i lasted 27% before i had to dnf this book. it was so slow paced and i didnt like the characters at all. from the synopsis i really wanted to love this book but it wasnt for me.

Firstly, I would like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for giving me the opportunity to review before release. 

I’m going to be completely honest here, I am totally baffled by this book. I know that I enjoyed it overall, and this another one of those moments where I wish the star rating system on Goodreads was more complex. As I rated it 3 stars, which is very middle of the road, but I couldn’t quite rate it a 4 either, so the option of somewhere in between would’ve been perfect!

So, this is where the book starts to not compute in my brain, I’m okay with reading more slow-paced reads, reads where it’s not about the ending, it’s about the journey and the development. The more ‘domestic’ based reads where no, not a whole lot actually happens but you read because you’re invested in the characters.
And this was definitely a journey read - however I felt very lost for the first half this journey. Either I took a wrong turn or read the sign wrong because I felt thrown in the deep end and left to float there. We aren’t given any real introductions to the world, or really the characters and whilst I’m all for having a gradual welcome into a story, rather than one big info dump at the beginning. But I just felt like I wasn’t given any information to go off at all - which I’ll admit, definitely hampered my enjoyment at the beginning.

This was by far my biggest issue with the book though, and I did for the most part, really enjoy it! I thought the writing was absolutely beautiful - it was that, that truly drew me in. It flowed so effortlessly through the pages (or screen, as I did read this on my Kindle..). It read so fantastically whilst keeping us completely grounded with the MC.
Whilst I found that sometimes the pacing lacked any real rhythm, it seemed to drag on the parts that I would’ve deemed more insignificant and unnecessary, and then rush through the scenes that felt impactful. And along these lines, the story did seem to get lost in itself and flounder - although an argument could be made on how this reflects our MC for the majority of the book! It was very much the writing that kept the story ploughing on.

Our MC, Marea, is a girl looking for her place the world, finding her Dad and finding herself. She isn’t a powerhouse of personality - but she is quietly fierce and brave. An example of being strong internally and I really enjoyed and learned from reading from her POV.
She thrived in adventure and I for one, revelled in her journey, I became invested in thsi insecure and innocent woman - she was finally having real experiences and discovering the broad spectrum of emotions that come with being 18. It truly reminded me of being that age. I had gone through so many of the same feelings and questions like Marea, and some parts read like I was looking into a mirror.

Lastly, I can’t talk about Feathertide, without talking about it’s setting - the City of Murmurs - reminiscent of Venice, it sounds simply picturesque and I would love nothing more than to visit. It seems completely idyllic, there’s not been a fantasy world that’s appealed to me this much in quite a long time. From the winding cobbled city streets, to the canals that run through it, to the quirky, interesting shops and people that reside there.
I’ll be on the next boat please and thank you!

So, in fairness, for the most part, I did enjoy this book, it was an easy read and touched upon and explored some good things - I would wholly recommend it for a little escapist fun.

Born covered in the feathers of a bird, and kept hidden in a crumbling house full of secrets, Marea has always known she was different, but never known why. And so to find answers, she goes in search of the father she has never met. The hunt leads her to the City of Murmurs, a place of mermaids and mystery, where jars of swirling mist are carried through the streets by the broken-hearted.. And Marea will never forget what she learns there.

This book is as dreamy and fairytale-like as the magical Venice-like city in which most of it is set. It captures your heart and imagination from the very first page, pulling on your childhood memories of fairy tale stories of mermaids, magic and enchanted lost family. It's all here, wrapped up in a new package with beautiful images of a young girl, the product of a human mother and a magical half bird father looking for her lost parent, learning about her own magic and about the nature of love in a city where magic is accepted as normal and where love can be found across the boundaries of gender and species.

