“The Speculative Fiction Indie Novella Championship (SFINCS, pronounced “sphinx”)a is a yearly competition to recognize, honor, and celebrate the talent and creativity present in the indie community. We are a sister competition to both SPFBO and SPSFC, and we highlight greatness in the novella format in all areas of speculative fiction (fantasy, science fiction, horror, etc.).” – From the official SFINCS website.
Note: The following review contains only my personal thoughts as a judge and does not reflect the views of the team as a whole.
REVIEW
Jennifer R. Donohue’s The Drowned Heir has been on my personal TBR for a while and I’m glad SFINCS has given me the push I needed to read it. A dark fantasy steeped in mythic, folkloric atmosphere, Heir is poetically written and should appeal to fans of the Gothic who also enjoy nautical and maritime settings. It may simply be that I read this one so close on the heels of Cate Baumer’s The Butcher’s Lot, but I do feel there’s a lot of potential crossover appeal in terms of the books’ audiences. With The Drowned 
Heir, Parasitic Omens, and The Butcher’s Lot all making semi-finalist, it feels like the year of the Gothic when it comes to SFINCS!
The Drowned Heir has a killer hook: a young woman with little power in her misogynistic society is tasked with housing the spirit of her recently-deceased, seafaring uncle. With two spirits untidily merged together in one body, the pair sets sail on what may well be one last mission as they attempt to track the sea monster responsible for the uncle’s death. Joining them on their dark adventure is the uncle’s supernatural lover, who has revealed to the chimeric main character that the uncle has an unknown son who could bear the burden of his spirit in the place of his niece. While neither spirit is aggressively hostile to the other, each bristles as they navigate their shared body. Eager to find an alternative solution, niece and uncle brave the blood-curse that draws the monster to them in order to find the key to their autonomy.
Much like Cate Baumer’s The Butcher’s Lot, The Drowned Heir is deeply introspective. Though there’s no shortage of action (the high seas and their monstrous denizens provide plenty of opportunity for Donohue to showcase her scene-setting chops, and the niece’s tryst with the ship’s second mate provides a little romance), Heir is most notable for how it lingers on the dual consciousness of its protagonist. There’s a tug of war between the two souls–one drinks, one doesn’t; one desires men, one prefers women–and yet the text is always quick to remind that the lines separating the two are indistinct. This lends the work a claustrophobic feel, a sensation of the niece’s entrapment not only inside a body that’s no longer simply “hers,” but inside the the very system that ensured she’d be caged there. Ultimately a story of the niece and uncle’s resistance of the fated outcome of their lives and the rejection of themselves as folklore, Heir has a lot to say about our obligations to family, and particularly how women are so often treated as resources to be consumed rather than singular subjects. One of the highlights of Heir is also the niece’s gradual awakening as she develops a more profound confidence in her own skills, desires, and needs.
“Family is never so simple as a yes or a no; it is as complex as the moons and the tides.”
Much of Heir reads like a dream or, perhaps, like a movie playing out beyond a fogged or vaselined lens. The prose isn’t pretty just for the sake of it, however, but is used to scaffold the plot via a sense both of atmosphere and of the niece and uncle’s mental states. It feels similarly appropriate for the folkloric and historical feel of the narrative. If Heir is folklore, it also resists many of the expectations of the genre. In the hands of another, the uncle figure might be crudely painted, and I can easily imagine a version of the novella in which the relationship between niece and uncle is much more strained and tense. Instead, both characters remain uncomfortable with their lot, yet ultimately work together toward a common goal. Of all the niece’s family, her uncle appears the most sympathetic toward her unenviable situation. Donohue paints their quest as singular, even if their internal self isn’t wholly unified, and for all that Heir is Gothic in tone and subject matter, moments of joy lend variety to the story.
While Donohue’s line-level writing and ability to craft atmosphere were two of the highlights for me, I did find myself wishing during the novella’s climax for a little more clarity and decisiveness. It’s a small criticism though, and this may be more a matter of personal taste than anything meaningful.
As mentioned, I recommend The Drowned Heir to fans of Cate Baumer’s work, readers of modern feminist Gothic, and fans of historically-textured fantasies with the atmosphere and density of a fairytale retelling. It’s a story about the body, and in particular about women’s autonomy when it comes to the body. Donohue’s characters–particularly the niece and the supernatural lover–demand their places within not just the story, but their family’s lives and the societies that shape them.
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