Daughter of the Merciful Deep
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4.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
A woman journeys into a submerged world of gods and myth to save her home in this powerful historical fantasy that shines a light on the drowned Black towns of the American South.
“Our home began, as all things do, with a wish.”
Jane Edwards hasn’t spoken since she was eleven years old, when armed riders expelled her family from their hometown along with every other Black resident. Now, twelve years later, she’s found a haven in the all-Black town of Awenasa. But the construction of a dam promises to wash her home under the waters of the new lake.
Jane will do anything to save the community that sheltered her. So, when a man with uncanny abilities arrives in town asking strange questions, she wonders if he might be the key. But as the stranger hints at gods and ancestral magic, Jane is captivated by a bigger mystery. She knows this man. Only the last time she saw him, he was dead. His body laid to rest in a rushing river.
Who is the stranger and what is he really doing in Awenasa? To find those answers, Jane will journey into a sunken world, a land of capricious gods and unsung myths, of salvation and dreams made real. But the flood waters are rising. To gain the miracle she desires, Jane will have to find her voice again and finally face the trauma of the past.
For more from Leslye Penelope, check out The Monsters We Defy.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Penelope (The Monsters We Defy) fuses magical realism, folklore, and African American history into a profound and rousing fantasy set in 1935 in the American South. Twelve years after armed men forced Jane Edwards and her family from their home, a traumatic event that caused Jane to lose her voice, she faces the daunting task of saving her new home in the all-Black town of Awenasa from the construction of a dam that threatens to bury the community underwater. As the threat looms, Jane encounters a man named Rob, whom she believed to be deceased, emerging from the very waters where his neighbors laid him to rest. Rob introduces Jane to an underwater realm of ancestral magic and gods—a discovery that could be the town's salvation. Now Jane and Daniel, the son of Awenasa's founder, race against time to persuade the community that their redemption lies in embracing magic. Along the way, Jane must reckon with her traumatic past. Jane's character leaps off the page, buoyed by a supporting cast who breathe life into the narrative. Meanwhile, the romance that develops between Jane and Daniel adds sweetness. This potent work packs a punch.
