AHH this book is SO GOOD! I was so lucky to get a copy and I'm so grateful I did. I read this in two sittings because I could not put it down, but I wished I'd taken my time to draw it out and savor it. I already preordered a physical copy so I can reread it in the fall—it's the perfect cozy fall read.

There were a couple things I didn't love, a couple things that were too convenient/just there to move the plot along, but I didn't really care. The vibes and the story just swept me away. I loved Effy and Preston and them together. This is a long book and I honestly wished it was longer, even a duology perhaps? There was a lot that I felt lacked the depth I craved and there was so much more to be done with the characters and the world. But I very much enjoyed it and would recommend this to anyone who wants a properly gothic atmosphere and mood.

A Study In Drowning is set within the world of dark academia, in a crumbling mansion on a cliff, and in a dark and dreary sea side town. It’s a mystery, a dark fairytale, and a slow burn romance. It’s filled with tons of metaphors and foreshadowing, and offers gorgeous imagery and settings. The character relationships thoughtful and dynamic.

The characters in A Study In Drowning, Euphemia Sayre, a Llyrian, of the Architecture College, and Preston Héloury, an Argantian, of Literature College come from different places of the world and different backgrounds. The Argantians are more skeptical and have less belief in the saints and myths of the Llyrian people of the North. The Llyrian people rely heavily on the myths of The Fairy King, changelings, saints, and other mystical tales. They see them as reality. The people of Argantia see the stories of the North as some mumbling metaphor.


Effy Sayre has had a difficult time at college. She has had a professor take advantage of her, and has been victim blamed relentlessly by her fellow classmates at college. On top of that, she also has a terrible mother who denies her any real compassion. These events and experiences compiled have left her with a disparaging relationship with herself and others. Her favorite book Angharad, written by Emrys Myrddin is her only escape. She’s read it cover to cover over a hundred times and has memorized every passage.

The book Effy is obsessed with, Angharad, is a story about a young woman named Angharad, and the Fairy King, a vicious and fierce looming creature who ascends from the sea dripping in tepid water, whose relationship mirrors the dark experiences of Effy’s past.

When Emrys Myrddin passes away, his son Ianto sends a letter to the college of Architecture to request that students apply to write blueprints to rebuild the crumbling foundation of the Myrddin estate.

The estate is set on the ocean side cliffs near what’s known as “the bottom hundred”. A sea that drowned what was once a thriving town of people crashes violently against the steep rock formations bellow the mansion. It’s feared that a second drowning is coming any time now, and the superstitions and tensions rise as the next encroaching storm approches. The Myrddin estate is creaking, swaying, rotting, and falling to ruins. It seems an insurmountable task to build additions within this slanted foundation. Non the less, Effy applies, and is accepted for the role of architect for the Myrddin Estate, and excitedly and nervously accepts.

I loved how this book’s plot is centered around a book, while the book the main characters are focusing on is also parallel to the characters. The slow burn romance is dreamy, as are the characters. The overall plot is a gothic dream of long hurried secrets, creeping looming violence, ghostly apparitions, strange and unruly men, and naturally crumbling cliffs along roaring sea side.

This was an absolute treasure of a book. It adresses the serious and harsh reality of the power struggles women face everyday in just about every environment we find ourselves in. But what this book also does is offer an escape. A place to process these evils while also feeling a myriad of magic and romance. Well done Ava Reid. I’ll read anything you publish.

I received this books as an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review.

This book was beautifully written, a story of a young woman fighting her own demons and not being able to trust her knowledge that they're real. Dismissed as young, flighty, inconsequential, Effy is used and taken advantage of her whole life, and finds comfort in a fairy tale. Given a chance to design the home of her favorite author, she jumps at the chance and the escape. Stuck in a a crumbling place, where her fairy tales seem more real than ever, working with her foil, Effy does what she always has - she survives. And in doing so, she links her experience to the story she loves, the story young women everywhere know too intimately.

This was my first book by this author, but I may need to go read more. It starts a little slowly, but I think that's meant to mirror the slow rolling dread Effy feels as the storm comes closer and the danger becomes more real.

3.5/5, rounding up to 4 here. The writing in this book is beautiful. Reid's descriptions paint such a vivid picture of the surroundings. There were a few points during my read that felt like I wasn't quite connecting the dots, or that things we're suddenly dropped from the plot. Overall, I really enjoyed the slow-burn romance and the incredible atmosphere so much that I really don't care if the storytelling wasn't flawless.

I love this book violently. I am feral, I want to tattoo it onto my body somehow. The prose is gorgeous and lyrical, with all the romance, lushness, and horror of a fairytale, but with the added brilliant element of the story-within-a-story. The love story is so electric and sweet and the overarching themes of trauma recovery, sexual violence, and the ways women's intellectual and artistic production is silenced and demeaned are so brilliantly woven together. It's incredible that the worldbuilding is so rich and successful given it's a standalone that's also about so many other things. A million weepy stars.

