnestaad who have been persecuted for centuries and whose movements are heavily restricted. She’s determined to see this through and be granted authority by the king to travel the world and fulfill her dream of becoming a naturalist.
This dream is ruptured when her mentor and the leader of the expedition is found murdered in the dead of night, all of her notes and journals vanished without a trace. Each member of the expedition is a suspect with their own hidden motives. Lorelai must work with her academic rival, Sylvia von Wolff, to solve the murder while assuming leadership of the expedition as more dangers lay ahead—mythical monsters, forests that rearrange themselves at night, and tensions simmering among the remaining members of the expedition.
I cannot reiterate enough that fantasy with unapologetically Jewish elements has become one of my favorite subgenres. I think part of it is that antisemitic tropes have been so deeply ingrained into the fabric of fantasy and fairytales, which is a key element of A Dark and Drowning Tide. As a folklorist, Lorelai is deeply familiar with the ways in which the Yevani have been portrayed through fables and fairytales. We are told many of them that echo our own—most notably The Jew Among Thorns, a fairytale collected by the Brothers Grimm, becomes The Yeva in the Thorns. Saft and many other Jewish fantasy writers are intimately aware of this and use fantasy as a way to engage in a conversation about that history, which makes their writing all the more refreshing.
Allison Saft is a master in the craft of yearning and a well-built slow burn. Her writing style is exquisite, always deeply evocative and heart-wrenching as she unfurls the layers of her main characters until their bloody, still-beating hearts are exposed on paper. I fell in love with Lorelai and Sylvia von Wolff and found myself letting out guttural, inhuman noises at their frustrated yearning. (A tried and true sign of a masterful romance, if I may say so.) If you’re a fan of rivals to lovers and unabashed sapphic desire, this book will pull you under its current like a riptide and leave you gasping for air.
At its core, A Dark and Drowning Tide is a bruising love letter to folklore, an unabashed confrontation of the prejudices that lie at the center of many fairy tales, and a burning but tender love story.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Grief, Murder
Moderate: Cursing, Death, Hate crime, Antisemitism
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an eARC of this copy in exchange for my honest review.
Holy shit, oh my god, Saft blew this out of the water, pun fully intended. The story follows Lorelei and Sylvia, academic rivals going on an expedition to find the Ursprung, the source of all magic. Their journey gets on its way and is almost immediately upended by the murder of their professor. Lorelei and Sylvia have similar and independent reasons for wanting to solve the mystery of who committed the crime, and the audience gets the absolute pleasure of seeing their relationship evolve through the stress of solving a murder and hunting for the most elusive source of power in the world.
Lorelei is a folklorist filled with so much self-loathing it's almost too much sometimes. She's a Yevani woman living in Brunnestaad, essentially a Jewish woman in Germany pre-WWII (but probably pretty close to it), and the prejudice she suffers has such a huge impact on her personality, mentality, worldview, etc. It's so interesting to see how she interacts with the world and the people around her. I saw things affect her that I've never considered would affect someone dealing with such extreme prejudice; it was really eye opening and made me consider the privilege I have as someone who hasn't dealt with hatred as intense as Lorelei has.
One of the only people who doesn't treat Lorelei differently for who she is, is Sylvia, her academic rival. Sylvia is clever, kind, adventurous, brave to a fault, and doesn't give a damn what anyone else thinks of her. She's from a less stable part of Brunnestaad, and the others in the expedition refuse to let her forget it. She works just as hard as Lorelei to solve the murder mystery, and as they get closer, she refuses to let Lorelei pull away from her. Sylvia knows what she wants and will go straight for it, diving in head first. It's so fun to see Lorelei be angry with her, and it's even more fun when Lorelei starts to realize why it makes her so mad.
Their relationship just draws you in, and watching them explore it was 10/10. The murder mystery wasn't really full of twists and turns, but I was 95% there for the sapphic love story, so no biggie - it was still very fun. The side characters were really interesting, although I felt like the two women besides Lorelei and Sylvia were pretty similar, to the point where sometimes I forgot who was who. My only other character gripe was that Lorelei was so self-destructive that sometimes it felt like it was too much, like just to add conflict and not strictly because it was a legitimate character choice. I'm more or less willing to let it slide though because of all the hatred and trauma she's grown up with; I can't imagine it would be productive towards a healthy self-esteem.
I also felt like the ending came on a little too quickly so it would end with a neat bow. I wouldn't have minded reading more of the resolution of the problems brought to light at the beginning, and I feel like the book could've been another 50 pages longer and I would have been happy to see more things explained. Instead we get what felt like, "And it pretty much settled down after that," and leave it there for the most part. The ending is still great, don't get me wrong, but I would've liked it better if it had taken a bit longer to get there.
