A Letter from the Lonesome Shore - Sylvie Cathrall - ★★

AUTHOR: Sylvie Cathrall

SERIES: The Sunken Archive, #2

GENRE: Epistolary Fantasy-Romance.

PUBLICATION DATE: May 6, 2025.

RATING: 2 stars.

In a Nutshell: The second half of the sunken Archive Duology. The GR rating for this book is higher than the first one, but my experience was the opposite. Liked the underwater world. Didn’t like the plot, characters, and revelations. The epistolary content was the biggest disappointment. Not to be read as a standalone. Not at all like Emily Wilde, no matter what the blurb says.

Plot Preview: (This section contains spoilers from the first book.)

The story continues from the end of Book One: A Letter to the Luminous Deep.

When E and Henerey land up in a strange new society obsessed with knowledge, they slowly accept the fact that they might not return home. They do not know that back home, their respective siblings Sophy and Vyerin have discovered what might have led to their disappearance and are trying to locate them. The question is not just whether the two groups of siblings will meet but also about an ancient threat that might destroy the world as they know it.

This book is also epistolary in approach, but with fewer letters and more official records and journal entries from various characters.

Keeping the review vague to avoid further plot spoilers from either book.

Bookish Yays:

⛲ The prologue, which cleverly catches us up on the essentials of the first book. (Further proving the point that the entire first book could have been contained within a prologue.) A good way of refreshing the minds of those who might have started this sequel a long time after completing the first book.

⛲ The portrayal of anxiety and other mental health issues of two key characters – true to life.

⛲ The LGBTQ+ representation, as impressive as in the first book.

⛲ The cover – Even more stunning than the cover of the first book, which itself was gorgeous.

(Three of the above Yays were also Yays in my review for the first book. So it’s nice to see the consistency of delivering on strengths.)

Bookish Mixed Bags:

🌊 The relationships – E and Henerey, Sophy & Vyerin with their respective partners, and some more couples. The emotions are (cheesily) good, but they also feel repetitive as the content is almost exactly the same in tone as well as material as in the first book. An overload of déjà vu!

🌊 The characters: The original four are still good. We get to know Henerey and E better in this sequel. There are a couple of interesting new characters from the new society as well. The depiction of a certain legendary being, continuing from the first book, is mesmerising. However, most of the characters feel distanced because of the writing approach.

🌊 The world(s) in which the book is set – I can't reveal more but the setting is fascinating. I especially enjoyed reading how knowledge is viewed and used in this society. However, the descriptions are relatively minimal this time around. Though visualising the places isn’t tough, the atmospheric feel is missing.

Bookish Nays:

💧 The epistolary approach feels forced this time. Unlike the first book that had mostly personal letters, this one relies heavily on other epistolary content: unsent letters, journal entries, official reports (though these still include unofficial dialogues.) As such, it doesn’t feel the same in tone. The unsent letters annoyed me the most; such a convenient way of updating readers about the plot without there even being an delivered/discovered epistle!

💧 Pet peeve: I hate it when documents aren’t written in the format they claim to be. A diary entry should sound like a diary entry, an official record must sound formal. Most of the epistolary content in this book feels like a glorified novel, containing even back-and-forth conversations. It was tough to remember whose perspective I was reading because everything sounded mostly the same. (And hardly anything sounded like what it was supposed to be.)

💧 The terribly slow tempo, with a great deal of focus on needless things than on the actual plot. On that note…

💧 Where’s the plot? The first book had already established the background! Why do we get even more background in this book? Why does it take more than half the book to finally take the story ahead?

💧 The unexpected infodump somewhere around the 70% mark, offering even more background but to another prior event. Why wasn’t this inserted in bits and pieces in between the other letters so that we could have been saved of that massive pile-up?

💧 The ending. Considering how a certain ‘P’ word was repeated so often in the second half, I anticipated feeling more apprehension and tension during the finale. But the main scene came and went without even a squeak of surprise. I can't believe that after reading almost 800 pages (which felt more like 1600 pages), I got this half-baked abrupt ending.

💧 Still holding my tiny flag of protest at all the weird names and titles.

All in all, this is a case of “Wow Concept, Average Execution.” It is also a case of “Fabulous Cover, Lacklustre Content.” It could have been an outstanding book for me with its novelty (Underwater + academia + fantasy!) but the epistolary approach, the tortuous journey, and the tedious pacing killed my enjoyment. The first book kept me invested at least in bits and pieces, but this sequel left me utterly bored.

The Goodreads rating, however, seems to indicate otherwise, and most readers have found this book better than the first one. So do take my thoughts with a pinch of salt and read other reviews to take a more informed call on this series.

On a side note, I don’t know why the blurb calls this “perfect for fans of Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries.” It is NOTHING like Emily Wilde! I’d rather read Emily Wilde again.

Recommended only to those who read and enjoyed the first book and seek some closure about what befell E and Henerey.

My thanks to Little, Brown Book Group UK and Orbit for providing the DRC of “A Letter from the Lonesome Shore” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book. Sorry this didn’t work out better.