Quirky Cat's Fat Stacks

The Vanishing Deep: A Tale of Deep Waters and Death

The Vanishing Deep is the latest standalone novel from Astrid Scholte. She became an instant sensation with her novel Four Dead Queens, so it’s no surprise to see her at it again. However, her latest novel has taken a completely different turn.

In a world where water has dominance, humanity has done what it can to survive. Among other things, new technologies have been advanced, such as the technology that allows us to bring back a loved one from the dead – but only for twenty-four hours.

This is the world that Tempe was raised in. Having lost everything, Tempe was content to just try moving forward. Until she learned that everything was not as she was told. She’d have to bring her sister back from the dead to find the truth and demand some answers.

This is a chilling tale – as you can probably imagine from the description alone. I need to mention a couple of warnings before I begin. Neither are real spoilers, as they can be found in the book description. But this book covers subjects such as sibling death (obviously) and drowning.

Writing

The Vanishing Deep was beautifully written, taking full advantage of how chilling the idea of this sort of world would be. Here, Astrid Scholte combined several different themes, turning them into something completely new and never seen before.

There are two main characters in this story, Tempe and Lor. They’re about as different as you can imagine, seeing both sides of the conflict. But their backstories combined helped flesh out the world even further while cleverly obfuscating the truth.

I can’t emphasize this enough: The Vanishing Deep was a highly emotional book. Tempe went through hell and back in this novel, and Scholte was not afraid to show off all the feelings she dealt with – all of which were justified.

But it’s more than that as well. Everything about this novel seemed to elicit emotional responses from the history of the Great Waves to the new technology invented. It’s all laid out in such a way as to get readers thinking – and feeling.

Development

Providing two main perspectives for The Vanishing Deep allowed for a fairly steady pacing. It seemed like every transition between chapters resulted in something new being revealed. As such, staying invested in what was happening on the pages was easy.

This was a novel full of twists and turns, where everything revealed had to be put into question. Tempe’s world was turned upside down at the beginning of this novel, and that was only the beginning.

Seeing all of the tricks Scholte used to carry the story forward was fascinating. To try and put the pieces of this puzzle back together. She did an excellent job of misdirecting in more than one instance. All of the information was provided – yet none of it in a manner that made it easily predictable.

So, it’s probably not all that surprising to hear that the conclusion was not what I expected. I imagine many a reader will be feeling that way as well. In many ways, the conclusion felt…right. But in many other ways, I find myself still processing everything that was said and done. It makes me almost wish that this was more than a standalone novel so that I could get a sense of closure – ironic, given the dominant theme of the plot.

Conclusion

The Vanishing Deep was a carefully written novel with complex plots and raw emotions. It’s a brilliant follow-up, proving that Scholte can write in various genres and styles. That right there makes me very curious to see what she will come out with next.

This review was originally written for Word of the Nerd, but has been ported over to Quirky Cat’s Fat Stacks now that the site has shut down.

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