4.75 stars, rounded up to 5!

[Please mind the author's content warnings as found on her website, including but not limited to: antisemitism, nationalism, and violence.]

Pros:
Atmosphere is perfect, not surprising considering the author's other works (especially A Far Wilder Magic), and the prose is beautiful! For whatever reason, I had trouble getting past the first few pages until my third go-around despite the prose, though I'm so glad I pushed through! At first glance, the blending of murder mystery, "jungle" adventure, and Grimm's fairytales shouldn't mesh, but here it manages to work well enough. While I wouldn't rate it for its strength as a whodunnit (I called the murderer early on), there were still small surprises along the way.

The strength in this story, for me, rests squarely on main character Lorelei, who actively works to repress her feelings over her rational mind. The author perfectly executes the pain of being an outsider, and how that touches on every aspect of life, including how Lorelei interacts with and treats others. My heart hurt so much for Lorelei throughout the story because she's so used to being treated horribly, yet it still stings every time, despite how she tries to ignore it.

I think that undercurrent of Lorelei's self-loathing really lends to the yearning and sensuality towards love interest Sylvia. All the small instances of touches (that are so often brushed off by Lorelei) and looks between them built up for me to the point where *taking off gloves to suture a wound* became sexy. And when there's finally, FINALLY, something happening between them, I was trying so hard not to scream out loud!

I also loved how queernormative this world is! I can't overstate how refreshing it was that the angst between Lorelei and Sylvia has nothing to do with both of them being women. It was also just really amazing to me that noble/political marriages are easily between people of the same gender and it doesn't matter in the slightest!

Cons:
Everyone in the main cast of characters (aside from Lorelei and Sylvia) are characteristically distinct enough to tell apart, and feel fleshed out well enough... but I wouldn't say I liked any of the secondary characters enough that I cared what happened to any of them. Though the story is only told through Lorelei's point of view, and everyone is a suspect in her mentor's murder, I didn't feel connected with anyone (save Sylvia). At one point towards the end, I had to question if I skipped something; Lorelei referred to someone as her friend and I had felt zero kinship with any of the others up to that point. Also, I know that this is heavily inspired by German folklore/history, but I really wish there had been more POC, especially in the main cast. The world is already changed by being queernormative, so it wouldn't have been a stretch.

On a much smaller note, I'm not normally one to complain about spice level or smut in a book, but damn do I wish there hadn't been a fade to black! I think it stems from wanting more of that raw yearning between Lorelei and Sylvia, which translated so well during the lead up to sex.

Overall:
If you enjoy beautiful atmospheric prose, magical world building, and pining academic-idiots-to-lovers, I definitely recommend A Dark and Drowning Tide! I've already begun hassling everyone I know to add this to their TBR because I'm obsessed!

Thank you to Netgalley for providing a free digital ARC for my honest review!

