Lands had changed almost beyond recognition, vanishing under creeping waters and floods that never receded. That sentence was on the first page of this book which I began reading on the morning of March 1. The night of February 28, the Kentucky River flooded all of downtown Beattyville, destroying many homes and businesses. Even though I don’t live in the downtown area, that sentence gave me shivers. The Kentucky River eventually receded and went back where it belonged, but the waters in the book never did. The North Sea swallowed that land forever.
The Drowning Land, a fantasy novel, takes you back to the Mesolithic Period. Phelan, Tara, and Edan are each members of different tribes of people. The land of these tribes, Doggerland, still connects England to France, but now their land is being overtaken by water.
Tara is kidnapped by Phelan’s tribe (all of them are wolf-touched) and he plans to sacrifice her to appease Fomor, the god making the water cover everything. Phelan doesn’t realize just how smart Tara is. After all, she’s a troll. But Tara understands almost every word they say, and she plans her escape. I love it that she was able to pull the wool over their eyes so easily.
When she escapes, she is rescued by Edan (a hunter-gatherer). His tribe of people isn’t pleased at first—after all, Tara is a troll—but she soon proves her worth to them. She also proves her worth to Edan over time, but in a much different way than she proves it to his tribe of people.
This book is also a historical novel. The way these people hunted and lived would prove daunting to me, and I’m not sure that I would survive. It amazes me that as many as did survived the water taking over their world and all they knew. Each tribe had different traditions they followed, different languages they spoke, and different gods they worshiped. But all knew of Fomor.
As the animals, plants, and trees disappear, how can any of them hope to survive? Edan and Tara also have Phelan chasing after them and he is determined to kill them. Phelan wants Edan dead just because he is angry that he got away from him. He wants to sacrifice Tara to appease Fomor so the waters will go away and give them back their land.
Tara is a seer and has dreams of the future, so she gives Edan hope as they travel to escape the water and Phelan. The human race will survive.
Did things happen just as the author wrote? Who knows? The author has put a lot of research into this book. His writing was so good and believable that I was rooting for Tara and Edan and booing Phelan.
I received a copy of this book in exchange for an open and honest review. If you would like to travel back to a time before the North Sea swallowed lands, to a time where people were just trying to live, you would love this book. If you would like to purchase your own copy of it, I’ve provided an Amazon link below.
Amazon Link: The Drowning Land
Recommended Article: Investigating the Drowned Land – Guest Post by David Donachie
Favorite Sentences:
Snarling and hissing between bared fangs the old beast tried again and again to escape the clearing, clawing at the points of the hunters’ spears.
Freshly scoured slopes of mud had swallowed the trackway, puddled with water and strewn with detritus.
His muscles ached from the pace he was keeping, sweat plastering his hair to his head, but he thrilled at the chase, doggedly following the lone hunter as he twisted and turned through the woodland.
By the time he was consciously aware of the rage, it was lodged inside him like a snake coiled up in his belly.
New Words Learned:
alder – a widely distributed tree of the birch family that has toothed leaves and beats male catkins and woody female cones
auroch – a large wild Eurasian ox that was the ancestor of domestic cattle. It was probably exterminated in Britain in the Bronze Age, and the last one was killed in Poland in 1627.
avens – plant of the rose family, typically having serrated, divided leaves and seeds bearing small hooks. Several kinds are grown in gardens.
bear’s garlic – wild garlic; an herb with a long history of medicinal applications, mainly for treating high cholesterol and hypertension
https://www.herbazest.com/herbs/bears-garlic
chert – a hard, dark opaque rock composed of silica (chalcedony) with an amorphous or microscopically fine-grained texture. It occurs as nodules (flint) or, less often, in massive beds.
frisson – a sudden strong feeling of excitement or fear; a thrill
greylag – a common gray wild goose of Europe that is the ancestor of most breeds of domestic goose
knotweed – a plant of the dock family that typically has sheaths where the leaves join the stems. It is often an invasive weed.
jadeite – a green, blue, or white mineral that is one of the forms of jade
meadowsweet – a tall plant of the rose family with clusters of sweet-smelling flowers
meres – lakes or ponds; any body of sea water
mudflat – a stretch of muddy land left uncovered at low tide
osier – a small Eurasian willow that grows mostly in wet habitats and is a major source of the long flexible shoots used in basketwork
pellucid – translucently clear
rowan – the European mountain ash, having pinnate leaves and clusters of bright red berries
surreptitious – kept secret
worried – pulled at or fiddled with repeatedly
About the Author:
David M. Donachie would like to be a reclusive polymath tending his collection of bones in a rattling house overlooking the ocean but is actually an IT professional, writer, and artist residing in a chilly garret full of reptiles, cats, and books.
David’s first book of short fiction, The Night Alphabet, is available on Amazon as are the many anthologies and gaming books to which he has contributed.
If you’d like to know more about David’s work, he strongly encourages you to visit his website, follow him on Facebook, or check him out on Goodreads.
Website: https://www.teuton.org/~stranger/
Facebook: @DavidMDonachieAuthor
Amazon: dmdonachie
Mailing List: https://mailchi.mp/943260befcb9/follow-david-m-donachies-writing-news
Goodreads: www.goodreads.com/dmdonachie
Lovely review Lisa! Thank you so much. I love the way you highlight words and passages that you enjoyed as well.