I started this post a couple of days ago with a bit about how I really don't like to review books I don't finish, especially review copies from Netgalley, because it feels unfair. I mean, yeah, I'm not finishing because I don't like the book that much, but it seems wrong to judge based on less than the whole thing.

But then I finished the book. So...I liked it more than I thought? Or at least, I found its weaknesses more interesting? Anyway, I did finish, so no apologies; just a review.

Winter Tide, by Ruthanna Emrys, comes to me at a time when I'm just discovering Lovecraft. I've read some stories, which I liked, and some books that are influenced by him, which I've mostly also enjoyed. There's some great horror to be had, both in his writing and in his imagery and ideas. I literally CANNOT with the racism, but I've had good luck mostly avoiding it in what I've read so far. But the eeriness, the sense of cosmic unease that he puts in the most innocuous parts of his stories--the feeling of damp that permeates everything he writes is gloriously creepy.

So I can't really figure out why this story exists. Winter Tide is what happens when you take Lovecraft's cosmology and folklore and imagine it as innocuous. This is a world in which humanity is more frightening than the Old Ones, who are just like any other gods--distant and cosmic and pretty much not there. Only humanity isn't actually that frightening here. I guess government is?

It's the story of the people of Innsmouth, the weird village near Arkham where the people worship Cthulu and the gods of the sea. I haven't read the Cthulu books, but I saw a TV movie about this once and it was amazingly creepy and freaky, a trashy delight. The joy and terror are missing here, because it turns out that those people were misunderstood, not evil, no blood sacrifice (well, maybe they nick their own fingers when doing magic, but that's all!), no unspeakable evil. Just good folks who turn into fish creatures when they finish with their landwalker stage and go to live in the ocean, misunderstood by us airbreathers and interned and murdered for it.


So really, the emotional heft of this story belongs to Aphra and her brother Caleb being the only survivors of their race after being interned in camps between the world wars. Eventually, they are joined by Japanese citizens, and when the war ends and they're released, these last two survivors leave with their new adopted family. This is about loss of legacy and trying to heal, about being out of place and trying to find your heritage. Which is a great idea, and there's so much to do with that.

But there just wasn't enough story to back it up. Too many characters swirling around--with some great, really lovely representation, but so many that you don't get to know them. Dawson should have her own book, but she barely gets a line here. Neko exists to show that Aphra has ties. Why is Charlie even there? (I think because this is a sequel to a story in which Charlie features.) Audrey ends up being a main character, but darn if she didn't just feel like another pile of clothes to get in the way for the first half of the story.

Having gotten to the end, I feel confident that this would have been much better as a novella. There was a lot of time spent telling characters things that other characters already knew, and deciding whether to tell them things that we'd just told other people. In theory there are secrets, but everyone shares them with each other promptly (and generally in separate conversations), so they don't feel that tense.

I think this just might not be the book for me. It could have been an exciting story about....something happening at Miskatonic University (I keep forgetting what the plot of the book is--they want to do research for what feels like a MacGuffin reason) or it could have been an intriguing character study of a person trying to figure out what it means to be connected to a world that tried to cut all your ties. But there was just too much distance for a character story, and too much stillness for a mystery.

And...really, if you're going to make the Old Ones NOT want to destroy the world and devour humanity and set men mad on sight--why bother writing Lovecraft? It's like making a Mission Impossible movie about those quiet moments of friendship you share with your team, not talking but just being together without any agenda. I just didn't get it.

March 24, 2017.
I received an ARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, and I am officially calling it quits after five chapters (14%). I liked the short story Emrys wrote preceding this volume, but holy crap, this book puts me to sleep every time I try to read it. No rating. DNF.

If you're not familiar with Aphra's story, you should, you should read the Litany of Earth novella first. I enjoyed this short story way more than Winer Tide. I really liked it but this book was so slow. I read it almost directly after starting this book. I expected Winter Tide to be as enjoyable but sadly, it wasn't.

Even though this book didn't meet my expectations, it certainly made me curious enough to check out Lovecraft work in the future. I had no idea it held such influence before starting this book. The only thing I knew about this topic I had was Cthulhu, and only by name. I think a person with more knowledge in this field, would've liked this book more since he'd understand all the reference. I didn't know what was Ruthanna Emrys' creation and what wasn't and we had <i>lots </i> of new words so I couldn't google everything. Thus, "it's me not you" kind of book.

