This book was definitely a surprise for me. It was my first time reading a book which was written in that way. We learn everything about the characters, the world, the story through the letter correspondence between the characters of the book.

This style intrigued me a lot and I was reading the letters everytime with a new found thirst to get all the details of the environment, put all the puzzle pieces in place, and learn in the end what is going on.

There was a lot of diversity representations as well in this book, which was also a different aspect to my usual reads.

Overall, a nice change from the "classics" and definitely very original to me. I recommend it!

I unfortunately am not the right audience for this book :/ I couldn't get used to the writing style and found myself often confused. Though I know many would enjoy it, it's just not for me!

An intriguing story told through a unique format.

Pretty enjoyable read, but not for me. I believe people will either love or hate the epistolary format of this book. The tone is very close to Emily Wilde, but here characters and their relationships are more important than the plot. I'd say is 85% character study and 15% plot, which might not suit some readers.

This felt very much like a cozy fantasy, since the stakes are so low; you get to spend a lot of time with E. and Henerey (and Sophy and Vyerin), you get to know their life, their aspirations, their fears etc.The prose is beautiful but pretty dense, I had to read 20-30 pages at a time else I was in danger of losing interest. The plot is very slow moving, so I recommend taking your time to read this book.

This is book one of a series (duology?) and by the end there isn't a definite resolution to the mystery, so for readers who don't like cliffhangers I recommend waiting til the sequel is out.

Thank you to NetGalley and Publishers for this eARC

A Letter to the luminous deep is an intriguing story, the unique style of telling the story via letters.
I really enjoyed this novel, I did like the style but I also thought it was missing those extra details that you get in a "story telling" way.
The style was enjoyable and provided detailed descriptions in the letters but the pacing is slow and it took awhile through letters to find out what was really going on.

Unfortunately the format of the writing didn't suit my tastes. I DFN at 10%. Would probably suit someone else - not like the Emily Wilde journal style of writing as some reviews claim. Letter format was very dry for me.

utterly beside myself. a PLEASURE to read. slow to start and occasionally indulgent but i ended up loving it. the tone and pace are kind of brand-new to me, i haven’t read anything really comparable, which is a shame because it’s so lovely! would love more books like it, so warm and intriguing. i guess it’s time to hunker down for the long wait for the sequel

DNF'd at 23% through:

I loved the concept, and was very excited to find this ARC on NetGalley, as it was recommended on my favourite bookish podcast.

People looking for an academic, epistolary book will enjoy this, as long as they are okay with the two reasons why I dropped it -- incredibly elaborate and descriptive prose, and a slow-paced story with little to no action (at least in the first quarter, which is what I read).

I probably would have enjoyed it as well if I were in a different mood, but it was too scholarly for me right now and just couldn't get immersed in it (no pun intended but maybe a little)

Thanks to NetGalley and Little, Brown Book Group UK for providing me with an eARC for A Letter From the Luminous Deep.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I loved the concept of this book. Found penpal letters where we discover along with the readers how the reclusive E. and enigmatic Henerey develop feelings of friendship and love through their writing.

Im also a sucker for light academia. And this was very reminiscent of Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Faerie, which I loved!

The pacing of this book was a little slow in parts. I understand that it is in part, due to the format, as we are finding out bits and pieces of information as we read through the letters. However, overall I really enjoyed this unique story and I look forward to the next instalment.

I had a lovely time reading this book! The plot was quite engaging, and the mystery itself was pretty intriguing. The representation for anxiety and OCD, which isn't typically discussed in books!
I am eagerly awaiting this book's sequel. It did, however, feel more like a harsh chop and less open and ambitious, which disappointed me a little.
The writing style was great, I liked the characters! I love the concept of the book! I enjoyed that the story was in a charming fantasy, magical underwater world.

Thank you to NetGalley and Little, Brown Book Group UK, Orbit for a copy of this book in a exchange of a honest review.