Leman is pregnant and delivers her baby safely. However, the baby is different. She has feathers along her back which become more noticeable as she grows. For this reason, plus Leman’s profession, the baby Marea, is kept hidden in the basement of the house Leman shares with many other women. Marea is educated by Professor Elms who visits the house and who Marea only slowly begins to suspect knows more than she first thought. Marea is not allowed out while young. It’s only on her 13th birthday that she is permitted to leave the house for that one day a year. That hadn’t stopped her from escaping on other occasions, but she always returned, knowing she was loved by her Mother as well as the other women.
But the call to see more of the world and to find her Father, who had bequeathed her the feathers, is strong. So when she is 17 Marea leaves home and sets off, reaching the city of Murmurs after being fished out of the water by Syble. Syble is a Prophetess and shelters Marea, providing wise advice as well as safety.
The City of Murmurs has many secrets and Marea begins to discover these in her quest to find her Father. In doing so she falls in love, not once, but twice, and with the help of these two good friends, begins to accept who she is.
This is a coming of age book, but not for the young. It is fantasy, mystery and magic. The characters are multifaceted and throughout it unexpectedly went off in different directions to what I’d thought.

Feathertide by Beth Cartwright a nice four-star read. I think I was expecting too much from this one, I had hoped from the cover and blurb for a real magical journey, and it was very beautifully written at times, it just wasn’t all the way through, it was nice but not outstanding as I was hoping, everything just happened so easily. It was nicely done in that the story has a start, middle and end and you do feel that you have enjoyed the story, but it didn’t whisk me away like I had hoped. If you like the genre then I am betting you will enjoy the story.

Thank you Netgalley and the publishers for letting me read this book. I loved this book, I got kind of tired of YA books recently and moving on to more adult books but this book give me some hope. I loved it, the characters and plot are just amazing and the writing is outstanding. Highly recommended. 4.5 stars

This debut novel by Beth Cartwright is charming and magical in all aspects. The story itself brings you into a world full of enchanting mystery with characters just as magical as the writing itself. The writing is lyrical in parts weaving charm throughout and enveloping you in its fairy tale feel.

Upon finishing the novel there were a couple of things I were unsure about that left me with a couple of questions. However, this perhaps added to its charm and was part of the whole reading experience. In a novel where magic and mystery are rife things don’t always need to make sense. I was left wanting more but undecided as to what. An original enchanting tale that I’m very likely to purchase a copy of upon its release date.

See my blog for a full review.

4/5 stars
Feathertide is a story with mature themes of love, loss, and growth. Marea grows up cherished but hidden from the world due to the feathers her body sprouts, and the nature of the small town she grows up in. As a young adult, she sets on a journey of self-exploration to an exotic and mysterious land, where her parents had met many years ago.

Marea's story is one of discovery, of herself and the world beyond her narrow experience as a child.
I enjoyed this novel, but I felt it did not delve deeply into its themes, and left a lot of the story to the readers' imagination. Picturing the world described by Beth Cartwright was a little difficult, the world-building felt tenuous.

The novel functions on many lovely metaphors which I thought worked well. It's filled with moments which provoked self-reflection, but not much in the way of an actual series of events. I expected more, and perhaps that's on me. I did enjoy the world, just wish there was more detail on the City of Murmurs, Sybel's story, and Elver, etc.

I'm thankful to Penguin Books for providing me with an Advance Reading Copy of this book, via Net Galley.

Marea has been raised in a whorehouse, although she spends most of her time hidden in the cellar, her mother and the other whores cherish and love her. Marea's childhood is filled with fairy stories, but as she gets older she begins to feel confined and wants to explore more of the world. Her mother, Leman, tells her about her visit to the City of Murmurs where she met Marea's father, a mysterious birdman, who vanished and whom Leman spent months trying to find.

On her eighteenth birthday Marea decides to leave the whorehouse to undertake an adventure inspired by her beloved fairy tales and to find her father.

Most of the darker moments are more to do with Marea's self-loathing than any outside agency. She finds true friendship, love and in the end accepts herself. The pace of the story is measured, but not slow, Beth Cartwright's descriptions envelope you, you can smell the flowers and the rain and you are drawn into the character's lives. Feathertide is a vibrant, sparkling fairytale.

