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Book: “Daughter of the Merciful Deep” by Leslye Penelope
Publishing Info: Redhook, June 2024
Where Did I Get this Book: ARC from the publisher!
Where Can You Get this Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | IndieBound
Book Description: “Our home began, as all things do, with a wish.”
Jane Edwards hasn’t spoken since she was eleven years old, when armed riders expelled her family from their hometown along with every other Black resident. Now, twelve years later, she’s found a haven in the all-Black town of Awenasa. But the construction of a dam promises to wash her home under the waters of the new lake.
Jane will do anything to save the community that sheltered her. So, when a man with uncanny abilities arrives in town asking strange questions, she wonders if he’s might be the key. But as the stranger hints at gods and ancestral magic, Jane is captivated by a bigger mystery. She knows this man. Only the last time she saw him, he was dead. His body laid to rest in a rushing river.
Who is the stranger and what is he really doing in Awenasa? To find those answers, Jane will journey into a sunken world, a land of capricious gods and unsung myths, of salvation and dreams made real. But the flood waters are rising. To gain the miracle she desires, Jane will have to find her voice again and finally face the trauma of the past.
Review: I’ve read several books by this author in the past. I started out with her original world, high fantasy trilogy, and very much liked that. But I have also enjoyed the swerve towards historical fiction that she’s now taken, incorporating fantasy and magical elements alongside stories that very much tackle the cultures and issues of specific points in history. Her last one, “The Monsters We Defy,” was set in the 1920s, and while the story was made up of many elements (including a heist!) the jazz movement and its place in Black history was very central to the story. All of this to say, that I was very excited when I saw that in this book she was going to tackle an even lesser known point in history: that of the drowned towns of the South.
Overall, I very much enjoyed this book. It manages to fit a lot of excellent historical information into a narrative that is still very character-focused, all told through the eyes of our leading lady. For her part, Jane is a sympathetic character, a young woman who has suffered greatly, but throughout the course of this book, rediscovers her own power and sets a course not only for herself but for her entire community. There’s also a very sweet romance included, something that this author often incorporates in her stories, much to my appreciation!
I will say that the book did struggle a bit with pacing, however. The start to this story is fairly slow, with very little actually happening for much of the first half of the book. For readers of historical fiction, however, this may be less of an issue. The story is definitely following more genre conventions for historical fiction in this half, with its detailed focus on the details of this time and place. Readers who were more intrigued by the fantasy elements, however, have a while to wait for these to truly show up. And then when they did, I feel like a little more could have been done to blend these fantasy elements into the previously established historical setting. The reader is left to take much of them magical stuff at face value and just go with it.
I also appreciated the author’s note that was included at the end. For whatever reason, I’ve gotten into the habit of flipping to the back of books to read the author’s note before I even start, and yet again, I feel like this method has paid off. I had vague knowledge of the sunken towns, already. I grew up in a town next to a large, dammed reservoir; though no towns were destroyed in its making, the concept of drowned towns was always a morbid point of curiosity to a population that went about its day in the shadow of a huge dam like this. But I appreciated the greater detail I received in this author’s note, which went on to further enrich my reading experience as the characters confront this looming danger. Perhaps some of the plotting was a bit predictable, here, but at the same time, the characters were compelling enough that this wasn’t a problem for me. Readers who enjoy historical fiction with a lighter focus on fantasy should definitely give this one a go!
Rating 7: A bit disjointed in its balancing of genre conventions between fantasy and historical fiction, but the strength of the historical topic and the compelling characters still made it a worth while read!
Reader’s Advisory:
“Daughter of the Merciful Deep” can be found on this Goodreads list: 2024 Adult Fantasy/Sci-fi/Speculative Releases by BIPOC Authors
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