Reading with teafortiffany

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“Sylvia was in the river again.”

Allison Saft, A Dark and Drowning Tide, First Line

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So let’s talk about it!

But first, the data:

So I’m going to break this down between what I liked, what I didn’t like, and my final thoughts with, of course, the result of my 1-5 star rating. I genuinely think this book has enough to talk about between the two and I’m trying to see what the best format will be for these types of reviews. If you have any suggestions, feel free to comment below!

What I Like

Here we are! The good stuff. What is good about this particular book? Well, a fair amount I think.

Let’s start with the world. It’s a fantasy, academic, gothic sort of setting. There are mythical creatures, magic, and an academic system that exists in the background. The main characters are academics in some fashion and they all have their specialties such as folklorist, naturalist, botonist, etc. This is the type of book that I picture with a gray wash and only the important pieces are doused in color or a special sort of light. You have tensions that exist between different classes of people, with a group of people called the Yeva who are considered to be the lowest of the low by many people who believe the myths and rumors about the people.

What I Didn’t Like

The book synopsis tells us that the two main characters, Lorelei and Sylvia, join together when they find their professor dead and work to solve the mystery of who murdered their professor. We know this going into the book. It took 60 pages to get to that part of the plot. This might not bother you but for me, it was slow and I was beginning to wonder when the plot would actually start. I’m not necessarily expecting the plot to begin right from page one but it did seem like it took longer than necessary to get to the part of the plot that I had assumed would be towards the beginning. The whole book was honestly a bit slow for me and I found myself looking at how many pages I had left more often than I really should. This is one book where I might have benefited from reading the ebook version first and then getting the physical book later. If that were the case, I might not have been so impatient, but who knows!

Outside of the pacing, the romance felt a bit awkward and kind of flat. That being said, it’s possible that this is due to the POV we are reading from. Lorelei is not a very emotional character in that sense and it would make sense that it would feel awkward because she is awkward. Still, I would have liked to see it develop a bit more. There are definitely hints here or there about it but when it finally happens, I was happy, but I didn’t get that sort of warm bloom inside of just happiness that I like to see in my romance. I do love the two characters as a couple though. Absolutely cute.

Final Thoughts and Rating

I honestly wasn’t sure how I would feel about this book. The premise was intriguing, and I love a good Sapphic romance and murder mystery. While I was reading it, I had difficulty figuring out how I would feel by the end. I couldn’t really get a feel for the rating until I finished it, and honestly, I’m not mad about that. There were moments where I was happy and moments that genuinely brought tears to my eyes. The characters make this book what it is for me and I can confidently say that this is a high rating book for me. In the end, it came down to how often I thought I would pick up this book again and, while I enjoyed it, I don’t know that it’s something I will pick up very often in the future. Because of that, I ended up giving this book a rating of 4 stars.

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