Drowned Ammet

The Dalemark Quartet #2

by Diana Wynne Jones

Stunning new paperback editions of Diana Wynne Jones's spellbinding Dalemark Quartet designed for crossover appeal to the adult fantasy audience as well as young Harry Potter fans. In Drowned Ammet . a young man joins in a plot to assassinate a tyrannical earl.

Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult, Fiction, Childrens, Magic, Middle Grade, Young Adult Fantasy

324 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

Diana Wynne Jones was a celebrated British writer best known for her inventive and influential works of fantasy for children and young adults. Her stories often combined magical worlds with science fiction elements, parallel universes, and a sharp sense of humor. Among her most beloved books are Howl's Moving Castle, the Chrestomanci series, The Dalemark Quartet, Dark Lord of Derkholm, and the satirical The Tough Guide to Fantasyland. Her work gained renewed attention and readership with the popularity of the Harry Potter series, to which her books have frequently been compared.

Admired by authors such as Neil Gaiman, Philip Pullman, and J.K. Rowling, Jones was a major influence on the landscape of modern fantasy. She received numerous accolades throughout her career, including the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, two Mythopoeic Awards, the Karl Edward Wagner Award, and the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement. In 2004, Howl's Moving Castle was adapted into an acclaimed animated film by Hayao Miyazaki, further expanding her global audience.

Jones studied at Oxford, where she attended lectures by both C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. She began writing professionally in the 1960s and remained active until her death in 2011. Her final novel, The Islands of Chaldea, was completed posthumously by her sister Ursula Jones.

Reviews

[Nicky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Diana Wynne Jones doesn't make the worldbuilding too easy to follow. I remember reading in her collected non-fiction writings that she found that children made the leaps her books require much more easily than adults do. So I try to think like a child when I read her work (it sort of pleases me, the way people are often so snobby about children "not understanding" adult literature -- which I did, on some level at least, from the age of nine -- that perhaps this is something children understand better, and not because it's infantile in any way: it just requires flexibility of brain). Sometimes it still jars -- like the scene in the storm where suddenly another two people join the ship.

There's still something so different about this book to the other books of Jones' that I can think of. Normally they feel so light, or they make light of bad situations, but the tyranny and terrorism and betrayal in this story just... It has a darker feel, even when it's still handled pretty lightly at times.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

'People may wonder how Mitt came to join in the Holand Sea Festival, carrying a bomb, and what he thought he was doing. Mitt wondered himself by the end.'
– Chapter 1.

With this dramatic opening paragraph Diana Wynne Jones began the second book of what became known as the Dalemark Quartet – even though the last book wasn’t published till 1993 and, appearing fourteen years after The Spellcoats, evidently an afterthought. As with many of her series – Chrestomanci, Howl, or Fantasyland for example – she steadfastly avoided repeating herself, studiously refusing to conform to expectations that a sequel would merely be more of the same.

Here the events of the first Dalemark novel, Cart and Cwidder, are merely distant rumours, with none of those protagonists referred to by name even though the action is more or less contemporaneous in both. This means that Drowned Ammet can be treated on its own merits even though set in the same world – and that’s how I propose to deal with it now, almost as if it’s a standalone novel.

As Cart and Cwidder is structured round a journey (by cart, of course) from the south of the subcontinent of Dalemark to the north, so Drowned Ammet finds young Mitt also travelling in the same general direction, but this time by sea. He has had dreamlike inklings of a land somewhere northwards from a young age, and feels drawn towards it though he has no knowledge of it. That dream land is in stark contrast to his life in South Dalemark where warring earls and crippling taxes force his parents, one after another, to travel to Holand [sic] to eke out a living.

When his father is presumed dead following a failed revolutionary coup and his mother marries a gunsmith, Mitt determines to become a revolutionary himself and thus avenging his father’s death on whoever betrayed him. Instead he finds himself on the run with two siblings from one of the hated noble families, sailing into the unknown after his own failed attempt at assassination. And what begins as a familiar tale of realism becomes touched with intimations of divine influences.

