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What a lovely novel. It took me a while to get into Winter Tide, but once I did, I enjoyed it immensely.
Aphra and her brother Marsh are the only survivor of the government’s 1928 Innsmouth. In the desert camps, Aphra watched family, friends and neighbors die, far from the sea and the gods they worshiped. Eventually, the government forgot about Aphra and her brother, and they were released along with all the Japanese American families who’d been placed in internment camps during World War II. The FBI agent Aphra reluctantly helped in the short story that spawned Winter Tide, “The Litany of Earth” (which is available for free on Tor.com and also included in my edition of Winter Tide) once more seeks her aid. FBI agent Ron Spector fears that Communist operatives have stolen magical secrets from Miskatonic University. Aphra agrees to go with him, also realizing this could be a chance to regain some of the history she’s lost.
Something obvious to know about Winter Tide: it is working with the Lovecraftian mythos. I have never read Lovecraft, although I have read a few other stories using the mythos (The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe being an excellent one). However, I didn’t find my ignorance of the Lovecraft canon an impediment to enjoying Winter Tide. Emrys explains what needs to be explained. As Aphra is often surrounded with those less aware of the supernatural, there’s plenty of natural points for the narrative to do so without feeling like an info dump.
It took me a while to get into Winter Tide. I suppose it partly could have been due to my having no idea there was a short story that introduced the characters (for the record, I don’t think you need to have read “The Litany of Earth” before Winter Tide). However, I suspect it’s just because Winter Tide is a slower paced, more reflective sort of story. Winter Tide is a story focused on and driven by its characters.
Aphra may have lost all of her original family but Caleb, but she’s slowly building a new family around her. In the camps, a Japanese American family took her and her brother in, and her adopted sister travels with her to Miskatonic University. In San Francisco, where Aphra lives at the start of Winter Tide, she has found employment with a bookshop owner interested in the magical arts and has taken him on as an apprentice. In the course of Winter Tide, she finds others she feels some sort of affinity for, people marginalized and barred from power. If that doesn’t already tell you, Winter Tide has a diverse cast of characters who vary in race, religion, disability, and sexual orientation. I always love it when historical fiction represents the true diversity of the past.
On a related note, Emrys has said in interviews that Aphra is asexual. I’ll admit, that was part of why I picked up Winter Tide. While there where a few passages that I could understand through this knowledge of Aphra as ace, there’s not enough for it to be textually explicit. While there is no romance in Winter Tide, I have no clue as to whether or not Aphra is aro. Hopefully, we’ll see more of Aphra’s orientations in the sequel, but I wouldn’t recommend Winter Tide if you’re specifically looking for representation. Luckily, there’s plenty else to love about the book.
In short, I found Winter Tide to be a particularly impressive debut novel, and I loved the theme of found family. I want the sequel right away! Too bad I have to wait until this summer.
- Series: The Innsmouth Legacy (Book 1)
- Hardcover: 368 pages
- Publisher: Tor.com (April 4, 2017)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0765390906
- ISBN-13: 978-0765390905
- Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.9 x 8.5 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
- Average Customer Review: 106 customer reviews
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Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#380,853 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #3016 in Historical Fantasy (Books)
- #48614 in American Literature (Books)
- #3766 in Dark Fantasy
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