Thank you to NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review

I was absolutely thrilled to be approved for this and it did not disappoint! My previous experiences with Saft's novels have been a bit all over the place: her highest Goodreads rated book (excluding those yet to be released) A Far Wilder Magic wasn't really my cup of tea and I DNFd about half way through. But I LOVED A Fragile Enchantment, it literally had me giggling over the characters. For this reason, I went into A Dark and Drowning Tide knowing very little, except that it was a sapphic fantasy about a folklorist.

The language around folklore and storytelling is a particular interest of mine, and this meant I had so much love for Lorelei from the first page. And I just want to thank Saft here for championing unlikeable protagonists. I'm not saying you're supposed to hate her (I would. in fact, be stunned if you finished the book without falling in love with her), but she's blunt, dismissive, and sick to death of her colleagues (jealousy not-with-standing). I also felt that her rough edges didn't just exist to be dropped later-on because of some self-reflecting eureka moment - she was so raw and human - loved it!!

Also one of those great examples of fantasy worlds being built up around the characters and plot rather than the other way around. At no point did I feel like I was being made to listen to a history or science lesson in order to understand the magic system or political tensions, and this was undoubtedly further improved by Saft's use of storytelling throughout the novel - with folktale characters reflecting tense relationships in more detail. This as a tool was particularly poignant when it began to examine the way that stories can be used to spin narratives of hope or reinforce prejudices depending on how they're used.