The Dark Tide

by Alicia Jasinska

Overview

A gripping, dark enemies to lovers LGBTQ+ YA fantasy about two girls who must choose between saving themselves, each other, or their sinking island home.

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.

Perfect for fans of:

• The Wicked Deep and A Curse So Dark and Lonely
• Witchy tales
• Dark fantasy fiction
• LGBTQ books
• Enemies to lovers romance

Praise for The Dark Tide:

"Striking the perfect balance, The Dark Tide demands to be read in one held breath as its tide bears down on all."—Foreword, Starred Review

"A dark scenic adventure, sensitively written for romantics, Jasinska's debut novel is a fantasy of promises, betrayal, unrequited love, and black magic."—School Library Journal, Starred Review

"The Dark Tide is the dark, queer fantasy of your dreams that's part beauty and the beast, part something entirely new and original... a lush world that begs to be lived in... It's beautiful, and fast paced, and everything I ever want from a fairy tale."—Cat VanOrder, Bookmarks (Winston-Salem, NC)

"Fans of the enemies-to-lovers trope will be ecstatic with this book...The Dark Tide offers an exciting and immersive story with a strong feminist slant that subverts common YA tropes and forges its own original path."—The Nerd Daily

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781728209982
Publisher:	Sourcebooks
Publication date:	08/04/2020
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	420,355
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.30(d)
Lexile:	HL780L (what's this?)
Age Range:	14 - 18 Years

About the Author

Alicia Jasinska works as a library technician and is an aerialist in her spare time. She hails from Sydney, Australia. She is the author of The Dark Tide and The Midnight Girls. Visit her online at aliciajasinska.com

Editorial Reviews

"readers will have a hard time putting this one down and, sacrifice or no sacrifice, will wish they could be part of Caldella’s festivities and magic" — The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

"Striking the perfect balance, The Dark Tide demands to be read in one held breath as its tide bears down on all" — Foreword (Starred review)

"A dark scenic adventure, sensitively written for romantics, Jasinska’s debut novel is a fantasy of promises, betrayal, unrequited love, and black magic" — School Library Journal (Starred review)

"Jasinska’s debut fantasy, a dark fairy tale reminiscent of "Tam Lin," but delightfully queer, is thrillingly romantic while exploring the intersections between love, sacrifice, and duty." — Booklist

"Fans of the enemies-to-lovers trope will be ecstatic with this book...The Dark Tide offers an exciting and immersive story with a strong feminist slant that subverts common YA tropes and forges its own original path. " — The Nerd Daily

From the Publisher

★ 04/01/2020

Gr 9 Up—Lina Kirk and her brother, Finley, live in Caldella, an island city in danger of being swallowed by the rising inky tide waters. Every year the queen chooses an islander boy to sacrifice to keep the waters calm for another year. This year's sacrifice is crucial because the previous year, Queen Eva's sister sacrificed herself to save the boy she loved. When Lina's brother disappears, it can only mean that he has been chosen to avenge the death and save the island. Lina shoulders several burdens: convincing the queen that the madness of annual sacrifice must stop, confronting evil, and acknowledging her growing attraction to the queen. Determined characters and seductive prose are among the strengths of this novel. Jasinska voices the protagonist, her allies, and all shape-shifting villains throughout so sympathetically that readers will not be able to predict any outcome. Cinematic descriptions right out of an epic movie script, such as Lina's dance with a deadly sea serpent, are as gripping as the sparse moments of melancholy: "No more boys given to the sea. No more glorifying death and striking bloody bargains with the tide." A number of romantic relationships are hinted at, but the plot's primary focus is the individual's struggle for power over death. VERDICT A dark scenic adventure, sensitively written for romantics, Jasinska's debut novel is a fantasy of promises, betrayal, unrequited love, and black magic.—Jane Miller, Nashville Public Library

School Library Journal

2020-03-11
Once a year in the city-island of Caldella, the powerful Witch Queen leaves her Water Palace to find her true love, whom she must drown to appease the dark tide of the ever hungry ocean.

Thomas Lin is the only boy who’s ever escaped—by convincing the last Witch Queen to drown herself instead. Ever since then, her sister, Eva, who is the new Witch Queen, has been unable to appease the dark tide—she’s felt nothing for the boys she’s sacrificed. When Thomas is chosen a second time, Lina, a town girl with a crush, decides to rescue Thomas from the Water Palace and volunteer as sacrifice to make sure both Thomas and her own brother stay safe. As Lina and Eva spend more time together, they realize that they have a surprising amount in common: their love for their siblings, their desperation to change the sacrificial system, and their desire for one another. The close third-person narration is focalized alternately through Lina and Eva, and although Lina’s perspective provides greater depth, the narrative voice for each is removed, with more telling than showing. Characters are racially ambiguous but often implied through skin tone to be nonwhite. Diverse sexualities and gender expressions are also implied, but heteroromanticism is disappointingly the default.

Exciting concept; underwhelming execution. (Fantasy. 16-18)

Kirkus Reviews