I picked up this book without reading any of Ava Reid's previous works mainly based on seeing shared posts and recommendations by one of my favorite authors, Allison Saft, and was not disappointed. In A Study in Drowning, Reid expertly balances the cozy vibes of knit sweaters, warm fires, and shared body heat of the blossoming relationship between Effy and Preston with the dark, dripping horror of the impending Drowning. As the books starts to pick up, the pacing really feels like we are racing the storm to uncover the mysteries of Hiraeth Manor.

It was exciting to follow along with a familiar face in this new story! I absolutely adore books that take place in an academy setting, books that have fantasy elements ... put the two together and I was so excited! Unfortunately, it was a little darker than I was expecting and well ... creepy lol but I enjoyed the characters and their development, and the writing is exceptional!

A Study In Drowning is Ava Reid's follow up stand alone novel after her crazy success with Juniper & Thorn. Many of her fans found Reid through Juniper & Thorn based off of #BookTok and I daresay they will love the dark academia setting of A Study in Drowning.

Readers will follow Effy Sayre to the mysterious and crumbling Hiraeth Manor where she and somewhat rival scholar Preston Héloury will have to match whit and wisdom to unearth dark forces surrounding reclusive author Emrys Myrddin's legacy and his crumbling estate. Read this book in the dark of night, or buried under the covers on a dark and stormy day for the best atmospheric immersion.

A STUDY IN DROWNING is my first experience with Ava Reid’s writing. This is also marketed as their first young adult novel…it’s definitely upper YA and leans toward the darker side.

It’s CREEPY. Like, I really don’t know any other way to say it, but “haunted” houses really make my skin crawl, and I loved every word of it.

The book does touch on mental illness, which brings a whole extra layer to the story. There are things happening to Effy, and it’s hard for the reader to know if it’s really happening, or is it all in her head.

This is a true rivals to lovers story. Both Effy and Preston are highly like-able and relatable characters. And it’s romantically beautiful!

ARC provided by NetGalley

**Go pre-order this now and submit your receipt so you can get that bonus scene from Preston’s POV!!

I really can’t say much ask I will spoil this for the world and I do not want to do that. So I will say that I loved everything about this book. I loved the story, the plot, the characters, etc. I highly recommend this book to everyone. Also I already preorder the book back in the spring and can’t wait for my physical copy to get into my hands.

I don’t know how Reid keeps getting better with each book, but this one takes the cake. This is the most beautiful, heart-wrenching, dark book I’ve ever read. I was crying and swooning throughout the entire thing. What seems like a dark academia novel filed with gothic fairy tales turns out to be an epic love story not just between Effy and Preston but for literature in general. This is perfect in every way and I am so grateful to have been given an early copy of it. I think any lover of literature should read this book as it truly pulls at the passion that every book lover possesses. Truly beautiful, well done.

A Study in Drowning is, not an exaggeration, a masterpiece. I’ve been an Ava Reid fan since The Wolf and the Woodsman but their newest instalment has made it extremely obviously to be that she will forever be one of my favourite authors. Their ability to meld together folklore, tender romance, a truly gripping plot and a nuanced portrayal of trauma and recovery is absolutely masterful. A Study in Drowning hit me right in the stomach, drawing up feelings around growing up as a girl trying to proof herself, of wishing to take up space, and of navigating the dangerous waters of who to trust— including yourself.

Drawing from Welsh folklore, ASID follows the story of Effy, a young student of architecture, though her true passion lies in literature, even if the school doesn’t permit women. When she gets the chance to design a home for her favourite author Myrddin‘s son at their ancestral home, she jumps at the chance despite her fear of what she might uncover while she’s there. At Hiraeth, Effy encounters a smug and mercurial fellow academic, a boy called Preston, and Myrddin’s son. Soon, Effy and Preston join forces to investigate the mysterious authors legacy, especially around Effy’s favourite story Angharad, or the story of a young woman and the fabled Fairy King. As Effy and Preston draw closer to the truth and myth comes to life, they realise the origin to the story might be far closer than they ever could’ve imagined.

Gothic and sea worn, Hiraeth provided a wonderful backdrop to the story and added a great sense of foreboding reminiscent of some of the best ‘house’ novels I’ve ever read. The Welsh scenery really came through and I liked the modern touches as well. Ava is truly talented at creating atmosphere and driving up the tension with the environment. I loved Effy and Preston’s story, and Effy’s slow acceptance that she was indeed in a romance. She’s anxious and soft, eager to please and desperate to be understood. I resonated with her so much and she’s made her way to one of my favourite characters of all time.

