I will drop everything I'm doing the second I get my hands on a new Wayward Children series book and that's exactly what I ddi as I received an early copy of Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear. Thank you so much for this early copy!

This story is about Nadya, who is born in Russia to a young mother that wants nothing to do with her, so she lives her early life in an adoption home. Nadya is eventually adopted by an American couple who wants a daughter of their own. Although she doesn't have an arm, her adoptive parents fit her with a prosthetic one, which she is unhappy about, but can't explain why. Nadya winds her self wondering, and falling into a door that leads her to Belyrreka, the Land Beneath the Lake - and found herself in a world full of water and turtles. Nadya finds herself to be a Drowned Girl and is happy in the world she finds herself in, until she winds up right back where she didn't want to be: with her adoptive parents.

As always, Seanan McGuire wrote a beautiful story and her storytelling is stunning - there is truly no one like her. I absolutely adore her work and will ALWAYS champion her and this series.

Seanan McGuire's Wayward Children series continues to be one of the most creative series out there, but this latest installment suffers from its decision to focus on a character who hasn't featured prominently since (if my memory serves) <i>Beneath the Sugar Sky</i> (published seven years prior to the pub date of this book). Given that these books are quite short and come out only once a year, I had no memory of Nadya or what her story was. This isn't necessarily prohibitive to enjoying the book, as the story begins before Nadya finds her door, but I felt it would have been a richer reading experience if I could actually remember this character's significance to the overarching story.

Choosing to make Nadya an orphan in Russia who is adopted by Americans feels inspired, given the message of this series: Nadya's parents have very specific ideas about what an adopted daughter should be, all of which are ultimately self-serving to their own agenda of appearing to be good, Godly folks. They "choose" her at the orphanage because her limb difference makes them look even more pious, but then ignore the fact that Nadya's limb difference doesn't bother her and has never seemed to her to be an inhibition. It's no wonder that the world she finds behind her door feels more like home to her than her new home does; it has no expectations of her, not even that of heroics. (It's repeated throughout that this is not a time when Belyyreka, her world, is in need of heroes.) However, for all that, the book felt like it was missing something for me. Maybe it's because there's no need for heroics in this world that very little happens to Nadya, and for another reader, maybe that's perfectly okay! I will say that, as usual, this world was incredibly inventive, creative, and even at times scientifically sound, in the way of fantasy logic! Seanan McGuire is an endless well of creativity when it comes to imagining magical worlds that children may fall into.

I really, really hope that this isn't the last Wayward Children book. I think it might be, but if McGuire wants to keep writing...you know I'm going to keep reading!

Returning to this series feels like returning to the arms of an old friend. ADRIFT IN CURRENTS CLEAN AND CLEAR is oozing with the magic, darkness, nostalgia, and heart that makes the Wayward Children series so achingly timeless, and I LOVED the disability representation in this entry. Nadya is such an endearing protagonist, and the details of her drowned world were SO evocative and atmospheric. Turtle companions? Rivers within rivers? Talking foxes? Flooded forests? YES YES YES.

This was not my favorite entry in this series, but despite that I think the author has given readers yet another fantastically unique and well developed fantasy world to sink into. This book is as vibrant and clever as ever, but I felt it was lacking in action and focus, feeling more like a biography of the main character than a portal fantasy adventure. I also had trouble connecting with the main character and didn't find her as appealing as some of the others.

Loved the world of Belyyrekia! This was cute and sweet, but not as impactful as some of the other Wayward Children's books.

I just finished Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear by Seanan McGuire. I received a free eARC from NetGalley.

Nadya was born in Russia and raised in an orphanage. She spends her time learning what she can, looking after her "brothers and sisters" and caring for tortoises. One day, an American couple comes and whisks her away to Colorado. While there, Nadya must assimilate to a new country, language and family. When her American "parents" get her fitted for a prosthetic arm, without asking her, Nadya rebels at this act of self serving charity by running to the nearby pond that's teeming with turtles. When she realizes one of the turtles is injured, she sneaks closer. "Be Sure" is carved into the turtle's back; right before she's sucked through a doorway to Belyyreka.

I reviewed book 9 in the Wayward Children's series; but book 10 is really something else. I absolutely loved this newest entry into the series. Nadya is strong, self sufficient, and determined. She struggles with who she is versus who the adults in her life want her to be, much like most teenagers. She is grateful that her American parents have given her a good life, but she's not outwardly grateful in the ways her adoptive mother wants her to be. She doesn't see her limitations from her congenital "defect" until other people tell her she is limited. Nadya is pragmatic; life has handed her what she has, and she has no wish to be any different. The story is just so beautiful when we get through Nadya's door. Belyyreka is an amazing world, obviously ordered, as I'm sure Kade will (or has) let us know. Once again Seanan has written a beautiful story, with amazing representation. I can't wait for book 11!