The reclusive E. and her penal, Scholar Henery Clel, do fall in love through their letters filled with passion. Together, they uncover a mystery from the unknown depths, destined to transform the underwater world they both equally fear and love. But by no mere coincidence, a seaquake destroys E’s home, and she and Henerey vanish. We’re reading those letters now over the shoulders of both E.’s sister and Henry’s brother, both of whom are frantically trying to work out what actually happened between their siblings, how the couple’s mysterious disappearance came about - and also how it might tie into the research that E.’s sister was doing in the very depths of an oceanic abyss in a radical expedition that ended with chaos and unnerving secrets.
•
First thing I loved about this novel is the format, an epistolary novel full of sweet, romantic, intimate, charming and heartwarming letters!
Not only do we get letters between the 2 main characters, but they have collected letters from their siblings whose lives came to a sudden and mysterious end, and we get to read through interactions between multiple different characters through this format.
This type of format is really smooth and dynamic! If you loved Emily Wilde you will love this style too!!

Another thing that was so unique was the setting, a fantastical world that basically lives on the water.
This world used to be a floating island in the sky, and something happened years before this novel takes place, but the sky civilization came crashing down, and now there are 3 different areas each with its own unique standards of living. Magical, vivid, intriguing but also a little scary !!

I also really liked the romance plot! The letters between the characters were so sweet and the Slow Burn + Academic Romance is one of my favourite tropes!! The mystery part was also very interesting and well made.
•
Thanks to Netgalley Orbitbooks UK and Sylvie Cathrall for providing me with this ARC!

final review: ★★★★☆

thank you to Netgalley and the publisher Little Brown Book Group for the e-arc!

wowwww...... truly remarkable. a book entirely consisting of back and forth letters, transcripts and annotations that tell a complete story without ever writing the story real time. in a day this feels like a mesh between This is How You Lose the Time War and Searching (2018). this is pretty much the 'found footage' format in book form and i gobbled it up in just a day.

i loved the purple prose used in the letters. and i can suspend my disbelief that people write like this because a) they are mostly letters and this is how people write letters (or at least how i like to), b) the world as we know it has been destroyed so their foundation of language are different, and c) academia things. the worlds have touched me, there's just something intimate about the way lovers write; from the casual banter to the flirtation to eventually the longing and desire that just oozes from the page on the letters between Henery and E. but there's just something similar yet more mature in the way Niea and Sophy write each other as well. and it's just so special to me that all the characters have their own writing style. it doesn't HAVE to be there, but it is and that makes this so awesome.

i like how this solve the mystery of where the two lovers went comes from the initiatives of Sophy and Vyerin, and it goes from a recount of E. and Henery's budding love into a much bigger story that delves into the lore of their world that even involves E. and Sophy's mother. the familial bond of both the blood and found family in this is so strong and it's always nice to see when both are thriving.

the way Cathrall lets the supporting characters like Arvist and Riev shine on their own briefly also makes this more compelling. no one is really tossed to the side. and that ending?? i am so excited to see how Arvist can redeem is lowkey *sshole behaviour and join Sophy in looking for E.

2025 cannot come sooner. looking forward to the sequel!

(cross posted on goodreads)

R E V I E W

A Letter to the Luminous Deep by Sylvie Cathrall

☆☆☆

The writing style of this book is very reminiscent of Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faerie- only it an epistolary story rather than one told through an academic journal. The prose is very similar in style to Emily Wilde, academic and formal, almost archaic, and the main character(s) E. and Henerey both show traits of neurodiversity so you can easily see the parallels between the two novels.

I think if you enjoy immersive settings with just a hint of romance and mystery, then this will be one for you. Unfortunately, I found the constant to-and-fro of letters with the occasional academic journal entry or text excerpt meant it took a long time to get to the actual purpose of the story. It was very text-dense but with little plot pay-off.

In a nutshell, this is a story told through letters between Sophy Cidnosin and Vyerin Clel after their siblings, who seemingly fostered a romantic relationship through letters themselves as a result of their social anxieties, have disappeared. These letters take place one whole year later as Sophy and Vyerin try and use their siblings' correspondences to unearth what actually happened whilst simultaneously getting to know one another.

