I love the adventure that this story took me on! It takes place in 19th century Egypt where Inez Olivera travels to uncover some secrets about her family. She meets the brooding Whit, who is bothered by her presence and is not afraid to hide it. As the story goes on, they uncover these truths together, which also gives them a chance to learn more about each other. There adventures happen in the beautiful city of Cairo and island of Philae, which adds to the uniqueness of the story. Inez is a determined, smart character and I cannot wait to continue reading about her in the sequel!

“What the River Knows” by Isabel Ibañez was pitched as a “The Mummy” meets “Death on the Nile” and that very neatly describes it.

Bolivian-Argentinian Inez Olivera is part of 19th century Buenos Aires’s high society, but she longs to be with her parents, who leave her behind on their travels. When Inez receives a letter informing her of her parents’ tragic deaths at an archaeological dig in Egypt, she inherits their fortune and an archaeologist as her new guardian.

Determined to find answers about her parents, Inez sails to Cairo on her own. Once she arrives in the bustling city, the old world magic connected to the golden ring her father sent her for safekeeping sends her down a path that reveals there is more to her parents’ disappearance than her guardian implied.

Inez utilizes the ancient magic in her quest to discover what really happened to her parents, despite being hindered at every turn by her guardian’s handsome—but frustrating—assistant. What she uncovers is a larger conspiracy, with stakes higher than she ever could have imagined.

I find myself unsure of what I thought of “What the River Knows.” It was beautifully written, with lush descriptions of everything from the setting to the clothes. The plot was captivating, especially near the end when I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough to see what would happen next.

But the main character, Inez Olivera, suffers greatly by being a 19th century character written by a 21st century author. Much of her dialogue with men, especially for the first half or three-quarters of the book is jarringly out of character for a young woman of that time. It regularly took me out of the story. Had it been her thoughts or maybe something she mumbled under her breath undetected, it might have worked better. But instead we’re left with yet another period heroine turned into a girl boss.

The book is also repetitive for the first half. Every man Inez meets she has the same conversations and arguments with: she will stay in Egypt despite being unchaperoned and she will follow her guardian to the dig site where her parents were last seen. Ibañez was trying to show how little agency women had during this time, but it fell short. Instead of reinforcing the struggles Inez faced, the repetition of these scenes just spun the story’s tires endlessly.

As frustrating as I found those points, the overall plot of “What the River Knows” is excellent. It’s a high adventure story with fun twists and quippy lines that would translate well to a movie. I found myself eager to find out what was going to happen next, and audibly groaned when the book ended on a cliffhanger and a shocking epilogue.

Overall, “What the River Knows” is a good book. It was clearly well researched and written by someone with a vivid imagination and a flair for the dramatics, in the best way possible. If not for the “girl bossification” of the heroine, it would have been a great book.

What an amazing, atmospheric book! From the moment I read the first sentence I was absolutely enchanted by Inez's story and her journey to discover the mystery of her parents and to understand their love for Egypt.

I loved the Rock and Evie dynamic between Inez and Whit, it was a slow-burn angsty forbidden love that made me giddy and wanting more.

The Egyptian history was a lot of fun to learn about, added with the elements of magic that made the book a perfect historical fantasy.

Although this book has mystery elements, to me this book felt very much like a cozy fantasy. I enjoyed every minute of the lush writing, characters, and dynamics. The ending left me with many questions so I can't wait to get my hands on the second book.

Thank you St Martin's Press/Wednesday Books and NetGalley for the ARC!

In full candor, I might be starting to age out of YA books.
The premise of the novel is absolutely fascinating and it's something we haven't read yet. By this, I mean the integration of a new world of magic with Egyptian history and an Argentinian heroine. There is so much culture and contextualization that could be detailed out in this story. I will tip my hat to the author's descriptive paragraphs once our heroine starts traveling throughout Egypt. However, it does lack that color elsewhere.

