NetGalley Review: Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear by Seanan McGuire
Hey all, Sam here.
I think it’s time to start playing catch-up on all these reads I haven’t reviewed yet this year (or the past couple years, honestly). I definitely do not promise that I’ll catch up on my review backlog quickly (I’m up to 43 books completed so far this year), but I am going to be trying to get a couple reviews up each week (hopefully).
So I might as well start with my first completed read for 2025.
My Thoughts
Giant turtles, impossible ships, and tidal rivers ridden by a Drowned girl in search of a family in the latest in the bestselling Hugo and Nebula Award-Winning Wayward Children series from Seanan McGuire.
Nadya had three mothers: the one who bore her, the country that poisoned her, and the one who adopted her.
Nadya never considered herself less than whole, not until her adoptive parents fitted her with a prosthetic arm against her will, seeking to replace the one she’d been missing from birth.
It was cumbersome; it was uncomfortable; it was wrong.
It wasn’t her.
Frustrated and unable to express why, Nadya began to wander, until the day she fell through a door into Belyrreka, the Land Beneath the Lake–and found herself in a world of water, filled with child-eating amphibians, majestic giant turtles, and impossible ships that sailed as happily beneath the surface as on top. In Belyrreka, she found herself understood for who she was: a Drowned Girl, who had made her way to her real home, accepted by the river and its people.
But even in Belyrreka, there are dangers, and trials, and Nadya would soon find herself fighting to keep hold of everything she had come to treasure.
Rating: 4.5 stars
First read of 2025 and it was a pretty quick read, finished in the first two hours of the new year. I love this series, and actually need to go back and just reread all of them because there are so many characters and worlds and connections between everything now, and I want to see what I notice now that I didn’t realize the first time around. The only real thing I’ll say about this one is that I’m actually sad it was only 160 pages long; I would have liked a little more time with Nadya and her found family.
That is what I wrote as my Goodreads review on January 1st, and that still stands as pretty accurate. I do really need to go back and do a re-read of this whole series because this is the 10th novella, but then there’s also a few short stories as well. What I have absolutely loved about them all is all the little details that connect them together, even if they take place at different times and we aren’t necessarily getting everything told to us in a linear fashion.
Also, this series has been fantastically diverse in so many ways. There has been so much representation of mental health, physical differences, various belief systems, different romantic and sexual preferences, and it all feels so earnest and honest and grounded. I have been a massive fan of Seanan McGuire for years (although I keep not picking up the October Daye or Incryptid series, despite owning many of them).
Oooh….I also once again am reminded that I do not have all the books in this series reviewed. Hmm…that might be another reason for a re-read. I’ll link every one I have reviewed here for you:
#1 – Every Heart a Doorway #2 – Down Among the Sticks and Bones #3 – Beneath the Sugar Sky #4 – In an Absent Dream #5 – Come Tumbling Down #6 – Across the Green Grass Fields #7 – Where the Drowned Girls Go #8 – Lost in the Moment and Found #9 – Mislaid in Parts Half-Known #10 – Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear #11 – Through Gates of Garnet and Gold (expected Jan 2026)
Okay, wow this review has not really dived into any specifics about this particular installment in the series. Sorry, I am massively out of practice with writing these. I did like learning about the watery world of Belyrreka. Each of these worlds in these stories has been unique and fleshed out enough to seem like some place the characters have lived in and explored and loved.
This is definitely a portal fantasy series to check out if you haven’t yet already.
Okay, that’s all from me for today. Thank you so much for stopping by, and I’ll be back soon with more geeky content.
