Song of the Current

Song of the Current by Sarah Tolcser

I found this book to be mesmerizing. It was like an entrance into a different world, and I only found myself eager to explore. ...which sounds really kind of corny and weird...so here's the amazon summary!

An amazon summary, "Caroline Oresteia is destined for the river. Her father is a wherryman, as was her grandmother. All Caro needs is for the river god to whisper her name, and her fate is sealed. But at seventeen, Caro may be too late.

So when pirates burn ships and her father is arrested, Caro volunteers to transport mysterious cargo in exchange for his release. Secretly, Caro hopes that by piloting her own wherry, the river god will finally speak her name.

But when the cargo becomes more than Caro expected, she finds herself caught in a web of politics and lies. With much more than her father's life at stake, Caro must choose between the future she knows, and the one she could have never imagined." AMAZON LINK OF JUSTICE

So what the amazon summary completely fails to mention is the hints of magic everywhere in this world. Literally, page 1 of the book states quite clearly, "There is a god at the bottom of the river," (Tolcser, 1). On top of that, Caro and her father have a frogman on board. They're basically like a humanoid frog, that are smaller in stature, look like a frog, and don't say much. They also aren't just along the river, but it tends to be the preference for them to work on wherries. Honestly, I wish there was a lot more about the frogman (like the lore, stories, etc), maybe in book 2. Which is not a spoiler. Maybe. I don't know....in summary, supernatural elements isn't this weird figment of the imagination, like maybe hinted at thing within the world...but a very real thing.

Anyways.

So Caro and her father are smuggling some cargo down the river when they stop in port and the harbor master catches them. They offer them a deal; transport a mysterious box to where they want or go to jail. Her father refuses and goes to jail. Caro makes a deal that if she delivers the mysterious box, her father will go free. Her father is against the deal, but Caro is adamant on freeing him. She sets off with the box, the frogman Fee, and adventure soon finds her. The box isn't ordinary cargo, it contains a person inside. Dun dun dunnnn

So I really liked the world building of this book (aside from the lack of frogman knowledge, but that could be just because I'm curious about oddities within worlds) and I liked the character development.

But, kind of a spoiler alert, I took issue with the romance. It felt REALLY forced at moments, and one of those "Oh, we happened to spend a lot of time in the same vicinity as each other, well now of COURSE I'm in love with you!" Which is kind of annoying. I did enjoy the plot twists, and the unfolding of Caro's background, why she's so motivated, etc; but sometimes it felt like the writing style didn't quite live up to the subject matter. For example, at times the clothing seemed to matter A LOT in some situations where it felt like it shouldn't have been that big of a deal?

There were just a few hiccups that prevent me from making this a recommended book. BUT, I would most definitely read the second one. A little nautical humor, but you may consider me 'hooked'.

HAAAAAAAAAAAAA.....

Happy reading!