This is a great follow-up to Winter's Tide. Aphra and her found family are in New York, so we get a chance of scenery and some good historical glimpses. The stakes are a bit higher than the previous book, but the connections are stronger and even the other FBI team who were mostly antagonists before have motivations fleshed out and become more sympathetic.

Still plenty of creepy Lovecraftian stuff to be going on with, and I'm not actually sure whether I find the ghouls or the Outer Ones creepier.

Perfect if you want found families, conflict resolution based on diplomacy rather than strength, or a diverse historic fantasy.

First, I must mention that one probably could read this without reading Winter Tide, but you really shouldn't. Anyway, after reviewing Ruthanna Emrys's Winter Tide last year, the sequel, Deep Roots, was one of my most anticipated reads for this year. I wasn't disappointed.

One of the things that Emrys does well is creating wonderfully layered, complex characters. They aren't perfect. They make mistakes, the same as anyone else. Despite numerous differences in age, race, culture, and even species, one commonality exists: the desire to do what is best for humanity. The conflict arises when those ideas of what is "best" begin to collide and conflict with the very nature of human beings and free will. This is seen on a larger scale with the Mi-Go and their desire to preserve humans from annihilating themselves, and on a smaller scale with Aphra's desire to rebuild her own people. Should you force someone into doing something for their own good? Can you, personally, decide what is best for anyone other than yourself? One person's prison may be another person's perfect world. You cannot command that anyone conform to what you think is right or good.

Speaking of non-conformity, Emrys continues to send Lovecraft spinning in his grave by focusing on the very people that Lovecraft feared and hated the most. There are at least two interracial relationships that I can think of off the top of my head. There are a few same-sex couples. The old man would be horrified to see so many non-white, non-heterosexual characters as the heroes of stories set in the multiverse that he created. Personally, I'm delighted. May Emrys and others continue to reshape the Lovecraftian mythos in their own fashions.

As for the plot, as with Winter Tide, it almost takes a backseat to the fascinating character interactions and relationships. We spend more time with Aphra's older relatives (the ones who've gone into the water). We learn a bit about what happened while Professor Trumbull was a visitor in the Archives (the home of the Yith who body-swapped with her prior to the events of Winter Tide). Even the Mi-Go are fascinating and complicated. Their own internal politics and beliefs aren't explored as thoroughly as I would have liked, but that's just not entirely unexpected, as they are the "villains" of the story. Even the ghouls that populate the Dreamland were interesting. Let's be honest, I read these books for the characters alone. Emrys could write an entire novel about Aphra and company simply having a picnic on the beach, and I would read the heck out of it. I must confess: this book was hard for me to read for personal reasons. One of the themes that Emrys highlighted in both this and Winter Tide was the value of found family. Many of us have experienced this feeling towards a dear friend -- the phrases "brother from another mother" and "sister from another mister" exist for a reason, after all. My difficulty with this book stemmed from the unexpected death of a member of my own found family about a week before the book was published. It was painful for me to fully sink into Aphra's world and watch her continue to grow and build bonds with her confluence when my own "confluence" had splintered. This is, strange as it may sound, a good thing. It is a testament to Emrys's skill as a writer that she has created characters that can move the reader so deeply. It has been several weeks since I finished the book, and Aphra, Charlie, Audrey, Catherine, Caleb, Deedee and the others still linger in the back of my mind.

In Conclusion: This series is more than worth your time, even if you haven't given Lovecraft a second thought. You don't have to have read a word of his fiction to be able to appreciate these novels. Having some familiarity with the mythos definitely informs the reading experience, but Emrys makes things entirely accessible for even complete newbies. Read Winter Tide first, then snag a copy of Deep Roots.