Many thanks to Netgalley, Edelweiss+, and Random House Publishing Group for allowing me a chance to review this!
To start off this review, I did want to mention that for an adult book, A Dark and Drowning Tide really reads more like a Young Adult novel, so please keep that in mind.
This book was listed as fairy tale inspired, sapphic romance, and murder mystery, and often I find those are some of my favorites. Unfortunately, it really felt like those were three separate stories forced together rather than combining into one harmonious tale. Now even with all that there are some major aspects I did enjoy. The prose and overall story was festooned in a dark, gothic atmosphere and draped with tension and longing so thick you can almost feel it, as though it is a mist curling around your heart.
Where Saft fails in nailing the emotional maturity of her characters (for me), Saft doesn’t pull punches when it comes to incorporating her heritage into her books. A lot of it feels well throughout and researched, and it really adds to the layer of magic to her books. Both A Far Wilder Magic and A Dark and Drowning Tide both deal with protagonists navigating their Jewish-inspired religions, as well as the mystical elements that creep into their lives and Saft handles it beautifully.
However, it is not long after the first few chapters that things truly started to feel fractured and disjointed. It quickly becomes murder mystery on one side, and fantasy on the other, and it just never felt like it meshed together cohesively to me. The conversations and plotting felt like a book taking place at a safe warm castle, yet the setting was dangerous, fantastic and it went mostly unmentioned. Even with conversations happening, somehow most of the characters ended up feeling very flat and one note, perhaps because they have zero history with Lorelei. It seems as if they never even shared a room prior to this expedition, even though the story says they've worked together for years. There was so much time spent plotting and politicking, and later romancing, in the midst of the fantasy action that the fantasy aspects seemed like almost an afterthought at times. It was more like a blurry background, not a forefront of the story, which as a fantasy lover, left me feeling bored.
For this book, Saft chooses her adult debut to showcase her first foray into sapphic romance. By far this book has the best romance out of Saft’s four published couples so far. Loralei and Sylvia quarrel in a wildly fun and heated rivalry-to-lover’s romance that keeps them entertaining to read. As for Lorelei herself, she’s one of Saft’s best protagonists by far, with such a sharp wit and attitude that felt righteous. Some aspects were just frustrating to read, for example; a lot of Lorelei's internal thoughts. She talks about how awful Sylvia is to her and how much she's hated her over the years. Yet, there are zero examples of a single time she was ever awful to her or how their mentor "pitted them against each other."
In the end, I think this is a good start into Safts adult publishing endeavors. It read super fast and it was ultimately a good gothic fairy tale that 'll scratch the itch most people will have come next spooky season.
CW: death, murder, antisemitism, eugenics, colonization, grief, loss of sibling, blood & gore, violence, dead body, injury detail, drowning, drugging, fire, emesis, alcohol consumption

I really enjoyed this book. It's the story of Lorelei, a member of an abused and exploited people (lots of clear antisemitism), who is lifted out of the slums and put to work in the laboratory of the king's magical expert. This woman is like a second mother to Lorelei and when she invites Lorelei to join her on an expedition to secure a magical spring for the king, Lorelei is excited about the opportunity to prove herself. As a folklorist, Lorelei has spent her career studying people's fair tales and trying to uncover the truth hidden at the stories' cores. She thinks she knows how to find the spring, but is less certain how to coexist and cooperate with the other five experts who are also accompanying her on this mission.

Very quickly into the expedition, Lorelei's mentor is killed and Lorelei finds herself pairing with her academic rival, Sylvia, to discover the murderer and ensure the trip is still successful. She interviews the other five colleagues, faces down fae and other mythological creatures, saves people's lives, and generally does all kinds of 'adventurer' stuff. She also falls in love with Sylvia, which is somewhat inconvenient.

This book was somewhat slower at the beginning and I had a bit of trouble remembering bits of information about the different characters. This background info would have come in handy later in the book. Once I got into it, however, I read this book pretty quickly. I would absolutely recommend it.

Thank you to Netgalley for the free review copy.

Allison Saft adds another enchanting ethereal book about a complex character to her repertoire with A Dark and Drowning Tide!

This book follows Lorelei, a folklorist and leader of an expedition to find the Ursprung, the source of all magic. But Lorelei's Yevanvert ethnicity (Jewish coded) casts her as an foreigner in this group of childhood friends and nobles. Her security lies with their professor, who has championed Lorelei's scholarship and place at the University. So when, her professor winds up dead shortly after the voyage embarks, with only the help of her academic rival, Sylvia Von Wolff, Lorelei will have to fend off the biased malice against her, find the murder, and find the Ursprung; and more than Lorelei knows may be on the line.

Allison Saft continually writes beautifully intriguing atmospheric historical fictions with their own fantasy twists. In this book, she weaves deep connections of the history of antisemitism (Lorelei's ethnicity as a Yeva) and grief and self preservation into Central European inspire lore (especially though Lorelei's status as a folklorist). The characters embark on an atmospheric adventure filled with ghosts, sentient forests, folk and creatures galore. The one thing that fell short for me in this book unfortunately was the romance. I was so excited for Saft's adult debut and a sapphic romance. However, the tension of the romance didn't start to build until over halfway through the book and the characters status as rivals felt more one-sided on the half of our narrator, than I'd typically expect.

