Daughter of the Deep
Rick Riordan steps outside his familiar mythological terrain and writes a love letter to Jules Verne. Ana Dakkar is a freshman at Harding-Pencroft Academy, an elite marine science school perched on the California coast, finishing her freshman trials when she watches her school explode from a research vessel offshore. Half her class is dead, the other half scattered, and the rival Land Institute has come for what HP has been hiding. As Ana digs through her older brother's classified files, she discovers her ancestry traces back to Captain Nemo of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, and his actual technology, including a working Nautilus, has been waiting for the right Dakkar to return. Cleanly plotted, generously diverse, and a complete standalone, the book is Riordan at his most science-fiction and one of his best gateway titles for middle grade readers.
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What you might want to know about Daughter of the Deep
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Ana Dakkar is a freshman at Harding-Pencroft Academy, a private marine science school. On her class's freshman trip, the school's rival academy attacks, and Ana learns her last name carries a long, very specific secret.
Yes. Rick Riordan reimagines Captain Nemo's story in a contemporary setting, with the protagonist Ana Dakkar discovering she is descended from Nemo. The book draws extensively on Jules Verne's original novels.
Currently a standalone, but Rick Riordan has hinted at potential continuations. As of 2025, no sequel has been formally announced.
Daughter of the Deep was written by Rick Riordan, published in 2021 by Puffin.
Daughter of the Deep is 368 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Daughter of the Deep takes most readers 6 to 8 hours to finish.
Daughter of the Deep is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.