Book Ten in the Wayward Children series, 'Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear' gives us a backstory for character Nadya who made a brief appearance in Book Two: 'Beneath the Sugar Sky.' Nadya was always seen around the turtle pond on the school grounds and this story confirms why she was considered a Drowned Girl. In 'Currents Clean and Clear' we learn that she was an orphan from Russia, adopted by an American family. The usual formula follows when Nadya finds her door and enters a world made entirely of water. I enjoyed this story quite a bit. It reads rather stand-alone so if someone has not read the others in the series you can enjoy it without missing any important concepts. The ending did leave me sad! She was SO SURE! even though we know Nadya makes her way eventually to Eleanor's school. As always, there are a few lingering questions I am often left with when it comes to the Wayward Children stories but its interesting trying to piece the worldbuilding together. Overall, another solid entry in the series!

Thank you to Netgalley and Tor for providing me with this digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Seanan McGuire is one of my favorite writers and I love her Wayward Children series. I was lucky enough to review this year's entry in the series and now, thanks to an early digital copy from Net Galley and the publisher, I've read next year's entry.

Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear is a stand-alone novel and you don't need to know anything about the rest of the series. The book stars Nadya, a Russian girl who only has one arm. She's adopted out to an American family who wants her to be like them. She resists changing and eventually finds a door to another world. The world she finds is perfect for her, with water and turtles. I won't spoil anymore of the story for you though.

Nadya is such a unique and wonderful character. Its not just her missing arm that makes her unique, its also her spirit and how she doesn't feel broken and how she pushes forward bravely. And the world she ends up in is amazing. One of the best Wayward Children worlds so far.

Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear is a short, wonderful tale with a world worth visiting and supporting characters that you want to hug. The story feels like a warm blanket, a cozy read with some danger but lots of comfort too. Of course, if you know this series, then you might be able to guess how it ends...

Seanan McGuire has produced the best Wayward Children book yet with this one. If you love the series or if you have never read one before, you can be sure that this one is a stand-alone entry thats well worth checking out.

Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear will release on January 7th, 2025. Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for providing an early digital copy for this review.

This series genuinely keeps getting better and better with each book. I loved this world and the characters we got to be with. I think the beauty of this series is each world is a world I would be happy to spend a whole series in, but the novellas are so short and sweet that I get everything I need from just the hundred pages or so. I imagine this is what eating in a fancy restaurant is like. The portions look small, but they've gotta contain a whole lot of great taste to be worth the price, right?
This analogy got away from me. To summarize, I love this series with my whole heart.

The Wayward Children books are always an absolute delight, and coming from someone who normally has avoided short storied most of her life this series has changed my mind about them for the most part. If you've read any of this series you know how the plot goes and this one was just as unique and magical as all of the previous stories. Though this one left me a little more sad than previous books I'm hopeful that Nadya finds her way to Elenore West's school for Wayward Children quickly.

I am not okay. To be fair, i haven’t been okay since i got approved for this ARC (THANK YOU🧎🏻‍♀️). The Wayward series just hit differently and ten books in, it still hits. even if i know the formula, i know i’m gonna follow a child who doesn’t fit, a child who’s gonna find a magic world that will give them what they need only to be ripped away from it…
This one was really interesting! i love the world, the underwater vibes and the turtles OF COURSE. i got invested AGAINST MY WILL in the romance, making that ending feel like a punch in a gut. 😭
Not my favourite in the series, i think the pacing felt a little off in some parts, but still a very solid entry 👌🏻

4.5/5

I will read every book in this series, but as I tell everyone I recommend it to, there are hits, misses, and middle of the road books. This one was pretty average, and suffers for the fact that the real-world situation is written far more compellingly than the world through the door. When Nadya gets to her world, the pacing crawls and it feels like filler. The details were interesting, but there wasn’t any plot or even an internal journey.

But I will keep reading because for every one like this we get an In an Absent Dream or Lost in the Moment and Found. And they’re certainly easy reads, I flew through this in a day.

I'll start by saying I'm as bias as someone can be while reading the 10th book in a series. I'm also always partial to the stories that explore a character's world, despite the love that I have for the full cast of characters and the macro plot. In other words, I was primed to love this and I did! I had to refresh my memory on Nadya, but now I love her. She's fiercely realised, literally from the moment of her birth. The series exploration of belonging will always get to me and I was rooting for her the whole time, despite knowing the end (always bittersweet in these). I did think the ending was a bit abrupt, but I loved everything else so much, especially Belyyreka, Nadya's portal world, that I'm fine with overlooking that -particularly given the context of the entry in the overall series too. I always start my new year reading the latest Wayward Children book, so I'm both very grateful to read this early but also looking forward to rereading upon release in January. I can't wait to see the illustrations as well. The cover for this book is one of my favourites so far!

