A Dark And Drowning Tide || Allison Saft ★★★☆☆ Started: 02.02.2025 Finished: 09.02.2025 Lorelei
A Dark and Drowning Tide || Allison Saft ★★★☆☆ Started: 02.02.2025 Finished: 09.02.2025 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. A Dark and Drowning Tide started out as a novel and swiftly devolved into a rushed trope checklist: Enemies to lovers - ✔ Accidental bed / tent sharing - ✔ Miscommunication - ✔ I loved how fairytales were incorporated into the narrative, I just wished the characters were more than fairtytale archetypes - even the two main characters, Lorelei and Sylvia were so one dimensional, it was painful to read at times. As an extension, the romance between them felt… bland. Frankly the entire last third of the novel felt bland, rushed and unearned. Perhaps if the book was longer - or even had a sequel - and the uprising / civil war plotline was more than a throwaway line, it might have been better (then again maybe not, given the underbaked cast of characters).
More Posts from Embracing-the-shortness and Others
Shoutout to Charlie single handedly ruing the 'all arranged marriages work out in Brandon Sanderson works' statistic
Arranged marriage ruiner Georg
Never Let Me Go || Kazuo Ishiguro ★★★★★ Started: 04.04.2025 Finished: 26.04.2025
"Chain your anger in the dark and it will only thrive." - The Will of the Many, James Islington
String || Paul Tobin (Author), Sara Colella (colorist), Taylor Esposito (letterer), Carlos Javier Olivares (illustrator) ★★★★★ Started: 20.02.2025 Finished: 20.02.2025 Thank you to NetGalley and Mad Cave Studios for providing me with an ARC and giving me the opportunity to share my honest review. This vibrantly illustrated graphic novel follows Yoon-Sook Namgung, a 25-year-old Korean-American woman with the unique ability to see two types of “strings” connecting various people: one blue, stretching between intimate partners, the other —dark black— connecting murderers and their victims. She puts her abilities to good use by aiding the police in solving homicide cases, and earns a living by using the blue strings to help people expose their cheating partners. All is good, until one day she discovers a black string connected to herself, and she's set in a race against time to uncover her would be murderer. The story is fast-paced and engaging throughout, and we see Yoon in her element, solving her open cases in an attempt to prevent her murder. I enjoyed seeing her interact with her clients and the suspects in their cases - none of them felt one-dimensional or cartoonish, and it made for a truly compelling story. The easy-going banter between Yoon and Luke, the police officer she were consulting, in particular, was a highlight. Another strength of "String" is the artwork - the entire graphic novel is illustrated in full, vivid color, that only enhances the story - excellent work by Carlos Javier Olivares and Sara Colella! That being said, the graphic novel does include quite a bit of violence and one particular graphic sex panel, so it might not be suitable for a younger audience.
Trail therapy
dgsc
I must admit I am charmed by these little GR reading challenge bookmarks, I just wish the categories included lesser known books, and not just the current TikTok darlings (looking at the Valentines Day challenge with eligible books such as Fourth Wing and the Dark Romance of The Hour)
Hi! I saw you were taking art requests about The Will of the Many, so hear me out: Vis falling from the window at Villa Telimus 😌
But seriously, something cute with Aequa, Callidus and Vis would be nice. I really love their friendship 💕
Thanks! ☺
Themst. Thank you for the request! This was so fun! I need to draw more art but alas...no time. Yet!
I Who Have Never Known Men || Jacqueline Harpman ★★★★★ Started: 11.12.2024 Finished: 25.12.2024 Deep underground, thirty-nine women live imprisoned in a cage. Watched over by guards, the women have no memory of how they got there, no notion of time, and only a vague recollection of their lives before. As the burn of electric light merges day into night and numberless years pass, a young girl—the fortieth prisoner—sits alone and outcast in the corner. Soon she will show herself to be the key to the others' escape and survival in the strange world that awaits them above ground. A hauntingly beautiful novel that is seeped in a profound, hopeless sadness, that is undoubtedly worth your time.
𝔱𝔯𝔦𝔠𝔨 𝔬𝔯 𝔱𝔯𝔢𝔞𝔱! 🎃 happy halloween my friends!
Working 9 to 5, reading 5 to 9. I do occasionally post in Bulgarian.
83 posts