In a similar way to Moril’s experience in Cart and Cwidder, Mitt’s long and dangerous physical voyage is shadowed by an inner journey as he comes to terms with who he is, what he stands for, where he is coming from and how he stands in relationship to friends, family, acquaintances, enemies and the demiurges that shape his world. Though we hear distant news of Moril’s achievements and wonder if the paths of both Mitt and Moril may be destined to cross in a future book, the author will disdain to stoop to predictable outcomes; as with many of her fantasies Jones is concerned with realistic human relationships and individual dilemmas, and that often leads to the kinds of messy outcomes we find in daily life.

When I first read the first two Dalemark tales it was certainly delightful to read them back to back and to live the experiences of these two protagonists through their eyes, as it were. While the geography and physics of this world may seem strange to us, and the technology veer from high medieval to early modern, there is no doubting that they are about real human beings recognisable from our own world, and with and for whom we can feel affinity and affection, and occasionally antagonism. I also think that Mitt’s parents – along with Hildy and Ynen, the two companion runaways he frequently squabbles with – owe much to the author’s own emotionally distant parents and her two lively sisters: it may be significant that Drowned Ammet was dedicated to her mother.

And this being fantasy, there is of course an element of magic and the supernatural: the title refers to a corn dolly figure which, along with another composed of fruits, is ritually consigned to the sea at Holand but which manifests differently the closer the young protagonists get to the Holy Islands. I constantly marvel at how the author was able to render the fantastic believable and immanent in certain of her characters, whether in epic fantasies like this or more domestic situations.

Here may be a good place to mention the useful map prepared by David Cuzic that appeared in the Greenwillow omnibus edition and which provides a rudimentary but indispensible counterpart to the clues contained in the text.

[katayoun Masoodi · Rating 4 out of 5]

and i started not really liking this and definitely not liking Mitt, and then they got together, they talked, they changed, but still not totally and still they carried alot of themselves and i loved it.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

If Cart and Cwidder had hidden depths, Drowned Ammet is all depths, and they're right out of the open. This second book in the quartet ratchets up the danger of the North/South conflict, and also brings the gods right out into the open.

Mitt is a wholly sympathetic and fascinating character, snappish and sarcastic like so many DWJ characters are, but with a well-tuned moral compass and a vivid inner life. He shares the narration with Hildy, who is decidedly less sympathetic at times, at least in comparison to Mitt. I wish I knew how to pronounce Ynen. The contrasts and conflicts between impoverished, freedom-fighting Mitt and highborn Hildy & Ynen make for extremely good interactions -- they want to trust each other, but don't quite dare, and the misunderstandings only deepen. It's an awkward relationship these three have, and it's very well-written.

There are some interesting and disturbing themes in Drowned Ammet, such as the titular practice of throwing images of the gods into the ocean for luck. We also see much of the ruthlessness of the earls (more, that is -- we saw quite a bit of that in the first book) and the way life really is in the South. Added to the interesting/disturbing stuff are terrorism and torture. If these books are really meant for kids, that's quite subversive of DWJ, and I heartily approve.

[Melissa McShane · Rating 5 out of 5]

I discovered this book at the same time The Crown of Dalemark came out. Not only had I never heard of it, I didn't realize that the other two books in the series were even part of a series. Drowned Ammet is by far my favorite of the Dalemark stories. Mitt is exactly the kind of person I feel drawn to in fiction, concealing his pain even from himself, acting prickly to push people away but still hoping that someone will be his friend. There are few truly noble characters in this book, and I love it for how realistic and varied they all are.