The pacing was quite slow and if I'm honest, I did start to lose interest in the story but forced myself to push on in order to finally get some answers. Little did I know this is actually only book one, with a sequel on the way and there were no real answers to be had. The mystery remains but my interest in continuing this series sadly did not.

*thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an early copy of this book in exchange for an honest review*

Wow! this was absolutely beautiful! the writing was superb! I am in awe! I can't wait to get my special edition the cover is just gorgeous! A must read!

if you like epistolary romance (divine rivals) and academia (EWEoF) then this is a perfect read for you!

100% recommend!

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the review copy.

Wow.

This is a stunning debut novel. It is written in an unusual manner, mainly as letter correspondence across two separate timelines, one in the past and one in the present time reacting to the past letters. I thought it might be confusing at first to follow this format, but I had no problem at and was immersed in no time. The characters are fantastically written, and this is one of the best examples of mental health rep that I have read. Also some of the most fantastically written relationships as well. Even the minor side characters felt vibrant. It does take some time to get your head around the world, but I so desperately want to read more about it. I can't wait to immerse myself in the sequel.

I have been having a hard time starting this review. A Letter to the Luminous Deep was a good read, but overall I’ve been feeling very “meh” about it since I’ve finished — there could be worse feelings, but usually you want something better!

Let me start off by saying that this book threw me off from the beginning. I quite honestly thought the characters were fish for a good couple of pages, until some of the language indicated that they were human. You can imagine how baffled I was. I was also intrigued. Let’s just say the first few pages were a whirlwind.

I did enjoy the epistolary format, I think it worked well to built the mystery and the tension, and it worked well to showcase different character perspectives. Sometimes the letters got a bit tiring, and by this I mean it was an effort to keep up with who was who (despite the headings) as times the voices sounded similar.

This is likely my fault for not reading more about the book, but I was also under the impression that this book was a standalone. So, when I got to the end of the book I was torn between “okay, so we actually don’t really get an answer to that, but I get the open ending, but lord the book went on for so long” to seeing that there’s actually going to be a sequel which kind of annoyed me because I think this would’ve worked well as a standalone (just more answers please) but I feel like to properly assess that one would have to read the sequel and judge.

I do think the characters had some chemistry, but ironically it was the characters that had no romantic link / plot that actually had the most.

As someone who has OCD, I really enjoyed and appreciated the OCD representation in this. I saw myself in many of the rituals and anxieties. I appreciated the truthful representation and how it was handled with care.

I think the plot was interested but it meandered. It took a lot to get barely anywhere. The world building was also quite confusing, and I still don’t understand half of the historical context and the different factions of people. Baffled.

I do think this was a good read, but it didn’t blow me out of the water (ha).

Superb writing from this author, a very eye catching cover, this book will go far, 5 stars. Blindingly excellent ... This book should come with a disclaimer as once you start reading you aren’t going to want to walk away.

I am trying to read three chapters, yet unfortunately it was not my cup of tea. The story seems interesting, yet I don't quite enjoy the format. It was just like when I read "The Perks of being Wallflower", the book with the same format. I read TPOBW for a few pages and ended up not finishing it because I'm not used to the format, even though the story was pretty enjoyable. It goes the same with this book. I still recommended it, though.

I was super excited for this one, but unfortunately it was a miss for me. I've never read a book written in the format of letters, and I now know that it's a style I don't vibe with.

The world building I found to be very confusing, and I found myself having to constantly go back to remind myself or double check. BUT I do think that there will be people who really love this book!

I DNF at around 15%.

Dnf for me.
I know it's called "letters to..." but I didn't gel at all with how it was written and I just could not enjoy the story.
I'm sure it's a brilliant read for someone, but that someone isn't me unfortunately

Oh this was absolutely delightful!! This magical academia story was told in an epistolary fashion and whilst it took me a wee while to get into as I’ve never read anything written in this way before - it was so worth it!

The romance that developed between the main characters was so tender and beautiful and then the siblings and their significant others was also just adorable😩😩

I really enjoyed the way this story progressed and cannot wait for the next one!

If you liked A Natural History of Dragons or Emily Wildes Encyclopaedia of Faeries then you will love this!