The Descent of the Drowned: Ana Lal Din

 

Title: The Descent of the Drowned
Author: Ana Lal Din
Publish Date: March 15th, 2021
Publisher: Tigress Press
Source: Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC to review!

She is bound to serve. He is meant to kill. Survival is their prison. Choice is their weapon.

As the sacred slave of a goddess, Roma is of a lower caste that serves patrons to sustain the balance between gods and men. What she wants is her freedom, but deserters are hunted and hanged, and Roma only knows how to survive in her village where women are vessels without a voice. When her younger brother is condemned to the same wretched fate as hers, Roma must choose between silence and rebellion.

Leviathan is the bastard son of an immortal tyrant. Raised in a military city where everyone knows of his blood relation to the persecuted clans, Leviathan is considered casteless. Lowest of the low. Graduating as one of the deadliest soldiers, he executes in his father's name, displaying his worth. When he faces judgement from his mother's people—the clans—Leviathan must confront his demons and forge his own path, if he ever hopes to reclaim his soul.

But in the struggle to protect the people they love and rebuild their identities, Roma's and Leviathan's destinies interlock as the tyrant hunts an ancient treasure that will doom humankind should it come into his possession—a living treasure to which Roma and Leviathan are the ultimate key.

Set in a colonised Indo-Persian world and inspired by pre-Islamic Arabian mythology, The Descent of the Drowned is a tale about power, identity, and redemption, and what it takes to hold on to one's humanity in the face of devastation.

Penelope's Review

I decided to give this book a try after being pulled in by the exciting synopsis. I did end up enjoying it, but there were a few aspects that just made it so I wasn't quite getting deep into the story. 

I found that the book started out really slow. There was a ton of information being thrown at the reader very quickly, and that mixed with all of the unfamiliar words being used (in another language) just made it so that it was difficult to get through. I found out when I finished that there was a glossary for all of these words, but it was placed at the end of the book where it was kinda "too little too late" s I would suggest having that at the beginning. Now the last half of the book got quite a bit more exciting and is the reason I will continue reading this series if the author puts more books out. I just wish it hadn't taken so long for the story to pick up.

The characters were interesting.. but there were a lot of side characters. With all of the unfamiliar terms being used, I found it hard to distinguish who was being referred to at times which took away from my reading experience a bit. I liked the two main characters though, which is important! Leviathan was an intimidating character at war with himself, mainly between who he wants to be and who he thinks he is. His struggle felt real and really drew me in and had me rooting for the good to win over the bad. Roma was a fighter, always looking out for those she cared about and questioning everything rather than swallowing whatever she is told to believe. 

I think this was a well-written book for the most part, but extremely detailed. While this is not necessarily a bad thing, there were times when entire paragraphs and even pages were dedicated to describing what someone was wearing and while I appreciate the intent behind this, I think it was a bit unnecessary at times. I think this was a bit part of the dragging feeling of the first half of the book. That being said, I think this series has a lot of potential (based on the ending, I am assuming this will become a series). There are a lot of different avenues this story can take, and a lot of aspects to consider so I am excited to see what Ana Lal Din does with her story. She touches on a lot of deep, disturbing topics but does so unaggressively. I think she wrote about these topics very well. 

Overall, I think this was a good debut and I am looking forward to seeing what else this author will come out with.

Rating: 3.5/5 Devils!