First of all, let me say that this book was absolutely brilliant. The plot, the characters, the way the words flew off of the (eBook) page had me absolutely hooked from the very beginning. The author has an intense talent for creating a story, and I became a fan instantly. With that said, I wasn't aware that this book was a part of a series, and I had some trouble catching up and understanding who was who and why it mattered. But once I got the gist of the plot, I was quickly able to jump in and immerse myself in Ruthanna Emrys' world. I am definitely saving up for anything else she has written.

I made the mistake of requesting this book for review without having read the first one. Often when I do this, I have only a little difficulty, as the author provides enough background, "the story so far," and descriptions of the characters to orient me. In this case, however, I was completely lost. Without the book description on the NetGalley site, I would have had no idea what was going on. I'm somewhat familiar with the Lovecraftian mythos, but that didn't help. All of this is too bad because I think there's a wonderful story here, with rich character relationships and deliciously weird world-building. It's a shame the author (and the editor -- bad editor! no doughnut!) didn't provide sufficient context for a reader who's new to the series to dive right in. I hope that at some time in the future, I'll have sufficient time in my reading schedule to go back and start from the beginning.

The star rating reflects my confusion, not the likely experience of someone who's read the first book.

Deep Roots by Ruthanna Emrys is second in the Innsmouth Legacy series, set only a short time after the previous book ends. Our heroes have to travel to New York City in search of a lost relative, and there they find more complications and dangers than they'd expected. It felt more internal and reflective than the previous book, adding complexity to the worldbuilding and giving Aphra more challenges both magical and emotional.

Neighborhoods shifted and blended--as they did in San Francisco but larger, louder, more multitudinous. Alphabets and chords of scent, line of cheek and tone of skin, flavor of language: these differences marked each cluster of blocks unmistakably, showing where communities settled together to share comfort in an unfamiliar place. But each permeable pool spread rivulets into the surrounding pools, as people intermingled for food or friendship or business or simple curiosity. Without that flow, they might have grown stagnant. With it, they became a thriving wetland of shared strength. Those rivulets were the veins carrying the pulse I'd felt since I arrived.

It also felt very relevant to the times in which we live:
"Great powers surround us. If we don't choose to shape them, they'll shape us unopposed--we cannot let that happen again."

I loved "The Litany Of Earth," but reading Ruthanna Emrys' second follow-up to that story in between two novellas from the same publisher, I can't help but feel they chose the wrong format for this series. There's just not enough going on in these books to justify their length.

Padded with sudden disappearances, kidnappings, and characters revisiting the same places over and over again to continue arguments, "Deep Roots" is like a slice of life novel combined with the more frustrating elements of an urban fantasy series. There's more psychic confluence rituals, a truncated timeline, and barely anything of consequence happens before the epilogue. There's also an emotional appeal the author seems to be making for found families that I still find incredibly detached, and not in a fun "as told by the Deep Ones" sort of way.

We'll discuss this one in more detail on the next Midnight Skull Sessions podcast, but for now, even having adjusted to the genre switch from horror to (admittedly weird) family drama, I can't help but feeling I'd love these books if they were novellas instead.

When I first encountered the first book in Emrys' "Innsmouth Legacy" series, I was impressed but not especially moved by what I found on the page; I could see and admire its technical excellence and its scope of imagination, but it didn't quite meet me where I needed to be met in order to *enjoy* it. I'm happy to report that I didn't face the same challenge with "Deep Roots," which took a few dozen pages to reel me in but ultimately took me to strange new places which I enjoyed greatly. As a friend pointed out, this is the epitome of the "found family" narrative, and it's one in which the family is already built instead of being in the process of built (as it was with "Winter Tide"). This book plunges immediately—elbow-deep, as it were—into conversations about how one makes and keeps and holds a family together, how one builds bridges with the estranged, and navigates complex relationships in the wake of loss and grief and misery.