Re-read 12/6/12: Reading all of DWJ's books in order of publication gives me an even greater appreciation for Drowned Ammet. It has a complexity that builds on the previous books--not just its companion Cart and Cwidder, but everything else she'd written to date: the family dynamics of Eight Days of Luke and Dogsbody play out in a fantasy setting more mature than Cart and Cwidder's. It's difficult, I think, to create a mythology that makes as much sense in its "pure" form as in its devolved state (the corruption of Alhammitt to Old Ammet, for one) but DWJ pulls it off brilliantly. It remains my favorite of the Dalemark books and one of my favorite DWJ books in general.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was only going to give this book 3 stars- it's good, but I'm definitely not crazy about it, and it took me a ridiculously long time to get properly attached to any of the characters. But that ending. It's awesome, and it gets this book an extra star.

[Leah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Diana Wynne Jones has a way of writing that just speaks to me perfectly. She gets inside her characters and explains them from the inside out and puts everything just the way you feel it yourself, if you could get it into words.

Her early books, such as the Dalemark Quartet, are clearly tentative ventures into the territory she would boldly explore later on, with many of her themes noticeable here: children growing themselves up with no help (and often active hindrance) from parents, people not knowing who they are but coming into legacies by trial and fortitude, girls who get properly angry at the way they are treated and do something about it, general Welsh folklore.

This one is not as well-formed as her later novels, being divided into four parts and pretty equal amounts of up and down time within, a little too much waiting and not enough action, and the action when it comes is a bit rushed and breathless. The characters aren't as well explored as we know she is capable of doing, but still intriguing enough for me to want to know what happens next.

[Shawn Thrasher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of DWJ's beautifully descriptive prose in all of her many books happens in Drowned Ammet when she writes of her fictional Holy Islands; she certainly made me want to not only visit but dwell in these fantasy islands. Her descriptions of sailing, ships and the ocean gave my personal favorite writer about oceans, Richard Henry Dana Jr. a run for his money as well. But what really struck me was her perfect capturing of the mind of a young terrorist. I can only guess that when DWJ was writing this, she may have had young IRA bombers in her mind, egged on by revolution and patriotic stirrings against tyranny; I know I kept thinking of the Boston Bombers; Mitt is a likable young fool caught up in revenge and feeling grand and big; DWJ really sticks us right in his mind, and we both understand him and pity him and know he's an idiot, and empathize with him because sometimes we are idiots too, caught up in something we later deeply regret. We don't all have to be boys for that. A terrifically powerful book in a quirky series that should be better known because it's so good.

[deborah o'carroll · Rating 5 out of 5]

Re-read March 2023 for March Magics

I'm amazed that even on my third read, I can still be totally surprised by twists near the end as if I'm reading it for the first time. Totally blindsided. And yet all the hints are right there. Only Diana Wynne Jones can do this to me. XD (It happened with Conrad's Fate too. XD)

This is an odd one and won't be for everyone but personally I love it so much. I appreciated all of the levels even more this time, and found so many more interweaving threads/themes this time. So, so good!

Re-read August 2018

Read February 2014

[Ellie · Rating 2 out of 5]

All in all, not Diana's best.

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mitt's story - what he realizes he reveals, and what he doesn't - is so well done, and so satisfying.

Something I recognized on my recent Dalemark reread (minus The Spellcoats because I don't own that one; I've never appreciated it) is that I appreciate Mitt's story much more in the context of his final arc in The Crown of Dalemark. It's such a rewarding journey, from his choices to his lack of choices to his wonderful limited point of view.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

A rollicking adventure tale with an unlikely set of heroes, this book began with a hook that it then took a while to wend its way back around to, so the pacing felt a little weird at times. I really liked the setting, which felt like it had a fair bit of depth, despite the story skimming along over the top for most of the book.

[Yipin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't really understand this series.

[Mar Vieites · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t usually write reviews, but this book was so surprising for me that I need to share some thoughts.


