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A review by beforeviolets
A Dark and Drowning Tide by Allison Saft
5.0
Thank you to the author for sending me an ARC! This is my honest review!
Bleeding with folklore, adorned in the atmosphere of a sentient forest, and hung with tension and yearning so thick you can feel it like a mist curling around your heart, A DARK AND DROWNING TIDE is the Jewish, sapphic romantasy of my dreams.
Call me delusional but I’m convinced Allison Saft wrote this book for me. (Sapphic, check! Jewish MC, check!! Folklore-heavy, check!!! Discusses antisemitism in fairytales as a major theme, check?! Sentient forests, check!! Dark academic elements, check!!!! The only thing missing that would make this My Dream Book is a Shakespeare element.)
A DARK AND DROWNING TIDE has been luring me in like a siren song since its announcement, calling my name as it pulled me into its alluring tide. And as soon as my toes hit the water, I was torn beneath the surface and down into its depths by my ankles. My lungs swelled with rich atmosphere, my eyes burned with the salty sentimentality of the characters, and my throat sang with the reverberations of gorgeous prose as this story swallowed me with a gulp.
We enter a world of fantasy, of fairytale, and of mystery, as Lorelai Kaskel–a folklorist–sets out on an expedition with six nobles to seek out a fabled magical body of water for the king. But when she finds her mentor–who is also the expedition’s leader–dead in the middle of the night, tensions grow high. Lorelai must work with her academic rival, Sylvia von Wolff, to solve her mentor’s murder, all while taking over the leadership of the expedition and dealing with political and emotional turmoil of her own. Not to mention the dangers that lay beyond in the forest ahead and in the court back home. Oh, and all of her peers hate her. As she makes her way through the thick foliage of a political and literal landscape, Lorelai has to decide what risks are worth taking and who is worth trusting.
Then the melody of this book’s themes soothed me like a monster’s caress: its tender yet sharp exploration of fairytales and the prejudice that lies within them. I felt so seen by our main character that it ached. Her Jewishness and her experience with antisemitism profoundly colors her worldview and therefore the entire book. Its pages are saturated with the hues of hatred I’ve grown to know all too well, as Lorelai struggles with the way she’s been painted as a villain or a witch or a monster just for existing as herself. As a Jew. And the grief and survivor’s guilt and fear and pain that comes with that existence.
But the bloody and fatal sting of this book’s siren’s kiss was its romance. Alexa, play Abstract (Psychopomp) by Hozier. There was so much heart-wrenching angst and the characters burned with such yearning and desire, they left scorch marks in my heart. I found myself making noises that were far too inhuman (maybe some of the wildness of this book worked its way down my throat and into my vocal chords). I’ve been craving a sapphic romantasy that gets the tension just right, and Allison Saft absolutely delivered on this front.
I’m not sure I’ve quite emerged from Saft’s taloned and tranquilizing grasp. And if I ever do find my way back to the surface, my water-logged heart will never quite be the same.
If you’re looking for a sapphic Jewish story with the perfect blend of fantasy, folklore, dark academia, and romance that will seize your heart and tear your hair out and linger like a ghost long after you’ve left it behind, run and do not walk to pick up A DARK AND DROWNING TIDE. (The alp will get you if you don’t.)
CW: death, murder, antisemitism, eugenics, colonization, grief, loss of sibling, blood & gore, violence, dead body, injury detail, drowning, drugging, fire, emesis, alcohol consumption
Bleeding with folklore, adorned in the atmosphere of a sentient forest, and hung with tension and yearning so thick you can feel it like a mist curling around your heart, A DARK AND DROWNING TIDE is the Jewish, sapphic romantasy of my dreams.
Call me delusional but I’m convinced Allison Saft wrote this book for me. (Sapphic, check! Jewish MC, check!! Folklore-heavy, check!!! Discusses antisemitism in fairytales as a major theme, check?! Sentient forests, check!! Dark academic elements, check!!!! The only thing missing that would make this My Dream Book is a Shakespeare element.)
A DARK AND DROWNING TIDE has been luring me in like a siren song since its announcement, calling my name as it pulled me into its alluring tide. And as soon as my toes hit the water, I was torn beneath the surface and down into its depths by my ankles. My lungs swelled with rich atmosphere, my eyes burned with the salty sentimentality of the characters, and my throat sang with the reverberations of gorgeous prose as this story swallowed me with a gulp.
We enter a world of fantasy, of fairytale, and of mystery, as Lorelai Kaskel–a folklorist–sets out on an expedition with six nobles to seek out a fabled magical body of water for the king. But when she finds her mentor–who is also the expedition’s leader–dead in the middle of the night, tensions grow high. Lorelai must work with her academic rival, Sylvia von Wolff, to solve her mentor’s murder, all while taking over the leadership of the expedition and dealing with political and emotional turmoil of her own. Not to mention the dangers that lay beyond in the forest ahead and in the court back home. Oh, and all of her peers hate her. As she makes her way through the thick foliage of a political and literal landscape, Lorelai has to decide what risks are worth taking and who is worth trusting.
Then the melody of this book’s themes soothed me like a monster’s caress: its tender yet sharp exploration of fairytales and the prejudice that lies within them. I felt so seen by our main character that it ached. Her Jewishness and her experience with antisemitism profoundly colors her worldview and therefore the entire book. Its pages are saturated with the hues of hatred I’ve grown to know all too well, as Lorelai struggles with the way she’s been painted as a villain or a witch or a monster just for existing as herself. As a Jew. And the grief and survivor’s guilt and fear and pain that comes with that existence.
But the bloody and fatal sting of this book’s siren’s kiss was its romance. Alexa, play Abstract (Psychopomp) by Hozier. There was so much heart-wrenching angst and the characters burned with such yearning and desire, they left scorch marks in my heart. I found myself making noises that were far too inhuman (maybe some of the wildness of this book worked its way down my throat and into my vocal chords). I’ve been craving a sapphic romantasy that gets the tension just right, and Allison Saft absolutely delivered on this front.
I’m not sure I’ve quite emerged from Saft’s taloned and tranquilizing grasp. And if I ever do find my way back to the surface, my water-logged heart will never quite be the same.
If you’re looking for a sapphic Jewish story with the perfect blend of fantasy, folklore, dark academia, and romance that will seize your heart and tear your hair out and linger like a ghost long after you’ve left it behind, run and do not walk to pick up A DARK AND DROWNING TIDE. (The alp will get you if you don’t.)
CW: death, murder, antisemitism, eugenics, colonization, grief, loss of sibling, blood & gore, violence, dead body, injury detail, drowning, drugging, fire, emesis, alcohol consumption