While I appreciated the descriptions of the world and traditions, it was a bit too much because it made the book slow-paced. The characters were likable enough. Their character development was obvious by the end of the book.

I'd recommend this book for the fans of Lovecraft world but if it's your first try, like me, you might want to learn more about his work to fully enjoy Winter Tide.

Winter Tide follows Aphra Marsh, a subspecies of human who will one day change into a near-immortal fish-like being and join her people under the sea. Until then, she and her brother must survive the hostility of other humans who don't understand her kind and who are experimenting with forces they do not fully comprehend. While the story gets off to a slow start, it picks up later on and has a satisfactory ending. The book is also part historical fiction, taking place a few years after the end of WWII. I admit that I probably missed out on some appreciation of the tale because I have not yet read any of H. P. Lovecraft's works, but despite that I still enjoyed the book.

Note that I was not aware this book was the second in a series when I started it, and I have not read the first novel. You can still enjoy it without reading the first one. I did request this title because I am a huge fan of Lovecraft and was intrigued how it was set with characters from Innsmouth. It is an outstanding novel in its incorporation of large amounts of material from the Lovecraft universe, including text and dialogue in his world's languages which is very challenging. But the novel is poorly paced and sluggish, and will be even more so if you don't have a familiarity with Lovecraft's works. The basis of the story isn't really a mystery or a thriller, it is best described as speculative fiction, and it just lacks forward momentum. It is very hard to stay interested in it since incorporating all the Lovecraft elements means lots of chapters where people are in libraries investigating old books. There's a lot of possibility in this book, it just needed to be edited more.

A solid follow-up to the short story The Litany of Earth. Creepy and atmospheric but character-driven as well. I'm really excited to see more of this story unfold and looking forward to Ruthanna Emrys's future work.

Though I haven’t read any of his stories myself, I can understand why Lovecraft‘s Cthulu mythos appeals to other writers. It’s so sprawling that one writer, even if they lived to ripe old age, wouldn’t have enough time to tell all of the stories. It’s also got problems with inclusivity, enough that writers like Victor LaValle and Matt Haig have staked a claim on the mythos for African Americans. In Winter Tide, Ruthanna Emrys has done something similar for women and LGBTQ people.

In 1928, Aphra Marsh was taken, along with all of the inhabitants of Innsmouth, into the American desert in the mistaken belief that they were unnatural monsters. In truth, Aphra and her family are just another kind of human. By the time we meet her, Aphra has managed to rebuild her life on the west coast and is trying to put the past behind her as much as possible. Unfortunately, her knowledge of her family’s lore and magic make her the perfect agent to investigate FBI agent Ron Spector’s latest case. Even more unfortunately for Aphra, the case will take her back to Massachusetts and old wounds.

Winter Tide is a meandering tale, which is fitting considering that the main character is tied to water by nature. The beginning of the book makes one feel a bit of urgency, but the plot takes its time. The case offers a bit of structure while Aphra takes on more magical students, reconnects with family, thwarts and is thwarted by various plots, tangles with creatures beyond space and time, and more. This is very much a book to sink into rather than be carried away by—unless you’re a geek like me who really digs reading about the strange books of Miskatonic University. To enjoy this book, one has to go with the flow.

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley for review consideration. It will be released 4 April 2017.

I’m not a fan of Lovecraft, mainly because I am one of these persons who just can’t separate the writing and the writer (same goes for art/artist and so on). So if I learn that an author is an awful person I just won’t want to read his writing and if I do, I’ll just keep thinking about it. Which is “sad” because I know Lovecraft created a great world. Even today it keeps inspiring hundreds of writers and artists. For instance the last I read and loved was "The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe".

All of this to say that I’m not really an adept of Lovecraft’s writing but I’m super happy that new writers are using his ideas and his world and creating new characters and stories without his racism and misogyny. So in my review I won’t really address the lovecraftian details because I don’t know them from their original source, mainly from new authors re-imagining them.

And what a great job Ruthanna Emrys does with Winter Tide!!
Her main and side characters are the aspect I liked more about the novel. The found family theme is one of my favourite, even more when the cast of characters is diverse like it is here.
First we have Aphra, who is not a human of the air like you and me (if you aren’t a human of the air, sorry for the assumption) but is of the water. She is described as plain, or even ugly for the human of the air’s eyes (I have to say I like that, for once, we do not have a main character who is beautiful and uses her charm to get what she wants. I don’t really mind that, but it’s a change.) Her and her people were rounded up and imprisoned into camps, alongside Japanese Americans during WWII. She and her brother Caleb were the only survivors. That’s where she met the family she now lives with, the most important for this story being Neko, a teenage girl.