****SPOILERS AHEAD****
(Well, kinda, it's more about character arcs and dynamics, there's not specific information about the plot, I don't think it spoils anything, but I'll keep the warning just in case)



First, I just LOVE Mitt. Not him as a character, but how he's written. I love the way his evolution goes, so organic and human, so well built. The very first line of the book says he doesn’t know what he thinks he’s doing, and that sums up his character arc. He spends good part of the book acting according to the inner speech he constructed through her mother words, the family circumstances and the resentment towards the world and its social injustices, and it takes him a while to realize how contradictory this speech actually is with his real self. And I know explained like this it doesn’t sound so groundbreaking, it’s a common character arc, but the way Diana developed it is so special, and so beautifully done. When Mitt is finally able to acknowledge those contradictions between what he thinks and feels and what he does, and deals with them with honesty, it felt so realistic that I couldn’t stop thinking how much I’d have loved to read this when I was younger and I struggled with this kind of inner incoherences.

Other thing I loved and I didn’t expect to find here was Mitt’s relationship with Hildy and Ynen, the rich highborn kids. Since the very beginning when they all get introduced in the story, you just know they eventually will meet and be friends, since it’s a classic situation both in children books and in DWJ works .
But it doesn’t go exactly like that. They do meet and team up, and they kinda sympathise with each other, but their upbringings are sooo different that they just can’t avoid prejudices, nor miscommunications. There are so many times where either Mitt or Hildy try to say something nice, and the other just takes it in the bad way and the effort to get along fails.
I mean, this is obvious, two people who were born and raised in such different and opposed environments are socialised in different ways, so it's not realistic they get to understand each other and be bff's in two days. So obvious and still so rare to see this struggles properly depicted in children/YA fantasy. They all need to rationalise their prejudices and their feelings, put a conscious effort in empathize, and in the end they manage to trust and care for each other, and even if we don’t get to see the aftermath we just know they might become actual friends some day. Or maybe not. This isn’t about the power of friendship, this is about recognising and choosing the right people, even if they are everything you’d hated your whole life (Am I making any sense?)

As for the plot, I did enjoy it but I also find it rather irregular. I mean, it's all politics at the beginning, but at certain point everything gets magical and the political/social part of the story doesn’t really have a closure. This was the main reason I didn’t give it 5 stars. Everything else was just fine: I loved the portrait of the freedom fighters, how well described is Holand, the AWESOME ambient in the Holy Islands, and I even enjoyed the travel in the Wind’s Road, which is remarkable since I normally get bored with long sea trips in the stories.

In general, without being my favourite DWJ book, I must say I loved it. This year I've got the resolution of reading all of the work, and it's just crazy how each book manages to keep surprising me, even when she always plays with the same very specific themes and tropes.





One last comment: I’ve seen some reviews criticising that the people from the Holy Islands were described as brown skinned and fair haired, because it makes that the ending suffered from the Magical Brown People and The White Saviour Complex tropes. I’m not in the position to discuss this, but I’d like to give Diana the benefit of the doubt. In the first book there’s a noble family with these same features, and it’s said they are very common in the North Dales. Maybe she was just trying to create a diverse world, and these different ethnicities will get more development in the two remaining books, so she fall in those tropes just by chance? (Or maybe she did pull a Magical brown people. I mean, she was British after all. No one's perfect)

[Pam Baddeley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second in the Dalemark quartet, and is set in the same timeframe roughly as 'Cart and Cwidder' but from the point of view of children actually brought up in the repressive southern Dales rather than the outsider minstrel children of the first volume.

Alhammitt, or Mitt as he is always known, starts off as a happy child with parents who are always laughing although life isn't easy on the farm. However, the animosity of a rent collector ends all that, with their father forced to look for work in the port of Holand and Mitt and his mother having to follow when they are evicted from their home. The parents soon turn to quarrelling, especially as Milda, Mitt's mother, is a feckless dreamer who often spends their money on trinkets or new shoes. Mitt's father joins a subversive organisation - of which there are many due to the tyranny of the Earls - and one night the group starts a fire at the docks. Mitt's father doesn't return and Mitt and his mother subsequently blame his comrades in the society for betraying him to the authorities.