Like all of Ava’s work, ASID is raw and vulnerable, dark but yet carrying an unassailable torch of light that leaves you feeling hopeful at the end of it. I absolutely adored this story and feel truly honoured to continue to see how Ava develops as an author.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an arc of the book. It was an interesting read. I enjoyed the plot and setting.

This is one of the most engrossing and intense books I've ever read. It's not a thriller, and it only has a smidge of horror. But it also had me on the edge of my seat for a scene of our protagonist getting out of a car -- twice!
(I think the first exiting-a-car scene is my favorite moment of the book.)

This is the story of Effy, an architecture student in 1930's fantasy Wales. She is under intense pressure from her all-male classmates, and so it's a dream come true when she gets to escape to a remote project. She goes into the countryside to design a renovation of the manor of her FAVORITE AUTHOR OF ALL TIME. Effy is obsessed with the novel Angharad, a tale of a woman fighting the Fairy King. It's Effy's favorite because she hallucinates the Fairy King stalking her, and the novel is the only thing that makes her feel sane. However, the manor house is not the escape she wanted, as a rival student also has a project there, and the Fairy King lurks close in the wild cliffs.

It's a coming of age story. It's hauntingly gothic. It's a romance. It's a book that is playing with what fantasy stories mean, in a very metatextual way. Sometimes it feels like realistic dark academia, sometimes urban fantasy with a side of horror. It's YA, in a way that is accessible without ever being annoyingly teenagerish.

I love it. I'm obsessed with this beautiful novel. It's so emotional and raw and poetic and mysterious.

A video review will be on my Youtube channel, @ChloeFrizzle, in the coming weeks.

Thanks to Netgalley and HarperTeen for a copy of this book to review. All opinions are my own.

Thank you so much to Harper Collins and NetGalley for allowing me the absolute privilege of reading this book as an eARC in return for my honest opinion.

"You don't have to take up a sword. Survival is bravery."

Where do i even begin with this book? How can I accurately write a review for something that turned me into a complete mess for the last 60% of the book? I thought I should maybe sleep on it and write a review once
I have been able to fully process what I just read but my overwhelming need to get it out overruled that idea.

This book is for the woman who have felt like they've never had anyone take them seriously. For the women who have been told they're being hysterical for speaking about their pain or suffering. For the women who have been told they will never amount to anything.

This is the first book I have read by Ava Reid and I have already purchased her other works. There is something about her writing that just buried itself deep in my chest. The pages of A Study in Drowning contained everything
I love in a book; fantasy, a slow burn romance, and women coming into their power.

I saw so much of myself in Effy and so much of my own life experience in hers. I felt so much of her pain, wishing that someone would believe me when I talk about what and who haunts me. Her relationship with Preston was a perfectly paced slow burn and everything I could have hoped for in a romantic sub plot. I haven't been this attached to a set of characters in quite some time and I selfishly wish I could read about what happens once the veil has lifted but I can only hope they stick together and guide each other through the rough waters ahead.

I could write so much more about this book and how much I loved it, but I should probably not get too ahead of myself. But i will say, I cannot wait to get my hands on a physical copy of A Study in Drowning and re-read it all over again.

"You're not just one thing. Survival is something you do, not something you are. You're brave and brilliant. You're the most real, full person I've ever met."

A beautiful blend of gothic horror in a dark academic world. As well as mystery with twists that will have you hanging on to every word and questioning everything. As always, Ava Reid's writing style had me enthralled from the very start.

The characters feel relatable and genuine. Effy, the FMC is attending an all male architectural school where she is demoralized in more than one way. Although Effy has to endure more than any person should, she finds her strength and rises above. Preston, the MMC who also has dealt with varying levels of prejudice was exactly the person Effy needed by her side while trying to survive the road to self-discovery.

Ava brought the romance with this one. The tension and mutual pining was palpable. Effy's inner dialogue had me cackling and blushing. What's not to swoon over when it comes to Preston? He's thoughtful, caring, and protective.

"Effy found she quite liked the idea of him begging her, and a little heat rose in her cheeks at the thought."

5 STARS! This is by far my favorite Ava Reid novel, with Juniper and Thorn coming in at a close second. Highly recommend if you love eerie mystery vibes, feminist elements, academic settings, and lovely characters.

Thank you to netgalley and HarperTeen for an eARC.

Effy Sayre is a struggling student at Llyr’s architecture college. When she’s given the opportunity to redesign the rotting home of her favorite author, the late Emrys Myrddin, she jumps at the chance. When she arrives, she meets Preston Héloury, a truth-seeking literature student digging into Myrddin’s life in search of evidence to discredit him. Together, they explore the depths of a home steeped in secrets and uncover an ugly reality that makes Effy question everything she believes.