As other, better reviewers have already pointed out, "Deep Roots" is also timely in a way that "Winter Tide" was only prescient, in that the conversation about forced separations and those families who must go through them at the mercy of blind governmental processes is writ plain across every page. Our characters have survived the internment camps—or have they? Do you ever emerge from those traumas? Emrys tackles this all-important question with the sensitivity and richness of thought which is her hallmark. That she does so, and also infuses this book with an intensely Queer voice, speaks to Emrys' range and skill. I'm glad to discover that it was me who was at fault in my first encounter with this world; and vindicated, too, in receiving this second book when I needed it the most. The stakes are high in our world as well as Innsmouth, and I couldn't be more excited to journey further with Aphra in future installments.

It seems somehow worth mentioning every time I write about a work so deeply inspired and influenced by the Lovecraftian Mythos that on the surface, I have very little interest in Lovecraft. It's not a selling point, it's something to overcome. Then I read Ruthanna Emrys' debut novel Winter Tide and fell in love. Lovecraft was the seasoning to a family and cultural story of extermination, survival, and belonging.

Deep Roots is the second volume in The Innsmouth Legacy. Emrys takes Aphra away from coastal Massachusets and into New York City. Aprha is looking for lost members of her family, of her race. She finds New York is a city filled with humans, yes, but also with aliens and monsters and any number of inhuman denizens. Deep Roots is a well crafted and deeply engrossing novel. I relished the opportunity to spend more time with Aphra and her community and I look forward the next volume whenever it comes out.

Aphra Marsh's quest of resettling Innsmouth to New York, where her confluence runs into a snag: two factions of Outer Ones!

I enjoyed Winter Tide quite a bit so I pre-ordered this. Oddly enough, I was approved for an ARC on Netgalley AND a friend gave me the ebook as a birthday gift on the day it shipped. The stars were right that day.

Anyway, Aphra Marsh's goal of repopulating Innsmouth brings her to New York. She discovers a family with Innsmouth blood only to find the son has joined a cult led by a group of Outer Ones, aka The Mi-Go, aka The Fungi from Yuggoth. Arpha Marsh and her friends are caught in the middle of two rival factions with humanity's fate in the balance.

As with Winter Tide, there's a lot to enjoy here. Ruthanna Emrys takes some Lovecraftian concepts and fleshes them out, taking them away from Lovecraft's fear of the unknown roots. The Mi-Go are a lot more than one-dimensional monsters in this tale, given three (or more, if you want to get non-Euclidean about it) dimensions. The ghouls are also fleshed (heh) out quite a bit, given something of a culture.

The characters are a far cry from Lovecraft's, not falling to pieces with the first brush with the unknown, probably because all of them are part of the unknown to some degree. Charlie is gay in an era where it's nowhere near as acceptable as today and also studies magic. Aphra is one of the last of the Deep Ones. Catherine was host to a Yith. Audrey has something different in her heritage.

The jaunts to the Dreamlands and the trek into the Outer Ones' mine were cool set pieces. The magic system is one of the things I like the best in this series. Magic isn't free and takes its toll. Aphra's learning quite a bit but isn't coming through unscathed by any means.

As I've said many times before, I like the stuff inspired by the works of HP Lovecraft more than the works themselves. Ruthanna Emrys' humanized Lovecraftian fiction is some of the best out there. Four out of five stars.

Deep Roots is the second book in Ruthanna Emrys’s The Innsmouth Legacy series. I really enjoyed the first book, Winter Tide, so I was quite excited when I was approved for a free review copy on NetGalley. Thank you Tor Publishing!

I have a special shelf on Goodreads. It’s called “Lovecraft, but Better.” Because I like a lot of elements of Lovecraftian horror, but Lovecraft himself was a racist who couldn’t write a female character to save his life. Thankfully, a lot of authors have come along and taken over Lovecraft’s sandbox and done better things with it. There are incredible female authors, queer authors, and authors of color writing stories that ol’ HPL never would have approved of, and I love it.