I have mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand it was a pleasant read. On the other hand, for me, it totally lacks substance, it is too light. It is a little slow. I found the story line interesting and slightly different which is good. We follow the childhood of the main characterwho is hidden with her mother in a whorehouse. The book then follows her making her way on her own and discovering her father. However there pace is slow and the story lacks complexity, The question for me is would I look forward to reading the next book and sadly, the answer is not particularly. I would place the book as a teen rather than adult read. I suspect others will disagree with my view but we are all different.

SYNOPSIS:
Marea doesn't know much about her special quality and has no idea who her father is. She goes on a mission to find her dad and ends up finding so much more. This is a story of love and finding yourself.

REVIEW:
What a lovely story. I really loved the explanations used and the way the author describes the surroundings. Marea is a great character, she is strong and won't get deterred from her goals no matter what happens. It was a story about finding out who you are and where you can go. It touched so nicely on love and understanding of what you need and don't need in order to be happy. I enjoyed it very much.

I enjoyed Feathertide it was light and easy to read. I did wonder at first the age group it was aimed at but the story evolved as Marea the main protagonist - half girl, half bird grew up.
I found the world that Feathertide was set in was most interesting and quite captivating. I would have liked a better description of Leo as we had many of Elver and Marea's father, even the dogs were well characterised but I found it difficult to picture him.
Overall I enjoyed this book a lot and would definitely be purchasing.

Fantasy novel about love and finding one's purpose and way in life.

Difficult to label, this fantasy novel deals with Maréa, born with feathers and not understanding why she is different. The plot deals with her journey to find her father, her way forward and destiny. She meets a few very interesting and sympathetic characters along the way who all help her to "find herself. The style is literary in that there are loads of comparisons and metaphors. Characters are well- developed and the plot moves along reasonably quickly. It's good but will not please all lovers of fantasy fiction. I was given a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

What an enchanting delight of a book. This is a beautiful fairytale about self love and acceptance.

Marea is born with feathers in a whorehouse and is hidden away to protect her from prying eyes. As she grows up, she starts to see herself as ugly and different and strives to be normal like everyone else. She also builds this deep fear of being locked up and treated like a circus freak.

When she turns 18, Marea finally summons up the courage to break free and go in search of her father. This takes her to the city of murmurs, where she can finally be free in all her glory. However years of self hatred have ingrained that fear of rejection so deep, that even in the city of freedom where every one is different and accepted, she stills hides her true self even as she seeks to build a new life.

I found this book really interesting. We’ve all had issues with self acceptance at some point or another, and this really resonated with me. I wouldn’t go as far as plucking/cutting off all my feathers in a bid to be normal but I can relate. The author deals with the themes of love, loss and self acceptance really well and has written a very self empowering book. I throughly enjoyed it and found myself staying up till 3.30 in the morning to finish it because I couldn’t put it down. It is definitely young adult but not twee or cheesy in the slightest. Highly recommended. I got this as an ARC from Netgalley, but I would buy this in a heartbeat.

'Feathertide' is going to be a Marmite book - some will love the wealth of description, the endless similes and metaphors, and the completely fantastical nature, whereas others will find it lacking in substance. Unfortunately, despite my love of lavishly descriptive books like 'The Night Circus', I fall into the latter camp. If you know that you love positive, absurdist fantasy, you will likely love this book and have no need to read on. For those who are not sure whether or not this is for you, I will try and detail why it wasn't quite for me.

The book follows the story of Marea - a girl born covered in the feathers of a bird. Her mother is a prostitute and Marea is raised in the house where her mother practices her trade, sheltered from those who might judge her for being different. However, like a bird, Marea longs to be free - and more than that, she longs to know why she is how she is. Her search for answers takes her to the City of Murmurs, the place where all odd things seem to wash up.