Overall the story's pacing is quite slow. While there is a lot that happens very quickly, we're not beholden to our narrator yet and so a lot of her decisions and attitude is quite annoying (i.e. ring/train incident). My interest in the story didn't really grow until she became a stowaway on the Elephantine.

The most successful part of this story is the dynamic between Whitford and Inez. The dialogue was a TRUE SUCCESS in this story and by far my favorite parts of the novel. Our heroine uses logic to fight against her attraction and in turn reveals a confidence often misplaced for our gentile, aristocratic protagonists. This doesn't mean that there isn't true flirting and attraction, we just don't have to wait 60% of the novel for our romantic leads to make some progress.

The ending was devastating and rather than make me excited for the sequel, made me anxious and a bit nauseous on the discourse to come. My hope is that the sequel will not make a hash of the best parts of the author's style: the romantic leads dialogue.

Wow, this book was awesome, I didn't realize how much I love and needed a fantasy set in Egypt.

The book flowed and transitioned so beautifully, I felt like I was there with the characters. The only thing I hate is waiting for Book two to come, and how it's going to be another year! Ah.

I adore Isbael's writing and didn't want this to end, and that cliffhanger omg. The anticipation is going to kill me, but I cannot wait to see this and book two on shelves.

Ibanez killed me with this tale of adventure. Can't wait to read the next book in this series as i was thoroughly enraptured by Inez and her struggles.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press, Wednesday Books, and NetGalley for providing an eARC for an honest review.

3.5 stars

I honestly don't know how to feel about this book. On one hand, the imagery and atmosphere was really nice but the story itself was slow moving. I'm not sure I like Inez as a main character right now, she's a little pushy/demanding but also very naive which means she makes unnecessary decisions. I'm also not too sure what happened for most of the story because it was slow progressing and I was just trying to get through it. It's underwhelming because I was so excited to get into it after the first 5 or so chapters because I thoroughly enjoyed those. However, it fell flat for me after that. There were too many descriptions and not enough action. Not too sure why this was labelled a fantasy...maybe I missed it but the magic system doesn't make much sense to me or fit in well with the rest of the story. It seemed like a random after thought to include it as a way to label this a fantasy. Whit was a good love interest in the beginning and I did enjoy their banter, but that got old fast too. Not sure I sensed any chemistry between them by the end of the book. One good thing is that the ending of this book bumped this up 0.5 stars more, I'm actually looking forward to the next book simply to see how that epilogue plays out, I love a good cliffhanger.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martins Publishing for this arc in exchange for an honest review!

Another winner from Isabel Ibanez! What the River Know is probably one of my favorite reads this year. I can't wait until it's out so I can purchase it for my shelf. Ready for book two!

This book was so good! I loved the story and the writing. I loved the characters too their development was really well written, and the way you never really knew who was good and who wasn’t. However the epilogue scares me! I need book 2!
Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

This book was a fun read. It felt slow to start but the story picked up and was great. Towards the end there were a lot of moving parts to create a final cliffhanger. Whit was great and I’m curious what’s going to happen with him in the next book. I also liked the commentary on the impact of western invasion and influence in Egypt and how destructive it was.

Thank you Netgalley, St Martin's press and Wednesday books for providing me with a digital copy of this book in lieu of my personal opinion.

This book was an exquisite historical fantasy about Egypt, filled with magic, murder, secrets, lies, and a little romance. First the cast of characters:

Inez: a girl who is abandoned by her parents over 6 months ago to Egypt on Excavating missions to find homes and Relics of past notable people of history. You can see her despair of not being around her parents and living with her aunt and cousins as she navigates Life as a young woman. So she sneaks away to Egypt as soon as she receives a letter from her uncle stating that her parents are dead. And that's where the real cliffhanger begins.

The uncle: secretive, so very secretive. He refuses to let Inez be in Egypt and tries to have her sent away before she's even gotten off the boat. She hides and follows him through more territory and eventually steals away on a boat that he was on to be for an excavation. Eventually she makes herself known to him to which he is more upset and then he tries to use the magic that she can feel in order to find more artifacts and Cleopatra's tomb. All while having Inez watched by ......