Milda eggs Mitt on to get revenge and his life becomes dedicated to getting close to these men, by becoming a worker on the fishing boat one owns, and later by working for Milda's second husband, a renowned gunsmith, and trying to steal gunpowder. The revolutionaries have decided to create a bomb to kill the Earl of Holand at the annual festival where effigies are thrown into the sea of 'Old Ammet' and 'Libby Beer', characters who later become far more significant in the story. Mitt has his own agenda - to kill the Earl but let himself be captured so that he can put the blame onto his father's fellow revolutionaries.

A parallel story is that of brother and sister Hildrida and Ynen who live at the palace, the children of the Earl's youngest son. Despite the luxury of their surroundings, they have very proscribed lives. The events at the festival bring both them and Mitt into collision and ultimately a hardwon understanding.

As with a lot of DWJ's fiction, a great deal of the story revolves around the characters, and grows out of their characters. People have to rub along and learn tolerance and acceptance of others. Parents are not perfect and often let children down. Mitt is quite a frustrating character to follow because he is headstrong and his own worst enemy for a lot of the book. And some people probably won't like the 'deus ex machina' element in this story which was not present in 'Cart and Cwidder', but it is still a good page turning read with a really surprising twist.

[Lightreads · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another fantasy, this one about a boy raised to be a terrorist bomber who fails in his attempt to assassinate the tyrannical earl and ends up on the run with the earl's grandchildren.

The first 80% of this was really good for me. It was playing with the role of children in political drama. Our protagonists are all tools of adult agendas, either as a murder weapon or a bargaining chip in an arranged marriage. This is the second book in this series in which a protagonist's parents turn out to be separately awful in unique and chilly ways. Except this book was facing up to that more directly and chewing at it. The book treads some predictable but nicely done ground regarding the formation of an independent self. And I'm always a sucker for these 'people become prickly friends across a painful class divide' stories.

Then the last fifth turned into a lot of deus ex machina with actual gods, and the whole structure came tumbling down, with all that careful work she'd built going nowhere. Disappointing.

[Katharine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unfortunately after raving about the complexity of Diana Wynne Jones's writing, I found an example of what happens when she doesn't quite get it right. Drowned Ammet has some of the same themes that made Cart and Cwidder so much fun, but it lacks the irresistible appeal. The main problem is that DWJ is usually good at POV – and that's where most of the complexity comes from, because she has the ability to make you see through a character's eyes. But she fails to do this for some reason with the main character here, Mitt. As a result he is unsympathetic for most of the book and at the same time he's unsympathetic in a very unconvincing way and his motivations don't even have an internal logic.

The positive side is that the setting of this book is really creatively depicted and there are some nice ideas about religion and faith and the proper use thereof. But it would have been a lot more fun to read if any of the protagonists had been more appealing/convincing.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

reread May 2025 - it is world-historically funny/painful that DWJ dedicated this book in particular to her mother.

-------------------

Another first-time DWJ. She is so reliably good. As always in Jones, parents are a poor source of comfort and safety - I have WORDS for Milda.

[Evie · Rating 3 out of 5]

i don't know why i thought that if i'd grown out of YA books, middle grade would be any better... I remember loving this when I was younger but guess it's different now

[Tanya · Rating 4 out of 5]

"You don’t understand – can’t you think how it feels when everyone you know is scared sick all the time? You couldn’t trust people. They’d turn round and tell on you, anytime, even if it weren’t you done it, because they didn’t want to get marched off in the night themselves. That’s not how people should be.” [p. 179]

My paper copy of this novel came to me via a friend who noticed a heap of withdrawn library books in a skip and thought I might like it. Coincidentally, I had just read The Spellcoats for the first time ...

There are two plot threads in Drowned Ammet: one protagonist is Mitt, born in a poor but happy household but getting involved in revolutionary terrorism after his father's departure; the other is Hildrida (Hildy for short), the somewhat spoilt daughter of Earl Hadd's second son, Navis. Hildy has been betrothed to the Lord of the Isles against her will, and is spitting mad about it. Mitt, meanwhile, has had 'his life's work' ruined by the betrayal of a plot to assassinate Earl Hadd.

