A Study in Drowning

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE WOLF AND THE WOODSMAN AND JUNIPER AND THORN

If the monsters are real, so are the women who defeat them.

Effy has always believed in fairy tales. She's had no choice. Since childhood, she's been haunted by visions of the Fairy King. She's found solace only in the pages of Angharad - a beloved epic about a mortal girl who falls in love with the Fairy King, and then destroys him.

Effy's tattered copy is all that's keeping her afloat through her stifling first term her prestigious architecture college. So when the late author's family announces a contest to design his house, Effy fells certain this is her destiny.

But Hiraeth Manor is an impossible task: a musty, decrepit estate on the brink of crumbling into a hungry sea. And when Effy arrives, she finds she isn't the only one who's made a temporary home there. Preston Héloury, a stodgy young literature scholar, is studying Myrddin's papers and is determined to prove her favourite author is a fraud.

As the two rival students investigate the reclusive author's legacy, piecing together clues through his letters, books, and diaries, they discover that the house's foundation isn't the only thing that can't be trusted. There are dark forces, both mortal and magical, conspiring against them - and the truth may bring them both to ruin.

©2023 Ava Reid (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Critics Review

  • A love letter to stories – and to everyone silenced or forgotten in their retelling.

    Allison Saft

  • A wonderfully written, tense and moving novel that offers its audience an endlessly readable mix of historical fiction, gothic mystery and fantasy romance that will draw you in again and again.

    CultureFly

  • As merciless as a rising tide and as beguiling as a fairy’s bargain.

    Melissa Albert

  • A Study in Drowning is a stunning book in every way. From one phenomenal book to another, Ava Reid is an author I am obsessed with . . . A masterclass in pacing, characterisation and tension, with a beautiful meditation on stories and who gets to have an authorial voice.

    The Nerd Daily

  • A spell-binding mix of magic, myth, and mystery.

    Rory Power

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