D is for Daughter

I’m doing folklore and book review posts to reach and please a larger audience. Previous years have shown select interest in both and to minimise blogging throughout the year, I’m focusing my efforts on April.

Focusing on an A to Z of my TBR (to be read) list, each letter will have books starting with that letter on my list, a book I’ve read and reviewed (with the review!) and one of my books matching the letter with a link about more info about the book.

I chose the books this year quite randomly from my Goodreads Want to Read page. Some are quite creatively added to letters.

If you’d rather check out my folklore post for today, go here.

You can read reviews for from previous years for this letter here, here and here, and my year-end reviews here, here, here, here and, most recently, here and here.

My TBR

About the Book I’ve Read

Daughter of the Merciful Deep by Leslye Penelope

A woman journeys into a submerged world of gods and myth to save her home in this powerful historical fantasy that shines a light on the drowned Black towns of the American South.

“Our home began, as all things do, with a wish.”

Jane Edwards hasn’t spoken since she was eleven years old, when armed riders expelled her family from their hometown along with every other Black resident. Now, twelve years later, she’s found a haven in the all-Black town of Awenasa. But the construction of a dam promises to wash her home under the waters of the new lake.

Jane will do anything to save the community that sheltered her. So, when a man with uncanny abilities arrives in town asking strange questions, she wonders if he might be the key. But as the stranger hints at gods and ancestral magic, Jane is captivated by a bigger mystery. She knows this man. Only the last time she saw him, he was dead. His body laid to rest in a rushing river.

Who is the stranger and what is he really doing in Awenasa? To find those answers, Jane will journey into a sunken world, a land of capricious gods and unsung myths, of salvation and dreams made real. But the flood waters are rising. To gain the miracle she desires, Jane will have to find her voice again and finally face the trauma of the past.

Check it out on Goodreads.

My Review

In the 1930s, somewhere in the American South, a town comprised entirely of Black people thrive. Until one day, the authorities arrive and tell them their town is scheduled to be flooded in a new dam project.

Jane is in her early twenties. Since a horrific crime then years earlier, she’s been unable to speak, using sign-language to communicate instead. It’s not a physical thing, according to doctors, but she is incapable of making a sound (even to yell for help).

There’s a lot of pain and hatred of the era, but the author skilfully makes this part of the worldbuilding and not the centre of the plot.

Jane has been riddled with guilt ever since they had to flee their town when she was a child. This guilt causes her to believe that she isn’t worthy of anything good. Though her sister has returned to town, she has a loving father, and a sweet boy is her best friend (hoping for more), she believes that what she’d done in the past means that she doesn’t deserve any of them. Though she has a low opinion of herself, her actions speak loudly as does the good opinion held of her by the people of the town.

Though the fantastical folklore used in this book is what drew me to it, it was Jane’s struggle with herself that kept me reading. She embodies the trauma all the residents of Awenasa had suffered, and when she heals (the journey to New Ilé, magic memories, confronting the past, etc.) she is also able to heal the wounds of her community and lead them to safety.

Though some would claim her healing was all due to magic, it was actually a spiritual journey she’d undergone (much like therapy) and the changes wrought in her by the end of the book isn’t because of magic, but love, acceptance, and forgiveness.

I liked the blend of history and folklore. Along with the lyrical prose, it was a book not easily set aside for other tasks. It’s the kind of storytelling that inspires one to be a better writer.

Highly recommended.

Trigger warnings: brutal racism from early 1900s American South (with all the violence and hatred).

My Book

Russian Roulette (Irascible Immortals #4)

Remember that you can request all of my books from your local library!

I hope you enjoyed this. For more books I’ve read and reviewed, check out either my Pinterest board about reviews or my Goodreads profile. Alternatively, you can check out my reviews on BookBub. Have you read any of the books? Loved or hated any of them?

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*FYI, my reviews are my honest opinion and if something bothers me, I tell it straight. How else will anything change? My opinions are based on being a voracious reader and book buyer, not an attack on the author.*

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