A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid

SYNOPSIS

Effy Sayre has always believed in fairy tales. She’s had no choice. Since childhood, she’s been haunted by visions of the Fairy King. She’s found solace only in the pages of Angharad - Emrys Myrrdin’s beloved epic about a mortal girl who falls in love with the Fairy King and then destroys him.

Effy’s tattered copy is all that’s keeping her afloat through her first term at the prestigious Llyrian architecture college. So when Myrddin’s family announces a contest to redesign the late author’s estate, Effy feels certain this is her destiny.

But Hiraeth Manor is an impossible task: a musty, decrepit house on the brink of crumbling into a hungry sea. And when Effy arrives, someone else has already made a temporary home there. Preston Héloury, a stodgy young literature scholar, is determined to prove Effy’s favorite author is a fraud.

As the two rival students investigate the reclusive author’s legacy, piecing together clues through his letters, books, and diaries, they discover that the house’s foundation isn’t the only thing that can’t be trusted. There are dark forces, both mortal and magical, conspiring against them - and the truth may bring them both to ruin.

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This book may be my best read of the year. Ava Reid has a way with words and has knocked it out of the park in every genre she’s written so far. This book was marketed as Dark Academia/Fairytale and while I do think it’s somewhat accurate in that there is folklore as a heavy theme in the book and they do attend a university, it’s very different from all that. I would call this novel a gothic romance with folklore weaved throughout it. This is a coming of age story that follows our heroine as the stories she believes in and took comfort in transform into something she could never have imagined. It’s a story that sheds a light on an imbalance of power and lost voices and how dangerous it can be to idolize an imperfect human, no matter who you might think they are. In themes of feminism there were so many relatable moments and quotes throughout this book and it made me feel very seen. It was a book made for storytellers and story lovers alike.

We follow the point of view of Effy who has spent her entire life seeing the Fairy King in her nightmares. To escape her cold home life and try to make a future for herself, she winds up being one of the only women within the architecture college at her new university. This itself comes with its challenges, mainly, no one believing she has just as much right to be there as anyone else. She faces unspeakable horrors at the start of her term and when an opportunity comes to get away and design the home of her favourite late author, she can’t pass down the chance to escape. Unfortunately, while at Hiraeth, she runs into a pompous rival, a student of the literary college (where women are not allowed to study). Her and Preston clash immediately, him with his literal and pragmatic points of view and her with her beliefs and dreaming. As they navigate the decaying old mansion they uncover secrets that have been kept for generations.

This book had hints of magical realism throughout and was set in a fantasy world but for the most part felt very realistic. I loved the undertones of magic that had us questioning whether what we were seeing was true or not. It helped that Effy was set up as an unreliable narrator from the start so the rest of the book still felt very mysterious. The setting was fabulous. It had all the trappings of a gothic horror and the vivid descriptions of the house and the atmosphere of the sea had me feeling the same unsettling fascination as the characters. Entering the part of the book where we arrive at Hiraeth was like stepping into a darker parallel reality from the beginning of the book. I haven’t felt as immersed in such a descriptive setting since Lord of the Rings. Even given the darker tones of this story, that immersive setting made me feel cozy and at home with these characters, making it more thrilling when things started to go wrong.

I loved the various themes threaded throughout this book. Mainly, the trauma of womanhood. This book takes place in a point in time where equality was non-existent. Effy is the only woman in the architecture college and she’s only there because women aren’t allowed in the literature college where she truly wishes to be. Because of this, the university is an “old boys club” and the atmosphere very much reflects that. Effy also has no autonomy. The professors, the students, the advisors, all feel they have ownership over her mind and body and she finds the desolate and isolated Hiraeth manor her only real escape from it all. As we get further into the book this hopelessness transforms into rage and we spiral like a hurricane into what it would be like to take our stories, our trauma, and our experiences back from those that stole them. It was a book that reflected on how easy it is to write women out of the story and how, the inverse, taking them back is such an uphill battle. There was also quite a bit of reflection on the idolization of the famous. I think we can all connect to Effy in her experiences in finding out those she idolized are not who she thought. I’m sure we can all think of at least one author (if not a handful) who ruined the stories for us when their true colours bled out.

The characterization of Effy was my favourite part of this book. She was feminine and soft but also extremely brave. She wasn’t “unlike other girls” she was exactly like them and I think that’s what made her so relatable. I think most of us readers can also relate to her solace in stories. She dealt with the awfulness of her life by escaping into her favourite fictional world. There was a quote from her internal monologue that jumped out at me: “How terrible, to navigate the world without a story to comfort you.” Preston, on the other hand, was hard to get a read on and I think that, even though he had more page time than any other side characters, he was still a side character in Effy’s story. And I loved that even though this was a love story, it didn’t take the focus off of Effy’s journey. Preston was able to relate to Effy in a way no one else could in that he had his own history of not belonging. He comes from a people that are rejected, mistrusted, and looked down on at his chosen university. He was the pragmatic realist that was the perfect balance to Effy’s wild dreamer.

I loved this book so much and it will have a special place in my heart…. and in my yearly re-read pile. I gave this 5 stars and I think everyone should read it. It’s the perfect atmospheric story for a gloomy fall day and I couldn’t put it down from start to finish.