With that said, if you're a fan of Saft's writing like I am, I'm sure this will be another hit for you.

ALLISON SAFT SHOULD BE A HOUSEHOLD NAME!

Sapphic, Jewish MC, gothic and GAY!
This book has everything! A budding romance between two academic rivals, it's very heavy with folklore and the world buidling is very organic and flows very well within the pacing of the story. So many components of this story fit so perfectly. The soft yearning. The hard yearning. The FOREST. It was so nice reading a believable MC, watching as some of the things she dealt with in her youth affect her worldview as an adult. Dissecting where parts of our own fairytales come from. It was truly an enchanting read.

EASY five stars!

This was not my favorite of Saft’s. I thought for sure I would love this book - sapphic romance, extensive mythology and folklore, cool magic system and dark academia are usually a slam dunk, but somehow this one fell flat for me. None of the characters were likeable except Sylvia and even she was a little insufferable. I usually don’t mind if the author is intentionally making the characters awful for a purpose, but I just did not find Lorelai’s narrative voice or choices enjoyable to read.
The pacing on this felt off to me too. It took a long time for the murder (in the summary) to occur and their journey felt really long. There was not a lot of chemistry or dialogue to sustain the plot, thank goodness for the folktales though, which did a lot of heavy lifting in this book. At times the relationship felt borderline unhealthy too, both with uneven power dynamics and flat-out cruelty.
On the bright side, I loved the lore, loved the world - which was somewhat queer-normative, and the magic system was so cool. I like that she explored some darker themes too, including colonialism, systemic oppression and discrimination, and what seemed to be a pretty poignant view of life in the 1800s-early 1900s for European Jews. I would for sure read another book in this world by this author (who usually does romance well) and would have even read and loved another 200 pages of this one if she chose to develop the characters more and have more of a redemption arc for Lorelai. Based on the what she included in this book, the atmosphere, her storytelling and writing style, I would still pick up the next Saft book based on this one alone. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC (uncorrected proof) of this book.

SAPPHIC!!! YEARNING!!!!! God I love a mean woman who loves another woman so much she gets so MAD ABOUT IT I’m obsessed actually. And the struggle Lorelei had about whether to save Sylvia or her people was so valid, and while on the surface it comes off as another “third act conflict”, it’s so understandable and accurate to her character it doesn’t feel bothersome at all. I loved this- especially the part where Lorelei wondered if a cow-like creature who ate humans can still be kosher. A highlight of the book for sure.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for sending me this eARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

A Dark and Drowning Tide is filled with magical world-building, intriguing characters, and a beautiful romance that enchanted me fully. The world was filled with stunning folklore and creatures full of whimsy. It was such a dreamy background for this story to take place in, and I couldn’t help but be drawn in with the poetic imagery Saft created.

This book expertly sets this fairy tale setting against a gothic murder mystery that is absolutely captivating, and the characters truly brought this all together. They were well thought out and everyone seemed to have a motive, which was perfect to keep me guessing. The main character, Lorelei, has unlikeable characteristics and towards the beginning seemed cold and a bit ruthless but by the end I found myself endeared to her strength and forwardness. She goes through a lot and you see her trying to force her way into belonging in a world that is constantly unkind to her. I loved getting to know Lorelei and she made me realize I was maybe too quick to judge.

I loved A Dark and Drowning Tide and think it is perfect for anyone looking to be swept away into a spellbinding adventure. I would definitely recommend this book!

I am new to Dark academia as a subgenre but this one might be one of the favorites that I have read .
The writing and pacing was perfect and I cannot wait to read more from the Author .
Thank you netgalley for the eArc.

