This was definitely something I picked up because of the cover, because wow. But, I was so pleasantly surprised by this debut. This was very "watery academic" and I'm obsessed.
Synopsis: This story is split between two time periods and two sets of pen pals. The year 1002 is following E. and Henerey as they start what appeared to be an academic friendship but quickly developed into something more romantic. That is until an unexpected discovery causes them to disappear. The next year, follows E's sister Sophy and Henery's brother Vyerin who are left to solve the mystery and sort through the clues in their siblings letters to find out what happened to them. But what both sets of siblings have discovered might change everything for the world they live in. Maybe they disappeared for a reason?
Plot: To start off this was very slow, and I was worried I wasn't going to like it. I began in a confusion and felt very thrown into the plot. The location throughout remained a bit of a mystery. It is so important and relevant to the plot but the descriptions made it hard to picture and not a lot of backstory about the world was given. Despite that, I quickly started to get invested and around the 25% mark, I was hooked. I think I've decided I really like epistolary novels because this was stunning. Sometimes with those types of books, the chain of letters can make the plot feel disjointed and like you're missing key elements, but this flowed together so seamlessly. There was so much mystery and fantasy to this that I was not expecting and there were even some twists thrown in there too. Everything about this really packed a punch once I got into the meat of the storyline. Not only was this a story about a lost brother and sister and solving that mystery but it also included topics of mental health, friendship, love, and accepting who you are. E.'s anxiety was dealt with so beautifully and I really appreciated the care that was taken when telling her story. Generally everything about this was well done--emotional and intriguing. For a debut, I am so impressed with the writing and cannot wait to see where this story will go from here.
Characters: The characters really shined here. Although the voices weren't super prominent between letters, I didn't mind because each person was so lovely and very very quickly I fell in love with them. There was something so satisfying about the way the characters were writing to the others. It was wonderful to watch them push their own boundaries, get closer with each other, and ultimately band together to solve all of these mysteries. I feel that with the second book we are going to get even more of a development and I'm very excited to see how that goes.
Get me that sequel!!
4/5 stars.
Thank you NetGalley for this ARC.
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