Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an eARC of this copy in exchange for my honest review.

Holy shit, oh my god, Saft blew this out of the water, pun fully intended. The story follows Lorelei and Sylvia, academic rivals going on an expedition to find the Ursprung, the source of all magic. Their journey gets on its way and is almost immediately upended by the murder of their professor. Lorelei and Sylvia have similar and independent reasons for wanting to solve the mystery of who committed the crime, and the audience gets the absolute pleasure of seeing their relationship evolve through the stress of solving a murder and hunting for the most elusive source of power in the world.

Lorelei is a folklorist filled with so much self-loathing it's almost too much sometimes. She's a Yevani woman living in Brunnestaad, essentially a Jewish woman in Germany pre-WWII (but probably pretty close to it), and the prejudice she suffers has such a huge impact on her personality, mentality, worldview, etc. It's so interesting to see how she interacts with the world and the people around her. I saw things affect her that I've never considered would affect someone dealing with such extreme prejudice; it was really eye opening and made me consider the privilege I have as someone who hasn't dealt with hatred as intense as Lorelei has. 

One of the only people who doesn't treat Lorelei differently for who she is, is Sylvia, her academic rival. Sylvia is clever, kind, adventurous, brave to a fault, and doesn't give a damn what anyone else thinks of her. She's from a less stable part of Brunnestaad, and the others in the expedition refuse to let her forget it. She works just as hard as Lorelei to solve the murder mystery, and as they get closer, she refuses to let Lorelei pull away from her. Sylvia knows what she wants and will go straight for it, diving in head first. It's so fun to see Lorelei be angry with her, and it's even more fun when Lorelei starts to realize why it makes her so mad.

Their relationship just draws you in, and watching them explore it was 10/10. The murder mystery wasn't really full of twists and turns, but I was 95% there for the sapphic love story, so no biggie - it was still very fun. The side characters were really interesting, although I felt like the two women besides Lorelei and Sylvia were pretty similar, to the point where sometimes I forgot who was who. My only other character gripe was that Lorelei was so self-destructive that sometimes it felt like it was too much, like just to add conflict and not strictly because it was a legitimate character choice. I'm more or less willing to let it slide though because of all the hatred and trauma she's grown up with; I can't imagine it would be productive towards a healthy self-esteem.

I also felt like the ending came on a little too quickly so it would end with a neat bow. I wouldn't have minded reading more of the resolution of the problems brought to light at the beginning, and I feel like the book could've been another 50 pages longer and I would have been happy to see more things explained. Instead we get what felt like, "And it pretty much settled down after that," and leave it there for the most part. The ending is still great, don't get me wrong, but I would've liked it better if it had taken a bit longer to get there.

Aside from those minor complaints, let me sing the praises now: Saft's talent is on full display here. The craft, the prose, the storytelling, all of it was wonderful. I finished this and immediately added the rest of her works to my TBR. I can't get over the sheer poetry I found throughout this entire book. The main characters are fully fleshed out, realized people, and you get to know them so intimately, including through the eyes of the other person. The tentative politics of multiple nations being forcibly brought together to make a larger one played a huge part in the story and I enjoyed all of it. The sapphic romance had me kicking my feet and giggling the entire time, and seeing them finally come together was perfect. The magic system is well thought out and it was very fun to see people use it in different ways throughout the story based on their origins, history with it, and environment as the story progressed.

Overall, this is absolutely worth all of the hype you've seen about it, and I will be recommending these stunning water magic lesbians to anyone that will listen to me. Do yourself a favor and read this gorgeous book with this gorgeous cover, it's everything I've described here and so much more.