So, I’ve read this before but totally forgot and requested it a second time in preparation for book 2’s release.
My original review: “An epistolary romance set in an underwater world with magical academia? I was so ready to dive right into this. However, this light academia romance isn't quite for me, but I am giving extra stars for the cover alone. I really wanted to like this book but I could not get into this style of writing. I found myself quite bored and thought the pace was really slow.”
My updated review: I’m a moron — okay not actually, clearly my tastes have changed. I really enjoyed this. The multiple timelines being told across these letters was super fun and I think it was done really well. I’m still in love with the cover and I finally managed to get a copy of the Fairyloot edition which will be here TODAY (so excited!!)

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for gifting me a copy of A Letter to the Luminous Deep!

It is the story of Sophy who lost her sister E. and has a look at letters that E. kept. She sees that most of her correspondence was with Henerey who was with E. and suffered the same fate. She then contacts his brother Vyerin to have a broader picture of her sister and their relationship.

I LOVE epistolary novels, so this book was made for me! It was such a cozy, sweet, and intriguing novel, I adored it. I was EATING E. and Henerey’s letters, their first “encounter” and how they would talk to each other was so so sweet.

I started to feel like it was getting long towards the end, but I think it’s only because by then I realised that there would be another book (which I’m quite excited about and plan on reading!)

It was also nice to learn more about the lives of E. and Henerey’s friends and family.

I would highly recommend it!

“A letter to the luminous deep” is a mystery-romance with light academia tones. The peculiarity and absolute strong point of this novel is its epistolary narrative, which although at the beginning it is a little difficult to get along with many characters and unusual terms, the reading quickly becomes very fluent and interesting, while remaining too vague towards the underwater world where the protagonists live, whose nature and characteristics remain highly nebulous, and the whole story is extremely difficult to visualize in the mind, with the risk of losing the reader's attention and the grip on his imagination. This factor did not allow me to fully enjoy the book, also thanks to a mystery that was perhaps stretched out a little too much.