Symir: The Drowning City. Home to exiles and expatriates, pirates and smugglers. And violent revolutionaries who will stop at nothing to overthrow the corrupt Imperial government.

Amanda Downum’s fantasy adventure debut is out this week in both the US and the UK. Set in the dark alleyways of a port city on the edge of a corrupt empire, Isyllt Iskaldur must find and finance the rumored revolutionaries on behalf of her country. A necromancer and a spy, she must find a way to complete her mission, topple the palaces of Symir, and prove herself to the crown. But in a land where even the dead are plotting, she will be lucky to escape with her own life intact.

“THE DROWNING CITY is a compelling fantasy in a richly imagined setting dripping with visceral detail, building to a conclusion at once unexpected, appropriate and moving.”
— Jacqueline Carey

“If you read only one first novel this year, read this one. I promise it’s good.”
— Elizabeth Bear

“Lush, evocative. Amanda Downum creates a richly realized, refreshingly Eastern world full of charms and spirits, espionage and intrigue and the wars of great powers fought by proxy.”
— Brent Weeks

“Amanda Downum may just be a force to be reckoned with.”
—fantasyliterature.com

“[A] complex and striking debut”
— Publisher’s Weekly