So when Mitt and Hildy, and Hildy's younger brother Ynen, all end up on the same boat, heading north in stormy weather, it's not exactly a pleasure cruise -- even before they pick up a passenger who repulses them all.

There's magic here too, and the Undying: the passage north is aided by the mystical figures of Old Ammet and Libby Beer (both of whom feel like gods with the corners worn off, made comfortable and traditional with use but still capable of being dangerous).

Like Dogsbody, this novel features terrorists who aren't wholly reprehensible: it was published at the height of the IRA bombings on the UK mainland, and I wonder what contemporary audiences made of Mitt with his bombs and conspiracies. (The conflict is fairly clear-cut: Earl Hadd and most of his sons are tyrants, oppressing the poor, assassinating enemies and raising taxes. But still.)

Afterthought: having reread three out of the four Dalemark novels, I have no desire to reread Cart and Cwidder. I wonder why?

[Spencer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story resides squarely at the intersection of "coming-of-age" and "magic," and I loved every minute. It definitely takes a different approach than the many other examples of such stories (particularly in our post-Harry Potter and post-X-men world). I felt a closer kinship to Susan Cooper's "The Dark is Rising" series, which was written at about the same time.

What sets Diana Wynne Jones' writing apart is her willingness to leave some things for the reader to puzzle out. This is ostensibly the sequel to "Cart and Cwidder," but if no one told you that you wouldn't likely guess it on your own. Her world building relies not on endless explication or description (looking at you, Mr. Sanderson), but rather flows naturally through the characters' experiences. This means that at many points, the reader is required to puzzle things over for a chapter or two before coming to a conclusion about events, relationships, characters, and contexts. It introduces an element of discovery into the reading process that I find invigorating and exciting.

Additionally, Jones does not spell out for you which are the 'good guys' and which the 'bad guys.' Her goal in doing such is not to mire the reader in endless moral ambiguities, but rather to allow for the fact that despite our best efforts life often surprises us and forces us to reconsider our initial appraisals of others and their actions.

All in all, it makes for a wonderful read. The story builds to a series of wonderfully exciting and unexpected scenes filled with action, wonder, magic, and stark humanity. Writing this review prompted me to go back and change my initial rating from four to five stars--I will definitely return to reread this book.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm giving this three stars because it's Diana Wynne Jones and I can't bear to give her anything less. But this book and I are not great friends. We're like those kind of friends who keep in touch only online. Occasionally.

It's kind of an interesting world, I guess? We have the typical tyrannical government, a few scattered rebellions, and an annual festival where the citizens throw dummies of a god and goddess into the ocean for luck. (The most interesting part.)

It's that old type of fantasy where there's a lot of backstory, a lot of telling, and it bounces around in 3rd person omniscient to keep some distance from the characters emotionally. Sometimes that works. In this case it didn't. Not for me.

The story doesn't really begin until about 150 pages in, and then the action and plot I had been so desperately waiting for felt rushed and under-explored. Also, Mitt, our hero suffers a bit from TSTL. (Too stupid to live). He goes on this plot to assassinate the Earl without making any escape plans or really thinking it through. He also has this habit of taking a nap in the midst of danger. More than once.

I'm going to pass on the rest of the series, but I will not let this taint my love for Diana Wynne.

[art of storytelling · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had a lot of fun reading this one and I thought it was impressive of DWJ to trust her young readers to understand the intricacies of the characters’ flaws in relation to the politics in their world—Mitt is a freedom fighter, doing the right thing in a corrupt system for all the wrong reasons, and Hildy and Ynen are the spoiled results of their rich upbringing and toxic family dynamics. I particularly enjoyed the little custom involving Old Ammet and Libby Beer coming forward as such a central aspect of the story. Excited to see where these characters will end up in the last book of the series presumably.

