3.5. It's not my favorite Allison Saft, but I still think it's a decent adult debut. The book has some strong elements, but unfortunately also some flaws.

"The Dark and Drowning Tide" is a sapphic romantasy that follows two academic rivals, Lolerei and Sylvia, who join an expedition in search of the source of all magic. However, their journey takes a dark turn when their mentor is murdered during the trip, leaving the rest of the expedition as suspects.

The book is written in beautiful yet accessible language. Allison Saft has a great talent for words, which she proves again in this novel. However, the pacing seemed a bit uneven to me, with the middle part of the book a bit too slow for my liking. Since there are many elements of magical folklore in the book, I was afraid at first that it would be too similar to "Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Fairies". However, with the scientific expedition plot enriched with a murder mystery and political games, "The Dark and Drowning Tide" proved to be much more interesting, which I appreciated.

I feel a bit lukewarm about the romance plot here. Enemies/rivals to lovers is very hard to write well, and I think it could have been done better in this case. I didn't feel any particular spark or chemistry between Lorelei and Sylvia; it felt like they just went from hating each other to suddenly loving each other. That being said, I do appreciate the characters as individuals - although Lorelei was not a particularly likeable character. The author did a good job of creating an expedition crew made up of different characters who were different enough from each other that the reader could relate to them.

The book's shortcoming lies in its worldbuilding, which unfortunately appears to be a recurring issue with Allison Saft's novels. While it's obviously not inherently flawed to base fantasy worlds on existing countries or religions, an author cannot expect every reader to be familiar with historical context. Instead of seamlessly integrating the plot into a well-developed world, Saft tends to inundate the reader with information, leaving them to piece it together mainly by associating certain historical facts. In the case of this book, I must admit that without associating the worldbuilding with political situation of the 19th century Germany, as well as the persecution of the Jews, I might have struggled to fully understand it. The magic system is also not clear at all. I had no idea why some people in this world had powers and others did not.

At the end of the day, I believe that people who enjoy cozy, whimsical fantasy can have fun reading this book. I would also recommend it to fans of Allison Saft's writing style because, despite everything, this book possesses several elements that positively distinguish her work.

This review will appear on Goodreads and the retailers' websites the month the book is released.