Ruthanna Emrys is one such author. She’s well-qualified to work within the Cthulhu mythos, as she is the co-author of the brilliant Tor blog Lovecraft Reread Series, where two female authors specifically look at Lovecraft’s work through a modern eye, pointing out the good, the bad, and the downright cringe-worthy. In fact, it’s been a while since I’ve read one of their rereads, maybe I should go catch up… No AJ, stay focused! You have a book to review!

Deep Roots picks up not long after the events of Winter Tide. It doesn’t really work as a stand-alone novel. You’re thrown right into it without so much as a re-introduction to the characters, and since it’s been some months since I read Winter Tide, I had a bit of a struggle remembering who everyone was.

Our diverse band of protagonists has traveled to New York City in search of lost descendants of the people of Innsmouth, so they can try to rebuild their town. Of course nothing is ever that simple and it turns out there’s been a series of disappearances and the Outer Ones (aka the mi-go, the fungi from Yuggoth, etc etc) are to blame. What do these travelers between the worlds want with humanity?

This story deals a lot with inter-species conflict and prejudice. We’re shown the error of seeing the Lovecraftian races as monolithic, and are given a more nuanced view where groups can have internal disagreements and shades of moral subtlety. Emrys is adept at looking at how Lovecraft described the Deep Ones, or the Great Race of Yith, and extrapolating a more three-dimensional society from that. Deep Roots does a lot to expand on the interpretation of the Mythos that the author established in Winter Tide.

Much like the first book in the series, Deep Roots has a slow pace and a sort of introspective feeling to it. This will not work for every reader. I enjoy having the time to really be with Aphra Marsh, and I liked the included journal passages from the secondary characters that helped flesh out their feelings and motivations without distracting from the central story. But anyone looking for looming cosmic horror or an action-packed horror adventure will be disappointed.

The final pages of Deep Roots introduce some actions that may have huge ripples on the book’s world. I’m really curious to see what happens next. I hope that volume 3 of The Innsmouth Legacy is forthcoming!

FTC Disclaimer: A digital copy of this book was provided for promotional consideration. No additional compensation was provided for this review and the author’s words and opinions are her own.

And so continues Aphra Marsh’s journey to rebuild the Innsmouth that was taken from her in childhood, and the struggles that come from dealing with human and not so human forces that would oppose that reconstruction.

This book is much improved on its predecessor, Winter Tide, though it still shares some of its pacing problems. There is a lot of talking where nothing is accomplished and the plot is not advanced, which can make multiple talking sessions seem to drag at times.

But in other ways, Deep Roots has improved in leaps and bounds.

We are given a better look into other character's thoughts, which is only a good thing as the characters were one of the greatest strengths of the first book. It seems like there are almost too many of them at times, as certain members of the supporting cast
will have little to do for long stretches of the book. But the ones given attention do shine.
Aphra's viewpoints have become more nuanced, able to see the complexities in other people and situations, which has helped me appreciate her character so much more. In Deep Roots it seems like she has really come into her own as a leader.
I feel like character and spiritual introspection are one of Ms. Emrys' biggest strengths.

Also, the new faction introduced here gets so much love from me. I loved them in Lovecraft's original story and I love them here too. We also get to see more of a group that was mentioned in Winter Tide.

To summarize, this book has the same problem of poor pacing as the first one, but you can tell Ms. Emerys is improving her craft with each new book. I still think the novella The Litany of Earth is the best entry in this series, and feel the other books would be similarly improved by having less bloat, but I appreciate the time it gives me to get to know certain characters. I am quite attached to Aphra Marsh now (and can relate to her modesty and attempts to appear dignified lol) and want to see how Innsmouth is rebuilt in the new world that she and her friends have helped make.

Ruthanna Emrys's *Deep Roots* is the smart and nuanced sequel to her *Winter Tide*. She does a brilliant job of turning Lovecraft's Mythos on its head through beautiful writing, great character development, and thoughtful engagement with the period.

