Serena of THE LIBRARY LADIES praises DRIFTWOOD by Marie Brennan.

Beautifully written and incredibly unique. This is definitely a book to check out this summer!

On REDDIT r/Fantasy, user u/daavor agrees.

In terms of style and atmosphere, it perhaps most reminds me of some glorious hybrid of the Divine Cities Trilogy, MJ Harrisons Viriconium novels, and maybe shreds of Gaiman and Valente. Details drift past you in a style reminiscent of certain weird fiction. Of course, those who’ve read Lady Trent have a sense of Brennan’s voice, but absent the framing device of Trent’s memoir this novel’s voice is I think a little softer, a little sadder, a little less feisty, but in the best of ways. The prose is clear, fluid, and well crafted, lingering on the details and oddities, as mentioned before.

Repeatedly here I’ve summarized this novel as sombre or melancholy. It is, and yet I don’t walk away from it sad. Because Driftwood is more than the sum of its parts and DRIFTWOOD is more than the sum of its sorrows. I leave it optimistic and thoughtful (though I wouldn’t pencil it in as optimistic fiction in your bingo card).

THE CURIOUS SFF READER includes the novel in their Mid-Year Freak Out Tag | 2020.

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SURPRISE SO FAR?

The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders and DRIFTWOOD by Marie Brennan, I wasn’t expecting to love them as much as I did but, they both blew me away!