Then there is Charlie (the gay Jewish bookshop owner she works with and teaches her magic to) and the FBI agent who came to ask her for help. There’s also a black woman working for the FBI at the university they have to go to do researches, and some other people they will meet alongside the story, my favourite being Audrey!

The fact that the plot and interest of the characters focuses a lot on books, lost books, libraries, restricted libraries and such was also a big plus for me. Most of the novel is set at the Miskatonic University where the team has to do researches on a body theft spell because the US government fears Communists spies have already accessed the knowledge of this spell.

I loved how the subjects of consent and sexism were addressed. What a sensible and compassionate person Aphra was. Not always making the best choices of word but always trying to do better and not be too judgemental and forgiving despite the awful things she went through. She’s trying to go forward and not get stuck in the past. With her brother, we can see another way to cope which was interesting. It’s not because two people went through the same awful things that they will react the same way.

I really wasn’t eager for the book to end because I loved spending time with those characters and in this slightly creepy but interesting world. I wanted to keep searching for answers with them, to break into the library with them, walk into the cold and alongside the ocean with them. To see their bond get deeper and deeper, and even learn more about this hidden world, as passionate and enthousiastic as Audrey was.

There is not much action in Winter Tide and it is mostly atmospheric, always feeling cold (focusing on the sea, New England, winter snow and so on) but it has a very engaging world and heart-warming characters. I can’t wait to see more of them and of this re-imagination of the Lovecraftian lore by Emrys, I know I will jump into her following stories with great joy. I’m really looking forward for more! (Announcement: Tor.com Acquires Two Aphra Marsh Novels from Ruthanna Emrys)

Trigger warning: rape is mentioned, life in the camps described and re-lived through flashbacks

Ruthanna Emrys first wrote the novelette The Litany of Earth and since people kept asking for more it led her to Winter Tide. I haven’t read it yet, but I really plan to!

You can also read excerpts of Winter Tide on tor.com, easily found on her profile page (I love authors profiles on their site!) :
Ruthanna Emrys lives in a mysterious manor house in the outskirts of Washington DC with her wife and their large, strange family. She makes home-made vanilla, obsesses about game design, gives unsolicited advice, occasionally attempts to save the world, and blogs sporadically about these things at her Livejournal. Her stories have appeared in a number of venues, including Strange Horizons and Analog.

Emrys has taken the world and lore created by H. P. Lovecraft and made it her own in this fascinating debut. Her large cast of characters are diverse and well-developed—in direct contrast to Lovecraft’s noted xenophobia. And there’s something so right in the timing that it is set just after the interned Japanese Americans post World War II when it’s the humans (men of air) are among the scariest characters in the book. I want to read more in this version of the Lovecraftian universe.

This book builds off a story called "Litany of Earth" http://www.tor.com/2014/05/14/the-lit.... I hadn't read the story yet when I read "Winter Tide", although I'm planning on going back and reading it now.

Our main character, Aphra Marsh, is one of the Innsmouth Marshes. You know, Innmouth from the Lovecraft tales. The whole town of Innsmouth was gathered up and put in internment camps in the late 1920's, and there they stayed until they mostly died. Japanese Americans were interned with them during WWII, and Aphra and her brother Caleb, last survivors of Innsmouth, were released along with them when the war ended.

Aphra has been trying to make a go of it in San Francisco, working as a book collector. Her boss is also her acolyte, as she tries to find her way back to the spiritual life and magical power that is her birthright.

Of course, she can't be left in peace. A government agent fetches her to look into a possible magical problem at Miskatonic University, and she must go out into the world again to save the government that had imprisoned her.

Emrys takes a very different perspective than Lovecraft on the Deep Ones. Aphra is proud of her heritage, although shy about displaying it because of the persecution she has faced. Aphra sees her Elders as comforting protectors, not nightmares that violate the natural order. But she also knows that magic is dangerous in the wrong hands.

This is a meditative book. It's a chilly book too- winter, the cold seas, and New England snow are all described in a way that made me want to wrap myself in a warm blanket. It's evocative, atmospheric, and melancholy. It's different than anything else I've read. The only complaint I have is that not much actually happens in the way of plot. It's not something I missed much, since I was so interested in the world created, but I'm hopeful that the sequel contains a bit more action.

