E. has lived most of her life in the Deep House, an architectural marvel built in a reef 14 fathoms deep, and as her Maladies of the Mind keep her from leaving or socializing much, she knows the place and its surrounding creatures pretty well. So when she observes a large aquatic eel-type creature, E. writes a letter to the author of her favorite sea creature classification novel, Scholar Henery Clel. When he writes back, they begin a correspondence that leads to a burgeoning relationship that forms mostly through the written word. But when both of them vanish in a mysterious seaquake, E.'s sister and Henery's brother come together to share their siblings' letters and see if they can figure out what happened to them.
This epistolary novel is set in a strange world that is mostly ocean, and between that and the formal ways of addressing one another, it feels somewhat Victorian, almost like a gentler and easier to read cousin of Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. The book says on the spine that it's fantasy, and I'm not sure I quite agree with that, but I will say that it was a lovely book that's worth putting a bit of time into reading.
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