I finished A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid and I loved it, I love vibes, particularly creepy seaside vibes, and this was absolutely dripping with atmosphere. All through reading it, and after, I kept thinking of Romantic era paintings, with their foamy seas and swirling skies, and feelings, and bright young women against dark ominous backgrounds. So since that’s been stuck with me all day, I figured instead of a wordy review I’d do an art spam review. Like gif reviews on goodreads, but older.

Blurb:

Effy Sayre has always believed in fairy tales. Haunted by visions of the Fairy King since childhood, she’s had no choice. Her tattered copy of Angharad—Emrys Myrddin’s epic about a mortal girl who falls in love with the Fairy King, then destroys him—is the only thing keeping her afloat. So when Myrddin’s family announces a contest to redesign the late author’s estate, Effy feels certain it’s her destiny.

But musty, decrepit Hiraeth Manor is an impossible task, and its residents are far from welcoming. Including Preston Héloury, a stodgy young literature scholar determined to expose Myrddin as a fraud. As the two rivals piece together clues about Myrddin’s legacy, dark forces, both mortal and magical, conspire against them—and the truth may bring them both to ruin.

Top to bottom, left to right:

1. Mother and Child by the Sea – Johan Christian Dahl
2. Joseph Mallord William Turner – Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps
3. Charpentier Constance Marie – Melancholy
4. Henry Wallis – Chatterton
5. John Martin – Macbeth
6. John William Waterhouse – The Lady of Shalott
7. John Constable – Sketch for ‘Hadleigh Castle’
8. Cole Thomas The Course of Empire The Savage State
9. Caspar David Friedrich – Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog
10. A Storm in the Rocky Mountains, Mt. Rosalie (Brooklyn Museum) by Albert Bierstadt
11. Joseph Mallord William Turner – Fishermen at Sea
12. John William Waterhouse – I am half-sick of shadows, said the lady of shalott
13. Henry Fuseli, The Nightmare
14. John William Waterhouse – The Lady of Shalott
15. Joseph Wright of Derby Grotto in the Gulf of Salerno

I’m sorry if any of these are not in fact paintings from the Romantic current and google lied to me, or anything like that.