Mudflowers by Aley Waterman. Advance Reader Copy (eARC) from the publisher via NetGalley included. No affiliate links were used. Read my full disclosure policy here.

Paula’s e-reader is lying on a black, grey, and white floral patterned duvet cover beside a cup of coffee. The e-reader is open on the title page of Mudflowers by Aley Waterman.

Set mainly in Toronto's art scene, Aley Waterman's debut novel follows 27-year-old Sophie in the year after her mother's death. She is grieving and trying her best to navigate all of the messiness that grief entails. She is also in an on-and-off relationship with her childhood friend Alex.

Enter Maggie, a poet Sophie immediately falls for, complicating her relationship with Alex. The blurb describes it as a 'complicated love triangle,' so you can probably guess how at least some of the plot goes.

I liked Mudflowers well enough while I was reading it – that's the category I put it in my April wrap-up. Yet, nothing about the story or the characters has stuck with me in any way. Overall, I'd sum Mudflowers up as grand (in the Irish sense of okay/fine) but bland.

I read an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley, but my TBR list is out of control, so Mudflowers was already published by the time I picked it up.

Mudflowers by Aley Waterman is published by Rare Machines, an imprint of Dundurn Press. It is available in paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats.

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