[a ☕︎ · Rating 3 out of 5]

not sure i enjoyed this one as much as the first. while i could forgive a more measured pacing followed by manic action there (as it was still setting the stage imo), i’m not as willing to here. this is set contemporarily to cart and cwidder, and follows a young revolutionary who gets mixed-up with two aristocrats as they attempt to sail north. i thought the old gods coming to the forefront was exceptionally done, especially the mystical traditions via the sea festival, the agricultural statues of hay and cherries, and all the sacred names lost to time. it’s clear that MWT took quite a lot from this for the queen’s thief (her fave books here), down to naming her hero after a god.

[Clara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I remember reading this book as a kid and really not liking it because of how awful I thought the main character mitt was. reading it now mitt is still wildly unlikeable, but it’s great. I love it. we stan a sexist wannabe suicide bomber freedom fighter who’s also fourteen years old. the ending is a little rushed (and not in the way that actually works for some of dwj’s books) but the rest of it is good and the middle section on the boat is excellent.

[Robin Stevens · Rating 5 out of 5]

Second in the Dalemark quartet and the introduction to the very wonderful Mitt, one of my favourite characters ever (8+)

*Please note: this review is meant as a recommendation only. If you use it in any marketing material, online or anywhere on a published book without asking permission from me first, I will ask you to remove that use immediately. Thank you!*

[Kehan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this one; I think DWJ is good at capturing how children might perceive upheaval, poverty and violence, and the magic in this book felt very mystical and ancient, a little Narnia-esque; not sure if there’s some weird colonial thing going on with the Holy Islanders though?

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

okay. not my fav.

[Care · Rating 4 out of 5]

Diana Wynne Jones, my God 🙌🏻

content warnings:
Moderate: Ableism, Death, Gun violence, Violence, Death of parent, Abandonment, and Classism

[Ryan Laferney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Drowned Ammet is a challenging, interesting, disturbing, and very subversive children's book (which I heartily approve of). As the second book in The Dalemark Quartet, its story is jarring - especially if you didn't realize that each book focuses on a different character - and especially if you thought you were gonna read a cute children's story. DWJ isn't afraid to craft a dark tale about revenge, self-imposed exile, and the sins of our fore-bearers.

For Drowned Ammet, we are focused on Mitt. Born and bred in Holand, one of the South Dales, in the world of Dalemark. Mitt grows up with a mission (encouraged by his mother) to assassinate the cruel Earl Hadd, and implicate the Free Holanders who he believes caused his father’s death ( It’s an interesting story in the way it details a group rebelling against a tyrannical overlord–a device which has certainly been overused, especially in fantasy–but in an unconventional way). When the attempt goes awry, he ends up on the run, eventually stowing away aboard the Wind’s Road. There he meets Ynen and Hildy, Earl Hadd’s grandchildren, who have their own reasons for fleeing. It all gets more engaging when they cross paths with a stranger named Al AND super mystical when the ship comes under the protection of the local deities, Old Ammet and Libby Beer.

The book itself was a bit of a slog at times but the ending was shocking, mystical, and dark! But also very powerful. While violent, I loved the ending. Mitt is a character who is a product of his upbringing, his environment, and his time, one that happened to be a violent time. He needed for this connection to be destroyed. DJW message is about nature vs. nurture and the influence that parents have on their kids. It is also about free will. She shows that kids do not have to follow the direction they may be heading towards. If their parents are bad, they can be good. She shows that people can change; that they aren't destined to repeat the sins of their fathers (this is especially evident when Mitt finally admits to the error of ways regarding the attempted assassination). DJW also shows that parents must allow children to be responsible for their own lives, instead of telling them what they must become. Parents can either sow evil or peace into the hearts of their young but ultimately, it is also up to the child who they become.

"Again Old Ammet's young face laughed. "We are not the stuff of enemies or friends, Alhammit. Shall I ask this way: Will you come as conqueror or in peace?"

Will you be a conqueror or a peace maker? It's up to you to decide.