"Ruthanna Emrys’ Innsmouth Legacy, which began with Winter Tide and continues with Deep Roots, confronts H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos head-on, boldly upturning his fear of the unknown with a heart-warming story of found family, acceptance, and perseverance in the face of human cruelty and the cosmic apathy of the universe. Emrys brings together a family of outsiders, bridging the gaps between the many people marginalized by the homogenizing pressure of 1940s America.

Aphra Marsh, descendant of the People of the Water, has survived Deep One internment camps and made a grudging peace with the government that destroyed her home and exterminated her people on land. Deep Rootscontinues Aphra’s journey to rebuild her life and family on land, as she tracks down long-lost relatives. She must repopulate Innsmouth or risk seeing it torn down by greedy developers, but as she searches she discovers that people have been going missing. She will have to unravel the mystery, or risk seeing her way of life slip away."

Yes for a more direct Cthulhu continuation!

I struggled for a while to write a review of this book, because I couldn’t seem to find the words to convey how much depth and heart(break) it contains, the startling realism, the grace with which the author explores the complexity of human (and not-so-human) people.

Picking up some months after the events of Winter Tide (a book you really must read first), Aphra, along with her confluence (a group who work magic together) and friends, has travelled to New York City in search of long lost “mist-blooded” relatives, after horrific acts of genocide perpetrated by the American government left them the only known survivors on land. Soon their search leads them to a group of people dealing with a mythical species from another world, capable of sending disembodied minds on journeys through the stars, and things become a lot more complicated. Government agents, aliens, and of course all of Aphra’s group find themselves struggling to find the best path forward for humanity, when there are some very different ideas about what “best” means.

This is a historical science fiction novel (set in the late 1940’s) that, though it might be based on Lovecraftian mythology, is about as far away from a monster book as you can get. The historical aspect feels breathtakingly possible, a thin veneer of fantasy laid over the bones of past injustice, as all the struggles and prejudices and violence really happened, even if in our reality no ocean-dwelling branch of humanity ever existed,

This is also not a “monster” book because not only is the “other” shown with compassion, but we see the world entirely through the eyes of those who have been pushed to the margins. The cast of main characters, when we move away from Aphra and Caleb’s more mythical origins, are black and gay and Jewish, are women who don’t behave the way women are supposed to, are people who balance on a knife’s edge of respectability. In this installment Aphra remains the primary narrator, but in an added bit of richness we see small glimpses into all the main cast of characters’ mindsets and experiences in the form of short diary entry like segues between chapters, deepening the reader’s understanding of the wider emotional picture.

And though there are some genuinely creepy elements, I wouldn’t really classify it as horror either. It stays firmly on the side of SFF, a unique and tender take on the Lovecraftian source material (the author herself notes wryly in the acknowledgements that her stories would cause some grave-turning for the eponymous writer).

At a time in our own world when the American state is once more talking about mass internment of the “wrong sorts” of people, this story hit me even harder. While in Winter Tide the freshness of loss was still a raw wound for Aphra, and she still seemed somewhat in shock, in Deep Roots she’s really coming to realize the enormity of the reality that nothing will ever be the same again. Not if she finds every single “mist-blooded” human, not if she buys back every house in their former hometown, not even as she’s found a chosen family whose love is a beautiful part of her new world. It’s not that she’s not hopeful or commited--far from it--but there’s also a sense of resignation that hurt for its realness, its truth. An atrocity was committed, a horror that left just two orphan children in its wake, now adults who have no choice but to live and work beside those who were complicit in the destruction of their entire world. There’s rage and bitterness, but also the inevitability of living, still, and living as best you can with the circumstances as they are.

Ruthanna Emrys holds her characters close, telling their stories, fictional though they may be, with dignity and care, a deep respect for the sacredness of a people and religion that never existed. Her writing is lyrical and skilled, and as a reader I’m left rather melancholy, the story lingering in my thoughts for days after I turned the last page. This series is something special, and something too relevant to the age we’re now living in. I think it would have crossover appeal not only to SFF fans, but also readers of historical fiction and literature. Do yourself a favour and read it now.

