★Saft, Allison. A Dark and Drowning Tide. Del Rey: Ballantine. Sept. 2024. 384p. ISBN 9780593722343. pap. $18.99. FANTASY

The expedition is in shambles, their mentor is dead, and Lorelei Kaskel and Sylvia von Wolff, enemies and rivals at every step of their academic careers, know that their heads are on the chopping block. Their king needs this expedition to succeed—or he needs a scapegoat for its failure, and either of them will do, even if neither of them is responsible. All they have to do is not kill each other, not let any of their fractious comrades kill anyone else, solve the murder, and find the legendary source of all magic before a traitor’s plans come to fruition. There’s little hope that either success or failure will save their necks. But they have each other, and that will have to be enough. VERDICT Take the deadly mystery and vicious academic politics of The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older, stir in the magic and the romance of the “Emily Wilde” series by Heather Fawcett (but make it sapphic), add several drops of the political shenanigans of epic fantasy, and stir with a sharp, prickly thorn of a main character to get this fraught enemies-to-lovers fantasy. YA author Saft’s (A Fragile Enchantment) adult debut is highly recommended.