Whit: a mysterious partner of the uncle who happens to essentially romanticize this young teenage girl or maybe she's not a teenager because of the timeline of the story I lost that part. In any case there's a burning desire between the two and he suddenly engaged to someone and so he has to go back home and end his trip with the uncle.

The security officers daughter: I'm still trying to figure out the relationship between her and the fmc, because she gives away little hints and notes but yet is she who she says she is? Does she have magical talents do? Is she about the same age as the FMC? And what is going to be her storyline?

I feel as though these are the main characters. So we start off with Inez being at home in Argentina, getting a note from her uncle that her parents have passed away and he's so sorry about that so she goes to Egypt to find out what's going on what happened there are so many questions that she has but nobody's answering them especially her uncle. Eventually after escaping that life and hiding on a boat and getting to Egypt she becomes part of her uncle's excavation team and finds the tomb of cleopatra. Then all of a sudden there's a notice from her aunt saying that her cousin is missing so I know is her uncle and Whit leave Egypt to go back to Cairo in order to find her cousin in the hotel that they had been in. And then her cousin is kidnapped, she is then kidnapped, Whit is kidnapped all an attempt to find out where inez's mother went who double crossed her.

But I can't let that part of the story out because really that is one of the best story lines. I really believe that it was going to be uncle at first but then I got a bad feeling about the mom and my suspicions were confirmed. Now when I tell you that this book is really good, I mean it is really good the first chapter is a little slow but the rest of it really picked up and I read it with such veracity. So that's the story internet show with a lot of side quests between relationships interspersed within that, but the thing that really catches my attention is the Cliffhanger at the end of the book that involves wit. And it makes me question so much more and now I don't trust anybody in the story except for the fmc. I did not know initially when I put this book on my TBR that it was part of a series, and I will definitely be buying this book on any other following books to add to my collection because this story is really great. Also it's not often that I get to read a story on Egypt when everything else is about Greek mythology. So having that aspect with just a tiny bit of Greek interwoven in there is really fantastic. I love how the author pulled everything together and put it in a nice little package that makes the reader want more.

This story had everything I would want to read in a book and I can see where it will become a big success!

The backdrop of this book was stunning. Lush green jungles and vast deserts, all with 1880s fashions (the hats!) and etiquette. Then add in undercurrents of magical realism and Indiana Jones-esque adventure!

I would say that this book was really heavy on descriptive text, which made for a pretty picture, but I spent so much time wanting something to HAPPEN. The action-heavy plot didn't pick up until about 2/3 of the way in. And once it did, I had a great time, but just not sure the balance was right for me.

What the River Knows did end on a strong cliffhanger that'll have me anxiously waiting for the next book.

This is a fun adventure mystery with a light sprinkle of magic. In the style of Indiana Jones or the Mummy, Inez’s plucky and brazen persistence to root out the truth is both inspiring and engaging. Loved the slow burn adversary to lovers romance between Whit and Inez.

The dynamic of an Argentinian in historical Egypt with archeological history peppered in made for a rich, exotic world. I’m ready to grab my brush & don a linen tunic to join the dig asap.

I personally felt Whit’s foul language wasn’t appropriate for a teen/YA read.

Spice level is descriptive kisses with some light handsyness.

Personally recommend for ages 15+

I was lucky enough to get this as a NetGalley review copy. And I’m honestly so upset I not only have to wait for the book’s ACTUAL release but I also now have to wait even longer for its sequel.

Just when I thought I knew the story, there was a plot twist keeping me on my toes providing unpredictable emotions and crashing through my expectations. I felt the excitement, mystery, and betrayal, and love with Inez. And am gutted with how the book ended- how could you hurt us like that?!