This captivated me from the first page, it was full of magic, mystery and forbidden romance. This is a sapphic fantasy romance that has all of the intrigue and adventure. Lorelei was a great character who has a sparkling connection with Sylvia, her rival. Their partnership blossoms into something deeper as they go through their adventure together.
This is definitely a must-read for fans of fantasy and romance. The characters were phenomenal, and the world-building was perfect without being overwhelming. There are plot twists and things that keep you guessing until the end, which just makes the book so engaging.

Overall rating: 4.5/5
Readability: 4.75/5
Would recommend

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for the e-arc in exchange for my honest review.

The cover is what sold me on wanting to look into reading this book. The description of the book also intrigued me. Such a good dark romance fantasy read. Will be recommending to my fantasy lover friends.

First off, thank you NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group-Ballentine for granting me access to this book in exchange for an honest review.

OUTLIER ALERT!! 🎶It's me🎶!! Upon reading the captivating summary and being utterly entranced by the stunning cover, I was filled with sheer delight upon receiving approval for the book. Anticipation surged through me as I eagerly awaited the immersive experience promised by the fusion of dark academia, folklore fantasy, and murder mystery within the pages. Regrettably, the actual reading experience fell short of my expectations, leaving me feeling disheartened and struggling to maintain interest until the end.

The primary reason for my dissatisfaction with the book stemmed from the intolerable nature of the characters, making it challenging for me to form any meaningful connection with them. Additionally, the plot dragged on, lacking the momentum needed to sustain my interest while the romance aspect fell disappointingly flat, falling to evoke the intended emotional resonance.

In conclusion, despite my struggle to push through and finish the book, I managed to reach the end. However, upon reflection, it became apparent that this particular book simply didn't align with my personal tastes and preferences. Disappointingly, I find myself unable to recommend the book to others.⭐️⭐️

I think I was in the wrong headspace for this book and just couldn't finish it. The overall tone of this is extremely dark; the book is, at its core, a murder mystery, and the central themes are antisemitism and injustice. The central character is (deservedly) caustic, and while there is a cute, well-fleshed-out romance, it just felt...grim. I think I should revisit this in the future. It is just a bit too much for me to enjoy right now.

When I first picked this book to read it was because the cover looked interesting and the summary caught my attention. However as I start to read the book it was not able to keep my attention for more than a few minutes. I had to struggle to even get half way through the book. I think part of this is that there was a lot of character introduce very quickly for me to keep track of and the transition from chapter to chapter was not the best for me. At the end of the day the book ended up not being for me, however I do think there are people who will enjoy the book.

Thank you to netgalley, Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine, Del Rey, for allowing me to read this book. The writing was so hauntingly beautiful, I enjoyed every moment of this book.

<i>First, a thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read an eARC of this book.</i>

I need to start by saying I can see why this is a bit of a polarizing book - either you like it, or your don't.

It's a very specifically sort of slow-burn, enemies to lovers romance, and Lorelai is not exactly a knight in shining armor. Lorelai has the capacity to be incredibly cruel. I fully understand that this just will not be everyone's cup of tea.

With that being said, I actually quite enjoyed it. I liked the world building, I liked the folklore and takes, I liked the prose, and the characters - even if the reading was a bit dense at times.

I did also really like [book:Thistlefoot|60018639], and I see similarities here (other than just the Jewish folklore base they share).

Similarly to <i>Thistlefoot</i>, I did find this book a little slow to get into, but by 10% in I was hooked.

I have to say, I would not really consider myself one of the "dark academia girlies", but I can see the appeal of the genre after reading this book.

And I will <i>always</i> go for a sapphic historical/folklore/fantasy romance. It'll get me every time - [book:Mortal Follies|62984592] started it and now I'm hooked.

I recently read A Fragile Enchantment by Allison Saft and fell in love with her writing, so A Dark and Drowning Tide became one of my most anticipated releases for 2024. I was especially excited for an adult fantasy novel with dark/gothic vibes, since that is my favorite subgenre of fantasy.

