Review: Dark Earth by Rebecca Stott

I received an advanced review copy of this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way.

Publisher: 4th Estate
Published: June 2022
Pages: 336

Synopsis

The year is 500 AD. Sisters Isla and Blue live in the shadows of the Ghost City, the abandoned ruins of the once-glorious mile-wide Roman settlement Londinium on the bank of the River Thames.

But the small island they call home is also a place of exile for Isla, Blue, and their father, a legendary blacksmith accused of using dark magic to make his firetongue swords—formidable blades that cannot be broken—and cast out from the community. When he dies suddenly, the sisters find themselves facing enslavement by the local warlord and his cruel, power-hungry son. Their only option is to escape to the Ghost City, where they discover an underworld of rebel women living secretly amid the ruins.

But if Isla and Blue are to survive the men who hunt them, and protect their new community, they will need to use all their skill and ingenuity—as well as the magic of their foremothers—to fight back.

My Thoughts…

This is one of those books that ended up being caught in my backlog, as I read it and somehow never reviewed it. These are the moments I’m really thankful for my reading notes, as I definitely could not write up my thoughts about this book without them!

Dark Earth is one of those books that, for me, might work if I focused purely on vibes. It’s dark, eery and unsettling, more due to human behaviour than any supernatural elements. Isla and Blue, two sisters in a world where being a woman can be extremely dangerous, learn to uncover their power and wield it to protect themselves from the men who would seek to destroy them, discovering the power of community and female friendships along the way.

In this, the book certainly succeeds, fully conveying all the ruthlessness and the mysticism of the world it seeks to portray through its vivid descriptions and its mythical narrative style. The rest was unfortunately not quite as satisfactory for me. After an intriguing start, the pace almost completely grinds to a halt, inching forward ever so slowly but leaving the sense that no progress was made at all until a very abrupt ending. I could forgive this if it meant giving more space to character development but, alas, this was not the case.

The characters, who should have been the centre around which the whole book revolves, felt utterly flat, bland and interchangeable. It didn’t really seem as if there was any proper development, remaining mostly surface-level and passive, with no bond ever flourishing between me and the characters. By the end of the book, I honestly did not care about either of them. I did like the sapphic storyline that was introduced later on, although like everything else it could have been better developed to convey more emotions.

Essentially, this came down to me just not being able to engage emotionally with this book at all. The dark forest vibes were all there, but there was just nothing more than that for me… there not enough tension at any point to make me connect to this story, nor did I find the characters’ interactions particularly interesting. Attempts at introducing a (maybe) supernatural element were also highly confused and confusing, and ended up not working for me at all.

It is a real shame because it is clear the author put an enormous amount of effort in the research for this, and it shows in the historical setting and the authentic feel it gives (which was the only redeeming point for me). Sadly this didn’t stop me being utterly bored and frustrated with this book.