Aside from those minor complaints, let me sing the praises now: Saft's talent is on full display here. The craft, the prose, the storytelling, all of it was wonderful. I finished this and immediately added the rest of her works to my TBR. I can't get over the sheer poetry I found throughout this entire book. The main characters are fully fleshed out, realized people, and you get to know them so intimately, including through the eyes of the other person. The tentative politics of multiple nations being forcibly brought together to make a larger one played a huge part in the story and I enjoyed all of it. The sapphic romance had me kicking my feet and giggling the entire time, and seeing them finally come together was perfect. The magic system is well thought out and it was very fun to see people use it in different ways throughout the story based on their origins, history with it, and environment as the story progressed.
Overall, this is absolutely worth all of the hype you've seen about it, and I will be recommending these stunning water magic lesbians to anyone that will listen to me. Do yourself a favor and read this gorgeous book with this gorgeous cover, it's everything I've described here and so much more.
Holy shit, oh my god, Saft blew this out of the water, pun fully intended. The story follows Lorelei and Sylvia, academic rivals going on an expedition to find the Ursprung, the source of all magic. Their journey gets on its way and is almost immediately upended by the murder of their professor. Lorelei and Sylvia have similar and independent reasons for wanting to solve the mystery of who committed the crime, and the audience gets the absolute pleasure of seeing their relationship evolve through the stress of solving a murder and hunting for the most elusive source of power in the world.
Lorelei is a folklorist filled with so much self-loathing it's almost too much sometimes. She's a Yevani woman living in Brunnestaad, essentially a Jewish woman in Germany pre-WWII (but probably pretty close to it), and the prejudice she suffers has such a huge impact on her personality, mentality, worldview, etc. It's so interesting to see how she interacts with the world and the people around her. I saw things affect her that I've never considered would affect someone dealing with such extreme prejudice; it was really eye opening and made me consider the privilege I have as someone who hasn't dealt with hatred as intense as Lorelei has.
One of the only people who doesn't treat Lorelei differently for who she is, is Sylvia, her academic rival. Sylvia is clever, kind, adventurous, brave to a fault, and doesn't give a damn what anyone else thinks of her. She's from a less stable part of Brunnestaad, and the others in the expedition refuse to let her forget it. She works just as hard as Lorelei to solve the murder mystery, and as they get closer, she refuses to let Lorelei pull away from her. Sylvia knows what she wants and will go straight for it, diving in head first. It's so fun to see Lorelei be angry with her, and it's even more fun when Lorelei starts to realize why it makes her so mad.
Their relationship just draws you in, and watching them explore it was 10/10. The murder mystery wasn't really full of twists and turns, but I was 95% there for the sapphic love story, so no biggie - it was still very fun. The side characters were really interesting, although I felt like the two women besides Lorelei and Sylvia were pretty similar, to the point where sometimes I forgot who was who. My only other character gripe was that Lorelei was so self-destructive that sometimes it felt like it was too much, like just to add conflict and not strictly because it was a legitimate character choice. I'm more or less willing to let it slide though because of all the hatred and trauma she's grown up with; I can't imagine it would be productive towards a healthy self-esteem.
I also felt like the ending came on a little too quickly so it would end with a neat bow. I wouldn't have minded reading more of the resolution of the problems brought to light at the beginning, and I feel like the book could've been another 50 pages longer and I would have been happy to see more things explained. Instead we get what felt like, "And it pretty much settled down after that," and leave it there for the most part. The ending is still great, don't get me wrong, but I would've liked it better if it had taken a bit longer to get there.
Aside from those minor complaints, let me sing the praises now: Saft's talent is on full display here. The craft, the prose, the storytelling, all of it was wonderful. I finished this and immediately added the rest of her works to my TBR. I can't get over the sheer poetry I found throughout this entire book. The main characters are fully fleshed out, realized people, and you get to know them so intimately, including through the eyes of the other person. The tentative politics of multiple nations being forcibly brought together to make a larger one played a huge part in the story and I enjoyed all of it. The sapphic romance had me kicking my feet and giggling the entire time, and seeing them finally come together was perfect. The magic system is well thought out and it was very fun to see people use it in different ways throughout the story based on their origins, history with it, and environment as the story progressed.
Overall, this is absolutely worth all of the hype you've seen about it, and I will be recommending these stunning water magic lesbians to anyone that will listen to me. Do yourself a favor and read this gorgeous book with this gorgeous cover, it's everything I've described here and so much more.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Xenophobia, Antisemitism, Grief, Murder, War, Classism
Moderate: Cursing, Sexual content, Violence, Blood