Deep Roots, the second novel in Ruthanna Emrys’s Innsmouth Legacy series, builds on the strange world her protagonists discovered and fought in Winter Tide. This entry in the series shows Aphra Marsh’s confluence—her magically bonded family members and friends—taking on new enemies and learning more about the creatures they didn’t know were already living on earth.

At the beginning of Deep Roots, Aphra et al. are in New York looking for distant family members who might have survived the devastating government raids of 1929. New family members could help them rebuild their species. They’ve traced a couple of distant cousins to the city, but it seems that someone else has a claim on cousin Freddy. While Aphra and the confluence try to get the measure of the Outer Ones and their bizarre, disturbing abilities to travel, they also have to contend with old frenemies: the weird stuff office of the FBI. Aphra reluctantly asks for their help because the Outer Ones have a fearsome reputation. But the problem with asking for federal help during the opening years of the Cold War is that the FBI agents will use every opportunity to find an advantage they can use against the Soviets.

While there are some great scenes in Deep Roots, notably the fight scene at the end of the book, most of this book is dialogue. Much of the dialogue is negotiation and plotting, between Aphra and the FBI, between Aphra and her much older relatives, between Aphra and the Outer Ones, between the Outer Ones and the FBI—and between Aphra and the members of the confluence. Too be honest, it was all a bit wearying. I enjoyed learning more about this revamped version of the Lovecraft mythos. The problem with this book is one I’ve seen in later series entries in urban fantasy when the various factions in the book all have immense powers. Instead of fighting or, well, any kind of action, it’s all talk.

Reader who were hooked by Winter Tide may enjoy this continuation. I suspect that it will be necessary reading for the next book in the series. I’m still curious about what will come next in the Innsmouth Legacy, since the ending of Deep Roots seems to clear the board for more adventures for the confluence. I just hope that those future adventures have more magic and action than talk.

I received a free copy of his book from the publisher via NetGalley, for review consideration. It will be released 10 July 2018.

Deep Roots by Ruthanna Emrys
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed this novel, but let's be real here: this isn't your average Cthulhu monster novel full of mystery and intrigue and reveals that turn your hair white in disbelief. There aren't even 1d6 investigators to throw into the open maw of a multitentacled AND multidimensional immortal beastie!

But there are multitentacled and multidimensional immortal beasties, ghouls, Deep Ones, halfbreeds and Creatures of Air. Not to mention strange boxes, a focus on books, legacy, and the ultimate fate of mankind. I mean, the whole thing that comes with a Cthulhu tale is the realization that we're insignificant specks of poop in a disturbed nightmare of a dead but sleeping god. Of *course* our fates are up in the air!

But that's where we take our tale out of the norm and place it firmly in the hands of a nuanced and careful character who has been locked away in a concentration camp thanks to her own country, who only wants to read and preserve her culture, who had suffered a massacre of almost all her people on her home soil in Innsmouth.

And she's a monster. An immature Deep One. Who likes books and just wants to be left alone. But thanks to the FBI and her folks under the sea and a nightmare of diplomacy with other Outsiders that reckon diplomatic negotiations in terms of 50 thousand years, she's thrown right into a tangled tentacular soup trying to protect the flies (that's us humans) with the super-technologically-advanced multidimensional space-traveling immortals that WE call Lovecraftian horrors.

The premise and deep exploration of characters and processes and reveals -- including dreamwalking, magics, and threats from well-meaning gods that think that consuming us is a proper way to preserve us forever --is a perfect delight.

It is NOT a humorous tale, however. So fans of Stross' Laundry Files should be forewarned. It is, however, philosophical, ethical, and it tries to answer all the questions about what constitutes MONSTERS. No one is at fault, but the power differentials are immense... and even the flies can sting.

I'm perfectly on board for reading this series until the end of time. :) It's deep, clever, and monstrous. :)