There are a slew of books working with the Lovecraft mythos that are appearing right now. I think this book is one of the best. I wonder if we are in danger of woobifying Lovecraft like we're turned vampires sparkly and zombies commonplace. Be that as it may, this book is extraordinary.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. It is heavily influence by H.P. Lovecraft and uses some of the same races. That being said, these ‘alien’ humans, and real aliens, were my favorite aspect of the book. For one, the Yith were incredibly fascinating to me. The Yith challenge the boundary of alienness: bringing the alien inside ourselves. Gone is the opposition between us and them, because the Yith violate it, making is a silent danger to us all.

Additionally, the three subspecies of humans are all fascinating and this is the source of my main empathy with the main protagonist. At first, I could not relate to her and she was difficult to understand. However, when she started talking about her culture and their desire for books, it clicked for me. For Aphra and her brother, their quest is about remembering, and they find the books not only to reinstate their culture, but to mourn their dead.

As I said earlier, it took me a while to empathize with the main protagonist, and the same can be said for the interest of the book. While you would think that the plot would surround the Communist spy angle, the majority of the book is about Aphra’s own mediation with her culture. In reality there are the two plots and because of that, the pacing can be a little off, until you realize what the main plot is (Aphra).

It took some time for me to get into it, but once I did I was able to enjoy the characters and their journey. The characters, especially the side ones, are all very interesting. What I loved best, was that this book emphasizes our need and the importance of creating our own family.

Review of WINTER TIDE by Ruthanna Emrys

WINTER TIDE will clearly be one of my favorites of 2017, and one of my all-time top novels in the Lovecraftian Mythos category. Appropriately in Women in Horror Month (February), I want to acknowledge the influence of two women horror writers, both of whom excel at play in the fields of The Lovecraft Mythos: Ruthanna Emrys, and Caitlin R. Kiernan. The writings of both are truly exceptional.

In WINTER TIDES, I am gifted with all that I seek in fantasy, all that I ask of science fiction, all I could imagine in Lovecraft's universes, and my mind is stretched beyond its usual capacity. Ms. Emrys waives any need for suspension of disbelief. Everything in the novel seems as real and as vivid as anything I might view through my windows. Innsmouth and Arkham; Miskatonic University and its sister institution, the Hall School; body thieving and the various species of humankind (people of the rock; people of the water; people of the air) are so vividly realised as to make them, indeed, real to readers. Even in its post-World War II setting, there are serious overtones reaching back to the U.S.'s interment of Japanese-Americans during that war, and forward to the political witch hunts in the 1950's by Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee in their quests to find Communists under each rock, and further to today's political climate and fear/hatred of the unknown (in this case, the “unknown” ethnicities, such as the “fish-folk” formerly of Innsmouth, and any practitioners of magic, and the Yith).

H. P. Lovecraft might in his day have taken exception to the idea of a female writer working in his Mythos, but I for one am very thankful that Ruthanna Emrys has chosen to expand on his foundation. I'll be rereading WINTER TIDES repeatedly, enclosing myself in its literate explications, reveling in the language and in the metaphysics of the Lovecraft Mythos.

It's well-written, but really not at all my thing.

I have tried to read this book twice now and both times I ended up giving up around halfway. I am not familiar with the Cthulhu mythology or the short story published previously, which may have been why I felt lost in this world. The world-building never quite clicked for me and with each new term, it was harder to keep track of everything. Given that I read a lot of high fantasy, I am used to complex world-building, however Winter Tide left me with more questions than answers.

As for the characters, I was never able to grow very attached to them since none of them stood out as distinct characters to me. This was somewhat strange because of the descriptiveness of the writing. The bookstore and other locations came alive for me and were what kept me going. I think that by trying to focus on so many characters, none of them were developed enough to stand alone.

The plot never quite lived up to the premise of the book. Given the involvement of the FBI, I expected a well-developed mystery with some action (which might have been part of why I was disappointed). While I would have been okay with a novel focused on how and why Aphra's family recovered their library, it was never really explained why the recovery was so important. Where the books important to them as a last remembrance of their family? Or was it so they could evolve one day? Were the books all about magic? Since some of them seemed to be children's book, I wasn't quite sure.

Overall, this book wasn't a great fit for me, however I do think that some readers will highly enjoy it.