Book Review – The Dark Tide by Alicia Jasinska
The Wicked Deep meets A Curse So Dark and Lonely in this gripping, dark fairy-tale fantasy about two girls who must choose between saving themselves, each other, or their sinking island city.
Every year on St. Walpurga’s Eve, Caldella’s Witch Queen lures a boy back to her palace. An innocent life to be sacrificed on the full moon to keep the island city from sinking.
Lina Kirk is convinced her brother is going to be taken this year. To save him, she enlists the help of Thomas Lin, the boy she secretly loves, and the only person to ever escape from the palace. But they draw the queen’s attention, and Thomas is chosen as the sacrifice.
Queen Eva watched her sister die to save the boy she loved. Now as queen, she won’t make the same mistake. She’s willing to sacrifice anyone if it means saving herself and her city.
When Lina offers herself to the queen in exchange for Thomas’s freedom, the two girls await the full moon together. But Lina is not at all what Eva expected, and the queen is nothing like Lina envisioned. Against their will, they find themselves falling for each other. As water floods Caldella’s streets and the dark tide demands its sacrifice, they must choose who to save: themselves, each other, or the island city relying on them both.
My rating:
I received this book from the publisher via Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.
So I went into this feeling it would be just my thing, and I was right! But it still surprised me with just how swept away I was by both the concept and the characters. I always enjoy books set by the sea, but in this, the sea is a constantly looming, constantly hungry character, lurking in the background. It really works. Honestly, the world is so well built.
I also always love morally grey-dark witches, and these definitely fulfil! The fact that they only have a certain amount of magic, and that they have to trade something of themselves to spend it, weaves nicely against this though – giving them depth against what could be seen as callousness.
And then we have our main characters – the lovely Lina and Eva. Eva is a glorious character, for all that she gets a POV, we spend more time with Lina, which is a tiny bit of a shame. However, she is both cold-hearted and so full of caring, she wants to hope and is struggling to lead against Marcel in the wake of her sisters’ death. She is cast as the villain of the book, but really she’s anything but. As queen of the witches, she has to provide the sacrifice, and the love that goes with it. And she is still very much in mourning. She is incredibly sympathetic and I love her. I would definitely have liked more time with her – especially if it showed her getting to know Lena and softening to her.
Lina is headstrong and with a fair and just heart. She feels responsible for so much. I love that we get great bi rep in her, and that we see her realise that she should have cared more before it affected her – I think we all do this occasionally and it’s nice to have that moment of clarity. She is also really entertaining to follow – from her sass to her dancing (LOVE a dancer as a main character, always!). Her snark to Eva is pure joy, even if she starts to realise there’s something more. But she’s also not a hero in the classic sense – in many ways yes, she’s doing what she feels is right, but she’s not perfect and she’s also pretty helpless against the need for a sacrifice.
I liked how the ending played out so much – it perfectly fit both the dark nature of the sea and the book throughout, but also the hope that they somehow manage to rekindle. 4 stars.
Buy The Dark Tide from Waterstones.
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