I loved the magic system (really, mundane items that have magical abilities outside of what you would expect, such as a tie squirting water) and I adored the historical era- I absolutely will be looking into this further. We get so many WWII books so it’s so refreshing to focus on a different time era and to have a main character from Argentina. Again, so many characters are often what feels like white Western European type of culture. We need more like this book. The knowledge I learned from this book even gave me insight into some museums I just was at in Bellagio, Italy that had Egyptian artifacts! So thank you! I also really appreciated that the author used Spanish within her writing as well. It really connected you to Inez’ background and home.

YA fantasy is my home and I do not give out five stars easily but I really did love everything about this book.

This is my first book by this author; I’ve always wanted to read her and now I will devour anything she writes.

My mind is blown!! I went into this, not knowing exactly what to expect, and it exceeded everything. I LOVE WHIT!! One of my new favorite book boyfriends. The whole story was magnificent, and there are so many plot twists. I’m very sad when it ended on a cliffhanger and I didn’t realize it wasn’t a standalone🫠😭 I highly recommend!

This was such a fun book, full of adventure, no shortage of twists and turns, and a romance that you just can’t help but root for.

It was definitely a page turner— with the end of each chapter, the answers to my questions continued to feel just out of reach and I couldn’t bring myself to stop turning those pages until I’d reached them. It for sure took a while, but by the final page I finally THOUGHT I had some idea of what was going on and which direction the story might be heading in terms of a potential sequel.

And then I read the epilogue, and everything I thought I knew flew right over the edge of the boat and into the Nile.

Do yourself a favor and go read this book.

Thanks NetGalley for this ARC! I found this book to be an extremely compelling mystery that was chock full of history. I was a little worried that I would tire of learning the rich history, but found it to be extremely compelling and made the story that much more rich. I will note that I did not see this plot twist coming - which I loved! It was a little slow to get into, but I really found myself reaching to pick it up and read time and time again. This was one of the better books I have read for quite some time! I will absolutely recommend to others and look forward to reading book 2!

What the River Knows was a great read packed with adventure! It was full of rich history from start to finish, even if the pacing was a tad slow at times. Inez was a very well written main character who stood out in a lot of ways, but her spunk was so much fun. I especially loved the banter she shared with Whit and the way their relationship developed over the course of the book. It was pitched as being great for fans of The Mummy and it did not disappoint! Looking forward to continuing this story in the next book.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of this book.

What the River Knows is a compelling mystery with incredible banter and romance subplot. I'd be lying if I didn't say I was squealing reading the last chapter and epilogue. Isabel Ibañez is a truly talented author who can create worlds and characters that pull you in. I wanted more, and now I'm heartbroken I must wait so long for the sequel to come out.

Overall, the story was very well done. I was very surprised by the plot twist and enjoyed the dark direction she took the story in. This story became a coming-of-age in a cruel world. I enjoyed the simplicity of the magic system and how it didn't need much explaining, it just was. And of course, I enjoyed the British being called out for centuries of grave robbing and claiming it's for history.

The only down side was that the pacing of parts one and two does feel like it drags. I understand the set up has to be down, I just wish we got to it a bit quicker. I wish Inez and Isadora built their relationship more, I think the character of Inez would greatly benefit from having more female relationships but I also understand the need for the character to be isolated.

I would definitely recommend this to my friends, and may even purchase the book when it comes out this November even though I've already read it. I look forward to the sequel

This was such a great read - hooked from the start, I couldn’t put this one down and I am hoping against hope that another follows soon. The setting was incredible - from Argentina to Egypt, Cairo hotels and markets to Philae archaeological digs. I couldn’t help but fall for Inez and her desperate quest for independence while also attempting to discover the truth behind the disappearance of her parents. Leaving the lavish, but stifling, society of Buenos Aires behind, Inez flees to Cairo where she hopes her uncle can provide her with some answers - about her parents, her inheritance and what is next for her. But she is thwarted at every turn by her Uncle’s dashing assistant and by finding more questions than answers.

Excellent and quite the page turner, I was fascinated with the fantastical elements but also how immersive the writing was - I felt I was in 19th century Cairo! Highly recommend.