Overview

In a world where land is scarce and the seas have swallowed much of civilisation, two women from opposite realms cross paths. Callanish, a “gracekeeper” who tends the drowned dead beneath the waves, and North, a circus performer with her beloved bear, both long for belonging. When a storm brings the circus to the graceyard, the fragile balance of their lives begins to shift.

Voice & Atmosphere

Logan’s prose is lyrical and dreamlike, moving with the rhythm of tides. Her flooded world feels mythic yet believable—floating tents and drowned cities rendered in aching detail. The tone is tender, melancholic and rich with quiet wonder, a fairy tale for an age of climate grief.

Characters

North is fierce and restless, a woman defined by performance yet yearning for home. Callanish, penitent and solitary, carries the weight of her own past beneath the water. Their meeting feels inevitable and fateful. Around them, the circus crew, ringmasters and dreamers build a world where spectacle masks survival.

Themes

Binary divisions—land and sea, belonging and exile, performance and truth—thread through the novel. Logan explores grief, identity and connection, showing how ritual can both confine and comfort. The sea becomes a living metaphor for change: unpredictable, vast, and quietly transformative.

What Worked

• Vivid world-building: the post-flood society feels tactile, strange and plausible.
• Lyrical prose: language that feels like water—flowing, reflective, and precise.
• Emotional depth: queer love and found family explored with tenderness and restraint.

Minor Quibbles

• The pace is gentle and meditative rather than propulsive—some readers may crave more momentum.
• Elements of the world remain mysterious, inviting reflection more than explanation.

Final Thoughts

A shimmering, melancholic debut that blends fairy-tale intimacy with speculative scope. The Gracekeepers drifts between land and sea, solitude and solace, finding beauty in the spaces between.

Rating: ★★★★☆ (4/5)