Drowned Country

still good, but this wasn't as good as Silver in the Wood. problems with the narrator, who for most of the book was being a little shit at length. also, the background detail wasn't as strong nor was the writing as lyrical. ( )

Silver doesn't seem to have done well as replacement for Tobias, and he is pulled from his downward spiral to join his mother and Tobias in rescuing a young woman from and old vampire - only to find himself on a rather different tack. A bit too handy to be nearly as mythic as the previous book. ( )

In this sequel to the first novella, Silver and Tobias have split up; Tobias is with Silver’s mother, until she comes to get him to investigate what they think is a vampire who’s taken a young woman. It turns out to be a bit more complicated, and they have to deal with the attractions of Fairyland while figuring out how to navigate Silver’s new immortality and Tobias’s new mortality. It’s nicely done. ( )

Having made a decent enough book the first time around, why not just reset and basically do the same thing again, this time from the perspective of the least interesting character from the first book? Oh, and let's sideline the most dynamic character from the first book but replace her with what is basically a younger clone?

Between books, Tobias Finch and Henry Silver have become estranged, but must come together again when a young person goes missing, possibly because of a vampire. Silver is an even mopier narrator than Finch was in the first book as he struggles with the burden of being the servant of the forest and smitten with someone who seems unreachable.

The prose is irritating and slow, the plot is predictable, and the whole thing is much to much lacking in Adela Silver. ( )

http://tamaranth.blogspot.com/2020/08/2020101-drowned-country-emily-tesh.html ( )