This book addresses a lot of heavy things. Mental illness. The weight of history over time. Women in academia. Men abusing power. What art means outside of the hands of its artist. This all lurks in the back of the mind as we follow Effy through this grim, atmospheric, and hauntingly beautiful (and ugly) world. There’s so much to say, but I want to focus on one thing. I was incredibly moved by the visceral way in which mental illness is portrayed here. Effy was raised in an environment that taught her to distrust her mind. Her hardest battle throughout the story is to survive herself. This is something that will resonate with many readers who are still struggling to understand their own minds and trying to find the strength to overcome.

I also truly enjoyed the gothic mystery elements as well as the horror and folklore flickering in an out of the story’s reality. The romance between Effy and Preston was so sweet despite their combative beginning. Their relationship felt like a safe place amidst the stormy darkness. I would absolutely recommend this book to anyone who is a fan of this genre, or who would simply enjoy a thought-provoking read.

Thank you to NetGalley, HarperCollins Children’s Books, and HarperTeen for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

"We must discuss, then, the relationship between women and water. When men fall into the sea, they drown. When women meet the water, they transform. It becomes vital to ask: is this a metamorphosis, or a homecoming?"

I am obsessed with A Study in Drowning. The whole story and setting had me hooked right from the start. Picture a fantasy world inspired by mid-20th-century England/Wales, spiced up with some delightful Welsh mythology. It's like stepping into this Dark Academia vibe where mystery and romance take center stage in a crumbling and damp old house perched on a cliff that is about to be swept away into the sea. It delves into the clash between superstitious folklore and academic skepticism, shedding light on the rotten institutional sexism in academia. Reid nails it by portraying how young women are simultaneously dismissed as insipid and frivolous, yet somehow expected to shoulder the blame for the predatory actions of power-hungry men. I felt an instant connection to our unbearably brave FMC, Effy. She proves that being brave doesn't require the loss of being soft, and her softness is what helps her, and those she cares about, survive. This is a novel that is dedicated to those who survive. The blend of storytelling, lovable characters, gripping mysteries, and a touch of ambiguous fantasy makes this such a wonderful read. Honestly, there's not a single con I can think of. This book is hauntingly perfect.

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 World Building: 5/5
🌊 Plot: 5/5
💫 Pacing: 5/5
🌸 Characters: 5/5
⭐️ Overall: 5/5

This rating only applies to the ebook version of this book (this version). A separate rating will be shown for the audiobook version, for which I strongly advise against using AI for future audiobooks, as they are monotonous and difficult to comprehend.

After hearing only positive things about Ava Reid, I finally got my hands on one of her books. Unfortunately, I am part of the minority who did not enjoy it as much making the author wish they never gave away free advance copies.

The story follows Effy, an eighteen-year-old girl who is forced to study architecture because, in her world, women are prohibited from studying Literature (a fresh change of setting). From a young age, Iffy has been haunted by visions of the Fairy King, making her obsessed with Emrys Myrddin’s epic Angharad, which tells the story of a mortal girl defeating the Fairy King. When Iffy is offered an opportunity to work at Myrddin’s manor, she believes it is destiny working in her favor. However, upon arrival, she meets Preston, a literature student who threatens to interfere with her plans.

If I could rate only the last three chapters, the book would have a different rating. For me, those chapters felt like a separate story from the one I was listening to/reading; as if the narrative was focused on showing the reader a confusing and disconnected line of events that had, and at the same time didn’t have, anything to do with the final message. Miss Reid should have focused more on that message instead of throwing many subplots together such as fantasy, romance, Effy’s “oddness,” and the dark academic vibes.

The romance, which Ava considers a “true” romance book, was one of the elements that made me reconsider my rating. While Iffy and Preston made a good couple and nothing was rushed between them, the moments of intimacy felt awkward. Despite this, Preston deserves praise for being a gentleman willing to change the patriarchal system—the perfect combination of the perfect gentleman ready to fight the laws that held women back, but with enough skepticism to handle Effy’s fears.

I read on Goodreads that Ava mentioned she wrote this book for the survivors, “the people who aren't believed, who don’t have ownership over their own narrative, who tell themselves stories in order to cope." Once you get to the final pages you realize that this is a story of survival against the odds, a sad reminder of how many are silenced and mistreated to make room for others or simply because they lack empathy. For this reason, I highly recommend "A Study in Drowning." Don't give up after the first few chapters; the ending is worth it.

This is such a phenomenally written book. The dark watery mysterious vibes were palpable and Effy represents so many of us women trying to survive the undertow of societal expectations. sometimes the pacing in the story lagged a little for where my imagination wanted to go but overall this was one of the best reads of 2023 so far and I’m really excited for the journey ahead for Ms. Reid.

I love that the female lead held qualities of humility AND strength. She was never one without the other and I felt so seen in her transparency. Excellent book. Well done Ava!