What the River Knows

English language

Published June 10, 2023 by St. Martin's Press.

ISBN:: 978-1-250-80337-5

(1 review)

Bolivian-Argentiniantinian Inez Olivera belongs to the glittering upper society of nineteenth century Buenos Aires, and like the rest of the world, the town is steeped in old world magic that's been largely left behind or forgotten. Inez has everything a girl might want, except for the one thing she yearns the most: her globetrotting parents-who frequently leave her behind.

When she receives word of their tragic deaths, Inez inherits their massive fortune and a mysterious guardian, an archeologist in partnership with his Egyptian brother-in-law. Yearning for answers, Inez sails to Cairo, bringing her sketch pads and a golden ring her father sent to her for safekeeping before he died. But upon her arrival, the old world magic tethered to the ring pulls her down a path where she soon discovers there's more to her parent's disappearance than what her guardian led her to believe.

With her guardian's infuriatingly handsome assistant …

Bolivian-Argentiniantinian Inez Olivera belongs to the glittering upper society of nineteenth century Buenos Aires, and like the rest of the world, the town is steeped in old world magic that's been largely left behind or forgotten. Inez has everything a girl might want, except for the one thing she yearns the most: her globetrotting parents-who frequently leave her behind.

When she receives word of their tragic deaths, Inez inherits their massive fortune and a mysterious guardian, an archeologist in partnership with his Egyptian brother-in-law. Yearning for answers, Inez sails to Cairo, bringing her sketch pads and a golden ring her father sent to her for safekeeping before he died. But upon her arrival, the old world magic tethered to the ring pulls her down a path where she soon discovers there's more to her parent's disappearance than what her guardian led her to believe.

With her guardian's infuriatingly handsome assistant thwarting her at every turn, Inez must rely on ancient magic to uncover the truth about her parent's disappearance-or risk becoming a pawn in a larger game that will kill her.

3 editions

Enum & Valerie reviewed What the River Knows by Isabel Ibañez

What the River Knows

3 stars

I'm not really sure what to think of this. It's all so inconsequent. For context, this book plays in colonized Egypt, in the year 1884. And the two character alignments are: good archeologists who want to preserve everything and thus have to keep it secret so future Egyptians can learn about it - and the bad people who sell everything they get their hands on. So this is superficially anti-colonialist, yet all the relevant people are Englishmen, Frenchmen or Argentinians. Only two Egyptians in the book have names, and they're entirely replaceable, with no plot relevance and no agency.

And the "evil" side who's illegally trading artifacts is so flat, not even the motivations make sense (if it's money then why did Lourdes risk losing her giant fortune to Ricardo???)