This is a very light-hearted book. Marea grapples with some difficult things - identity, being different, her place in the world - but very few obstacles are put in her way. As soon as she wants to do something, the world changes to accommodate her. I found the lack of challenges a bit boring - it would be a stronger story with more to overcome than Marea's internal struggle. This was exacerbated by plot points which seemed to build up towards obstacles that then fizzled and turned out not to be obstacles after all.

Marea reads as very young - which is completely understandable in someone who was raised with almost no contact with the outside world, but that young voice along with the absurdist fantasy concept made this seem like a middle grade which was forced into an adult book. I honestly think this would be a great middle grade. Plenty of people will disagree with me on this, but I didn't buy this as an adult novel. There just wasn't enough to it - I needed more plot, more character development, or generally more complexity. It's possible I just don't read enough optimistic fantasy in the adult genre to appreciate it, but it didn't quite work for me.

The concepts are fantastic - very imaginative - and undoubtedly the strongest part of the novel. I loved the idea of Marea's origins, along with the story of Elver, who was one of the best characters in the book. I also loved Sybel, but thought her potential was a little under-utilised.

The prose is strong, but I spent the first few chapters trying to get past the sheer volume of similes. The later chapters are stronger than the earlier ones - the language grows into itself after some initial missteps. By the end, the images of the City of Murmurs are beautiful.

Overall, I can see why some people will love this book for its language, creativity, and the thread of optimism that seems less common in modern fantasy. However, there wasn't enough plot or enough challenges for the characters to fully hold my attention. If you're a fan of plot-focused fantasy, this is not the book for you. If you're a fan of happy books about completely unbelievable things, this might be more up your street.

Feathertide, by Beth Cartwright, is due to be published on the 30th of July. It follows a young girl born with feathers in a quest to find herself and her place in the world.
This is a magical book and the world building is superb. It makes me want to travel to the scatterings and see all the wonderful sights described. The characters were wonderful, though sometimes seemed a little flat.
This is a slower paced book. Theres little action to speak of, but much emotion. This is the story of a young woman figuring out who she is, and her place in the world, and it is beautiful. 4 stars, lovely read.

Feathertide is an unusual novel. The blurb promises secrets, magic and mystery - and it delivers on all those fronts, although not quite in the way I hoped.

I find world-building pretty essential to a good fantasy, but here it was strangely lacking. The prose is dense with imagery - wonderful, vivid, cloying imagery - but imagery alone does not make for decent worldbuilding. I wanted a greater sense of place and context.

The imagery also overwhelms the plot - and it isn't until the final quarter when the story finally comes to life. I found Marea's character development endearing and realistically frustrating: she is a young woman finding herself in more ways than one. She also gains a much greater understanding of others, and I enjoyed watching her relationships develop.

Ultimately, Feathertide is a coming of age story that would have been much more suited to a YA style, with a better balance of plot and poetry.

Such a magical novel. The main character was born covered in the feathers of a bird so had to be kept hidden in a crumbling house full of secrets,
She knew she was different, but never known why. This story is a fairy tale set around finding her answers.
Such an enchanting tale with mesmerising place, mermaids and mysterious characters. It’s like Disney but grown up.

Firstly, this book will sell a lot of copies as the cover is beautiful, and the concept is very intriguing.

That being said, this was abit of a slog for me. The prose was somewhat “over done” and in parts felt like the author was trying to increase the word count. I finished feeling that the experience of reading wasn’t enjoyable, and found myself rereading whole sections as I would drift off.

Others may enjoy this style of writing but not for me I’m afraid.

This is a repost as I’ve reviewed this before and accidentally requested it again!

I was drawn in to this story from the prologue. Marea has had an intriguing start to her life, hidden away in a whorehouse, the pet of all but protected from prying eyes and scared that her secret will be found out. On reaching adulthood she embarks on a journey to find her roots and meets a cast of delightful characters on the way.
This is a tale of magic; of difference and acceptance; of friendship, love, hope and new beginnings.
It will certainly have appeal in the young adult market- but also with those of us older readers who enjoy getting entranced, entangled or simply lost in new and enchanting places! I loved this book x
With thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.