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A review by jennyfer
Curious Tides by Pascale Lacelle
5.0
Emory Ainsleaf is a student at Aldryn College - a prestigious magic school for those blessed, by the Tides and the lunar cycles at their birth, with magic. Emory is a Healer, born under a New Moon. Or is she? When her best friend, Romie and three others go missing during a failed initiation ceremony that killed four other students, Emory discovers mysterious other abilities that should only be accessible to those born during an eclipse. Torn between Romie's brother Baz and Kieran, the most popular guy at Aldryn finally noticing her, she soon finds herself at the centre of a conspiracy to wake the gods and destroy all Eclipse-born.
Curious Tides is a YA dark-academia novel, filled with magic, mythology, teen dramaz, youthful angst, conspiracies and much more. It is dark - it opens with the four deaths, and does contain drug references ("synths") , forced medical treatment and the occasional sexual reference (one fade-to-black sex scene)
Overall, this was an utterly spellbinding read, with *different* magic - no wand-waving here, rather they called on the tides and the different lunar cycles amplified the different powers. The concept of Collapsing - drawing too much power and going supernova - was one I havent come across before, and provides natural consequences - and laws, through the Regulators - for the use of magic. The focal point of all the magic is a mysterious tidal cave called Doveremere - a theoretical portal between words and the location of the climax of the story.
The characters were all well written takes on the common teen drama tropes: Emory's makeover from mediocre Healer to popular Tidecaller ; bookish Baz, scholarly and carrying a torch for Emory; Kieran, smooth, charming from an influential rich family; Liziveta the cool, uber-popular queen bee,and so on.
But calling Curious Tides "just" a YA novel, or"just" a teen drama is selling this short - its an incredible tale, and I look forward to reading book 2!
NOTE: I purchased the audiobook so I could listen concurrently with reading this book. The narrators read it well, doing the voices and infusing the story with emotion. Highly recommend both the print and the audio versions.
~ Many thanks to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster Australia for a copy of this ebook in exchange for an honest review ~
Curious Tides is a YA dark-academia novel, filled with magic, mythology, teen dramaz, youthful angst, conspiracies and much more. It is dark - it opens with the four deaths, and does contain drug references ("synths") , forced medical treatment and the occasional sexual reference (one fade-to-black sex scene)
Overall, this was an utterly spellbinding read, with *different* magic - no wand-waving here, rather they called on the tides and the different lunar cycles amplified the different powers. The concept of Collapsing - drawing too much power and going supernova - was one I havent come across before, and provides natural consequences - and laws, through the Regulators - for the use of magic. The focal point of all the magic is a mysterious tidal cave called Doveremere - a theoretical portal between words and the location of the climax of the story.
The characters were all well written takes on the common teen drama tropes: Emory's makeover from mediocre Healer to popular Tidecaller ; bookish Baz, scholarly and carrying a torch for Emory; Kieran, smooth, charming from an influential rich family; Liziveta the cool, uber-popular queen bee,and so on.
But calling Curious Tides "just" a YA novel, or"just" a teen drama is selling this short - its an incredible tale, and I look forward to reading book 2!
NOTE: I purchased the audiobook so I could listen concurrently with reading this book. The narrators read it well, doing the voices and infusing the story with emotion. Highly recommend both the print and the audio versions.
~ Many thanks to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster Australia for a copy of this ebook in exchange for an honest review ~