Lorelei Kaskel is a surly folklorist who is sent as a part of an expedition team to find the fabled source of all magic. However, when her mentor is mysteriously murdered aboard their ship, Lorelei must reluctantly team up with the beautiful naturalist Sylvia von Wolff to find the killer before they strike again. I was really looking forward to A Dark and Drowning Tide by Allison Saft. It was one of my most highly anticipated reads of the year, so I’m sad to say that this book turned out to be yet another milquetoast disappointment. This book was pitched a story as a sapphic rivals-to-lovers dark academia, but there isn’t any rivalry to be found. What I got instead was Lorelei throwing petty, high-school grade insults at Sylvia because she doesn't approve of her hand-own research approach. There are no compelling reasons and personal history of bad blood to justify Lorelai's animosity toward Sylvia, so their initial dynamics feel juvenile and shallow to me. There’s also a weird...