Winter Tide, Ruthanna Emrys
Winter Tide, Ruthanna Emrys
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Winter Tide

Author: Ruthanna Emrys

Narrator: Gabra Zackman

Unabridged: 12 hr 29 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 04/04/2017

Synopsis

"Narrator Gabra Zackman engages with this weird, grim novel, a combination of fantasy and mystery...her superb pacing and intense emotions add to the story's strange and intriguing atmosphere." — AudioFile Magazine

"Winter Tide is a weird, lyrical mystery — truly strange and compellingly grim. It's an innovative gem that turns Lovecraft on his head with cleverness and heart" —Cherie Priest

After attacking Devil’s Reef in 1928, the U.S. government rounded up the people of Innsmouth and took them to the desert, far from their ocean, their Deep One ancestors, and their sleeping god Cthulhu. Only Aphra and Caleb Marsh survived the camps, and they emerged without a past or a future.

The government that stole Aphra's life now needs her help. FBI agent Ron Spector believes that Communist spies have stolen dangerous magical secrets from Miskatonic University, secrets that could turn the Cold War hot in an instant, and hasten the end of the human race.

Aphra must return to the ruins of her home, gather scraps of her stolen history, and assemble a new family to face the darkness of human nature.

Winter Tide is the debut novel from Ruthanna Emrys, author of the Aphra Marsh story, "The Litany of Earth"--included here as a bonus.

About Ruthanna Emrys

RUTHANNA EMRYS lives in a mysterious manor house on the outskirts of Washington, DC with her wife and their large, strange family. Her stories have appeared in a number of venues, including Strange Horizons, Analog, and Tor.com. She is the author of the Innsmouth Legacy series, which began with Winter Tide. She makes home-made vanilla, obsesses about game design, gives unsolicited advice, and occasionally attempts to save the world.

About Gabra Zackman

Gabra Zackman began recording audiobooks when they were called books on tape, and has recorded more than 500, in all genres.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Bradley on February 09, 2017

It's impossible to think that most of you will have to wait until April to read this, and I say that for one reason: It's amazing! Take the Cthulhu mythos, take it seriously, have your sympathetic main character be a Deep One, and make us care for her family's plight. What's more, add a more than lib......more

Goodreads review by Nicole on June 01, 2021

actual rating: 2.5 stars If you're not familiar with Aphra's story, you should read Litany of Earth novella (read it here). I enjoyed this short story way more than Winer Tide. I really liked it but this book was so slow. I read it almost directly after starting this book. I expected Winter Tide to......more

Goodreads review by Liz on July 07, 2017

The blurb doesn't give a very accurate account of what actually happens in the book. There's no real spy story, the fact that it takes place in the late 40s is barely relevant, and it's way more interested in the magic, meditation, and rituals that the main character Aphra (who really doesn't have m......more

Goodreads review by Justine on June 08, 2017

4.5 stars A very impressive and impeccably written debut novel. The story is rooted in Lovecraftian mythos, but goes in new and unexpected places. The so-called monsters of Innsmouth are given the chance to show that they are people, with families and friends, who frighten primarily by being different......more

Quotes

PRAISE FOR WINTER TIDE:
"Winter Tide is a weird, lyrical mystery — truly strange and compellingly grim. It's an innovative gem that turns Lovecraft on his head with cleverness and heart" —Cherie Priest, author of Maplecroft and Boneshaker

"A mythos yarn that totally reverses the polarity on Lovecraft's xenophobia, so that in the end the only real monsters are human beings." —Charles Stross, Hugo Award-winning author of the Laundry Files and the Merchant Princes series

"Winter Tide is a treasure chest. Inside a reader will find the moving and complex adventures of Aphra Marsh, as well as a thoughtful level of historical and political allegory. Ruthanna Emrys writes within the Lovecraftian universe but stakes her own territory; she expands that universe in such exciting and surprising ways. This is an excellent novel and I can't wait for more." —Victor LaValle, author of The Ballad of Black Tom and The Devil in Silver

"This is Wicked for the Cthulhu Mythos: never quite contradicting, but dancing through the shadows and dredging beautiful things out of the deep, pulling them, at last, into the light." —Seanan McGuire, New York Times bestselling author of Every Heart a Doorway

“Winter Tide is a haunting, beautifully-crafted ballad exploring love, loss, and monsters. It delves into spirituality and history and power without losing sight of the thrilling mystery at its own heart. A glorious new addition to the rising tide of Lovecraftian counternarratives.” —Daniel José Older, New York Times bestselling author of Shadowshaper and Midnight Taxi Tango

“An engrossing story about othering and family that turns Lovecraft fascinatingly inside out.” —Jo Walton, Hugo Award-winning author of Among Others and The Just City

"Winter Tide shines an unexpected light on the shadow over Innsmouth. By telling the story from the perspective of Aphra Marsh, one of Lovecraft's notorious fish-folk, Ruthanna Emrys finds the fragile humanity in these once-terrifying non-humans, and shows how all creatures have to find common ground (or ocean) against evil. " —Alex Bledsoe, author of Long Black Curl

"Ruthanna Emrys has used what's best about H.P. Lovecraft (wild imagination, elaborate worldbuilding, gnarly monsters) to illuminate and critique what's worst in Lovecraft (racism, misogyny, xenophobia). By situating the worshippers of Cthulhu in the very real and very flawed America of the 20th century, Emrys has done what Lovecraft never could — create complex characters in an intricate plot that engages the heart at the same time as it curdles the blood." —Sam J. Miller, winner of the Shirley Jackson Award

PRAISE FOR “THE LITANY OF EARTH”:
"'The Litany of Earth' by Ruthanna Emrys is something special... a fascinating spin on the Cthulhu Universe." —Charlie Jane Anders, author of All the Birds in the Sky

"What if Lovecraft’s undersea creatures were not creepy monsters, but a persecuted people? [...] Emrys does justice to the idea in this lovely story of alienation and finding a new life in the shadow of the old." —Aliette de Bodard, author ofThe House of Shattered Wings

Awards

  • Locus Awards - Nominee
  • NPR Best Book of the Year
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