Nadya was born in Russia and speedily left at an orphanage. She isn’t claimed by anyone for several years but eventually is adopted and brought to America, where she has to adapt to the thin air of Denver and a new language. ADRIFT IN CURRENTS CLEAN AND CLEAR shows that this is not the only time Nadya will move to a new world.
As part of the popular Wayward Children series, which involves travelling through portals to other worlds, we understand that a door will feature a fantasy life. However, it’s a relatively long time coming. A third of the short book is gone before tortoise and turtle lover Nadya spies a shadowy door. By now she’s been fitted with a prosthetic arm to replace the one she never had and come to call an American couple her parents, though she doesn’t love them or feel fully part of her new life.
The door through water leads into Belyyreka, a watery world, and the warning "Be sure" seems apt. No sooner has Nadya pulled herself up on the banks of an unfamiliar river than a giant frog happens by and desires to swallow her whole. It gets her new arm, and that’s all, or it would be the end of the story. The brave girl is destined to meet giant turtles and find a way of life she can countenance.
Nadya has previously appeared as a pupil in a School for Wayward Children, which will please longtime readers of the series who wish to know her backstory. Time runs differently in different worlds, so no matter how grown up Nadya gets in Belyyreka, she can still be a child if she moves to a different world, like ours, for instance. Anyone who enjoys the outdoors, fisher folk and amphibians in their YA fantasy adventure will have a good time with this story. As usual, the concepts are quite simple, and Seanan McGuire could be said to be asking us how we treat children in our marvellous modern life.
ADRIFT IN CURRENTS CLEAN AND CLEAR is the tenth book in this loosely connected series. It isn’t necessary to read the others first, because this one is a good standalone story.
Giant turtles, impossible ships, and tidal rivers ridden by a Drowned girl in search of a family in the latest in the bestselling Hugo and Nebula Award-Winning Wayward Children series from Seanan McGuire.
Nadya had three mothers: the one who bore her, the country that poisoned her, and the one who adopted her.
Nadya never considered herself less than whole, not until her adoptive parents fitted her with a prosthetic arm against her will, seeking to replace the one she'd been missing from birth.
It was cumbersome; it was uncomfortable; it was wrong.
It wasn't her.
Frustrated and unable to express why, Nadya began to wander, until the day she fell through a door into Belyrreka, the Land Beneath the Lake--and found herself in a world of water, filled with child-eating amphibians, majestic giant turtles, and impossible ships that sailed as happily beneath the surface as on top. In Belyyreka, she found herself understood for who she was: a Drowned Girl, who had made her way to her real home, accepted by the river and its people.
But even in Belyyreka, there are dangers, and trials, and Nadya would soon find herself fighting to keep hold of everything she had come to treasure.
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