Excellent young adult fantasy with unique story line

I was so excited to read Astrid Scholte's new book. Four Dead Queens was fantastic and the Vanishing Deep was even better. In this stand-alone novel, Scholte has created a post-apocalyptic world where the Great Waves have covered most of civilization as we know. The survivors either scrambled to whatever land remained, or created floating islands from debris and items salvaged from the cities below. Lor works in Palindromena on one of the small islands. He was a rock climber but retreated to the basement storage area after losing his best friend in a climbing accident. Tempe (short for Tempest) is a diver searching for relics to sell for money to raise her sister from the dead. That's what they do on Palindromena - study the dead, and they've learned how to bring them back to life for 24 hours. The only catch is that you have to pay a huge fee for the resurrection. Tempe needs to resurrect her older sister Elysea to find out why she killed their parents. Once Tempe raises the fee, she travels to Palindromena where Lor, as her counselor, helps her bring Elysea back to life. Only things aren't as Tempe thought, and Elysea is not going meekly back to death. The sisters take off to find out what actually happened to their parents. Lor and his friend must track them down and return Elysea before her 24 hours are up.

This was such an well-written,exciting story - unlike anything I've read. Young adults and adults of any age will love this. Scholte does deal frankly with death so this might trigger certain people, but she does it in a sensitve and dignified manner. I really enjoyed the Vanishing Deep. Many thanks to Putnam and Bookish First for the opportunity to read the ARC!