In the beginning of the book, I was confused. It felt like being dropped into an ongoing story. But once we got to the scene at the palace, everything clicked into place.

Saft has a knack for writing angst and longing, and this book did not disappoint in that regard. All those charged moments between Lorelei and Sylvia were perfection.

Halfway through the book, I thought ADADT might become my favorite Saft novel. I loved the world, the nixies, the angst and the adventure. However, the second half of the book did not land for me. I never felt fully connected to any of the characters, which was odd for me, since that was one of the main reasons I enjoyed Saft’s prior work. Although I loved the angst in the first half, the conflict and Lorelei’s choices really killed that relationship for me. I couldn’t wrap my head around how that conflict was so easily resolved.

I will continue to read Allison’s works, as I quite enjoy her writing style. However, I think she shines most with YA whimsical fantasy.

Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for the ARC.

It’s only February but I am already predicting that this is my favorite book of 2024. I absolutely devoured it. Both the fantasy world and the characters were dark and complex, and I was captivated by them all until the very end. Lorelei was a flawed and relatable main character, and the rivals to lovers sapphic romance had me positively squealing with joy! Please everyone read this right away!!!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC of this book.

A sapphic academic rivals to romantasy adventure? Count me in.

A DARK AND DROWNING TIDE is based in Germanic folklore and follows Lorelei Kaskel, our leading lady - an acerbic, self-loathing, misfit folklorist on her journey to discover the source of all magic or Aether.

Lorelei must join forces with her academic rival, Sylvia von Wolff, and the rest of her noble friends. Things soon take a turn for the Agatha Christie when the expedition's leader is mysteriously murdered.

As the expedition continues, we begin to see Lorelei struggle more and more - not only with herself but also with the anti-semitism that is rife in her country. Throughout the folklore she has studied, the Yeva have been painted as the villians, the witches nad vipers always waiting for a chance to strike. Lorelei uses everyone's pre-conceived notions of her and her people to cocooon herself in the mask of the viper when Lorelei just wants to be worthy of love and forgiveness. To succeed on their expedition she must confront her demons and reconcile the two halves of herself.

I fell in love with Allison Saft through this book. She has a talent for weaving hints throughout the story that kept me guessing until the end.

If you like sapphic academic rivals with a sharp-witted Jewish MC and a dreamy folklore heavy tale, this is the book for you.

Looking to consolidate power, the newly crowned king of Brunnestaad sends 5 of his nobles along with his top advisor and her protege, Lorelei, to find a magical spring that grants power. Each of the nobles is the child of the rulers of lands conquered by Brunnestaad, so they each have their own skills as well as their own people's interests to protect. Lorelei is a member of an oppressed group, who owes her freedom to her mentor, and has worked hard to be not only included but named leader of this expedition. When her mentor is murdered on the first night of the voyage, Lorelei knows that it is an attempt to undermine the mission potentially destabilizing the kingdom, and must push the team on while wondering which noble presents an imminent threat to her. Her academic rival Sylvia pushes all of her buttons, but has the insight and the influence within the group to help Lorelei succeed, but she has to let down her walls enough to let Sylvia in.
Grumpy sunshine sapphic romance in a magical adventure was lovely, though the court intrigue played a heavy hand. Brunnestaad's resemblance to post WWI Germany was strong enough that it plays a strong part in the story. Lorelei is Yeva, a people villainized by the very folklore that she specializes in, and confined to a gated area of the capitol city where they are tolerated by the crown but not protected or given citizenship or rights. The nobles on the voyage are people she has had to work with and be bullied by for years which builds more tension in her suspicions.
I really enjoyed the folklore and the way that the fairy tales played into the overall storyline. I also appreciated the character development and heart of Sylvia, and all of the magical creatures she fought to protect. I would recommend it for fans of Romantasy, Morganstern's "The Starless Sea", or Fantastic Beasts films.
Thank you to Net Galley and Random House for the advanced copy. All opinions in this review are my own, and I am looking forward to recommending this title to patrons at my library.