I’ll admit, I’m biased. I’ve read all of the Wayward Children series thus far, so I was super excited to get chosen by NetGalley for this one. Surprisingly exactly no one, I loved it as much (maybe more!) than the others. I don’t want to say too much because it’s a novella and I feel like almost anything I can say would be a spoiler. But if you love portal fantasies—and especially if you love the complexities that would arise from being a kid thrown through and back a random portal—then you will enjoy this series immensely. HIGHLY recommend.

Another brilliant, heart-touching tale of a girl who slipped through a portal into the magical home where she'd always belonged.

Nadya's story

The origin stories of Seanan McGuire's Wayward Children series have a formula. They start with a child who doesn't fit. He or she is abandoned by those who should under ordinary circumstances take responsibility for providing them with a healthy childhood. In some cases the abandonment is more figurative than literal. In others -- and Nadya is one -- the abandonment is literal and explicit. This child comes across a door, always bearing the words "Be sure" that takes her to a new world where she fits better.

Unusually, we are often told the ends of the Wayward Children stories before the beginnings. We have met Nadya before, in Beneath the Sugar Sky, where we met her as one of the students of Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children, where she was introduced as a "Drowned Girl" who "was one of the school’s long-timers: five years so far, from the age of eleven to the age of sixteen." Thus we already know that Nadya's story will eventually bring her to Eleanor's.

Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear tells the beginning of Nadya's story. Nadya begins as a Russian orphan, abandoned by her mother, who doesn't want a child. As we learned in Sugar Sky she eventually was adopted by an American couple. That after that she ended up with Eleanor and no desire to return to her adoptive home tells us how well that worked out. There follows the story of her sojourn in and eventual ejection from Belyyreka, the Drowned World.

Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear is, I would say, a typical and average Wayward Children novel -- not bad, but not the best. It feels like it exists to fill in a story that, since Sugar Sky, we've known needed to be told.

Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear
By Seanan McGuire

Still loving this series and was so happy when I was approved for it on netgalley!! Each short story is just wonderful and this was no exception. This one explored adoption and what family and belonging means. As well as disability and how she thinks about it vs. how others perceive her.

Thanks to @netgalley for the arc in exchange for an honest review.

When I first found out that we were getting Nadya's story I was a little confused. Nadya was a blip of a character at the beginning of the series, and we had spent so much time with Cora (who is also a Drowned Girl and comes from a water world) that I thought we would be getting her story. Nonetheless, I found Nadya's story to be an interesting one.

The only thing that I had remembered about Nadya was that she loved turtles and would always hang out by the turtle pond. So when I started this book I was surprised to see that she was born with half of her right arm. After being adopted by an American couple, Nadya is brought to Colorado from Russia to become the "perfect American daughter". As part of this process, Nadya is given a prosthetic arm. As someone who has loved her body, never felt insecure about her disability, and didn't understand how others couldn't see the same thing, Nadya was angry at the loss of autonomy over her own body (which I thought was a clever way to speak to what is currently happening to women's rights in our country). In trying to escape her situation, she finds the door Belyyreka and accidentally falls in.

Belyyreka is an entire world that is under a lake. The entire world is covered in water, but the water is of different weights (some water is so light that everyone can breathe normally without the need of gills) so some parts of the world feel more underwater than others. I had a very hard time trying to picture the actual world because the physics behind it was hard for me to understand (Nadya even claims that some of the adults might not understand it either but just go with it). We see giant turtles that become companions, we see ships that can travel above and below water, and there are talking animals. There was no real sense of danger or urgency that we've seen in some of the other worlds. Instead, this really just felt like a slice of life and we really got to see how everyone lives in this world. I think Belyyreka is one of my favorite worlds that we've seen so far.

Overall, I enjoyed this book but it didn't break into my top 3. I think it's a solid book in the series, but at the same time I kept thinking "Why are we getting this story?". There is no mention of the School for Wayward Children or any of the characters we've seen before so like "Along the Green Grass Fields" this book could be read as a standalone or a starting point to see if someone is interested in reading more in the series.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tordotcom for providing me with a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This tenth book in the Wayward children's series tell the story of Nadya, the Drowned girl.
And while we knew a of her story from previous novellas, "Adrift," gives us her full tale, how she found her door and lost her way.
I loved reading Nadya story and getting to see the lives she had as a child, and growing up in the world her door sent her to... and of course the turtles!

I really liked this one. I don't remember much about Nadya from before besides the fact she was a Drowned Girl, so I can't speak to any potential inconsistencies with the earlier appearances.
Thank you very much to Tor and NetGalley for the ARC! This is one of my favorite series, so I was so happy to be approved!