Title: A Magic Deep and Drowning
Author: Hester Fox          
Genre: Fantasy   
Rating: 3 out of 5

Holland, 1650. One fine spring day in Friesland, twenty-year-old Clara van Weiren is faced with an ill a whale, beached and rotting in the noonday sun. But Clara doesn’t believe in magic and superstition, and this portent is quickly dismissed when a proposal from a wealthy merchant arrives, promising Clara the freedom she seeks from her mother’s overbearing rule.

When her attempts at overseeing the household at the family’s estate lead to her chance encounter with a young man with russet hair and sparkling eyes the color of the sea, she finds herself strangely drawn to him. As Clara grows closer to Maurits, she must choose between the steady, gentle life she has been raised for and the man who makes her blood sing.

But Maurits isn’t who he seems to be, and his secrets, once hidden beneath the waves, threaten to rise up and drown them both. And when an ancient bargain, forged in blood between the mythical people of the sea and the rulers of the land, begins to unravel, Clara finds herself at the heart of a deadly struggle for power.

I have to be honest, this didn’t really work for me. I was drawn in by the beginning, liked Clara, and was eager to see what happened. But Maurits was clearly hiding things, and she just chose to ignore that and what she herself saw and heard and traipse merrily after him like it was no big deal. Her parents, particularly her mother, were awful. Maurits’s family was awful. And I felt like there was no chemistry between the two of them. She went from anti-this-mysterious-man-who’s-clearly-a-liar to being madly in love with him, with no transition? Not believable.

Hester Fox lives in Massachusetts. A Magic Deep and Drowning is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of Harlequin/Graydon House in exchange for an honest review.)

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