Colleen Mondor Reviews A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid

A Study in Drowning, Ava Reid (Harper Teen 978-0-06-321150-6, $19.99, hc 384 pp) Septem­ber 2023.

Ava Reid’s beguiling fantasy A Study in Drown­ing is set in the country of Llyr, which is reeling from the latest in a long-running series of border disputes with its neighbor Argant. Somewhat reminiscent of Wales, Llyr possesses a strong national identity which is heavily dependent upon the legacies of the seven ‘‘Storytellers’’, creators of Llyr’s magical mythology who now lie in repose in a museum where, it is hoped by many (and believed by some) that they will rise up when most needed by their country. The most recently interred Storyteller is author Emrys Myrddin, who was famous for his dark fairy tales. College student Effy is a devoted fan of Myrddin’s work and, as the novel opens, is thrilled to discover a student competition from the author’s estate for a building to be designed near his hometown to house both his archive and surviving family mem­bers. As an architectural student seeking respite from an appalling situation with her adviser, Effy is desperate to get away and excited to submit a design. In the pages that follow she uncovers a literary conspiracy that stretches back decades and threatens to upend everything Llyr consid­ers most sacred along with Effy’s freedom, if not her life, as well.

There are immediate shades of dark academia evident in Reid’s descriptions of the college with its stone walls, centuries-old traditions, and plenty of tweed and wool. Effy longed to study literature, but that is only open to male students, and thus she has been relegated to architecture – as the only female student there – for which she is profoundly unsuited and in which she is faring miserably. Her struggles made her vulnerable to the sexual preda­tion of an adviser whose continued harassment resulted in an untenable position for Effy. She has a terrible relationship with her mother, no support from the college’s deeply entrenched patriarchal establishment, and friends who sympathize but are powerless. Winning the contest is Effy’s way out and when, against all odds, she is selected by Myrddin’s son and heir Ianto, she leaves for the town of Saltney, on the Bay of Nine Bells, with the highest of hopes.

Dear Reader, things are not going to go well in Saltney.

Reid artfully crafts the layers of oppression and isolation onto poor Effy from the moment she boards the train out of town. (Actually before that: while researching Saltney, she reviews a map where ‘‘The Bay of Nine Bells looked like the bite a dog had taken out of a rotten piece of meat.’’) The farther south Effy travels, to the ‘‘Bottom Hundred region,’’ the more relentless the rains come down, which conjure up all sorts of comparisons to Llyr’s catastrophic history of ‘‘drowning.’’ By the time she approaches forbidding Hiraeth Manor, precariously overlooking the bay and pummeled constantly by waves, the cold and wet are relent­lessly pervasive. Effy knows she has made a huge mistake, but there is no turning back now; she has nowhere else to go.

Relegated to a dilapidated guest house with no comforts (and, ironically, barely any running water), Effy soon discovers that the job is to design a way to fortify the existing house, which is crum­bling from decades of neglect. Meanwhile, Ianto Myrddin is a mercurial (to put it mildly) host, no one has seen the widow Myrddin in ages, and a fellow student from the college of literature, is firmly ensconced in Myrddin’s study on an assign­ment to catalog his papers. Worst of all is that this young man, Preston, is half Argantian, and Effy is appalled that an enemy (even if just half one) has been granted the right to review Myrddin’s work. Soon, it becomes clear that he is conducting a far more than perfunctory investigation, and Effy must decide if he is an ally or enemy while the situation at Myrddin devolves into something neither student can tolerate.

There is plenty in A Study of Drowning to enjoy, from Reid’s stellar worldbuilding to the outstanding mystery surrounding Myrddin’s great work, and the secret regarding the monstrous Fairy King that he wrote about so effectively. Effy is a smart, gutsy protagonist and along with Preston, the two make for compelling detectives who set about uncovering Myrddin’s secrets (or debunking them), in a most effective manner. (There is one moment where they succumb to romantic longing in the face of enormous dan­ger that did make my eyes roll, but if you can’t tumble into each other’s arms when you might die soon, when will you?) Intriguing, intelligent, and suspenseful, A Study in Drowning is an adventure that fans of mysteries lurking in dark dusty archives, (which include brilliant but often underestimated heroines), won’t soon forget.

This review and more like it in the November 2023 issue of Locus.

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