Second paragraph of third chapter:

“It’s the way things are in this town,” Milda explained. “There’s hundreds of poor women willing to work their fingers into blisters. And the rich people have to have their curtains ready on time.”

I had not previously read this novel, the second in both publication and internal chronology order of DWJ’s Dalemark Quartet. It’s really very good. We’re in the time before Cart and Cwidder when the tyrannical and brutal earls of the South are fomenting social discontent and revolutionary action. As is usual with this writer, she tells the story of a fermenting society with magical underpinnings through three children, one of them the abandoned son of a radical activitst and the other two being grandchildren of the ruling Earl; they end up together in a quest narrative on a small boat escaping from the South to the North, where tangled personal politics and primal mythical forces await them.

A key part of the book is the role played by the demigods Old Ammet and Libby Beer, who start as historical figures in a poorly understood but faithfully executed annual ceremony, and end as enforcers of order and social justice when correctly invoked. A lot of Diana Wynne Jones’ books involve a journey to achieve enlightenment by the protagonists, and I think it’s really well realised here.

I’m going on to re-read The Crown of Dalemark, to see if I get more out of it after reading the previous three books, but I think Drowned Ammet stands very well on its own. You can get it here.