I feel like this book was too long. Had it been around 300 pages then I would have loved it but it was just too long and I got bored.

While I was originally drawn in by this book’s gorgeous cover, I ended up staying for the synopsis itself. Not only was this book comped to Ninth House and A Deadly Education, but I always enjoy a good dark magic school with a secret society. I generally enjoyed my time with Curious Tides, but unfortunately, it didn’t end up becoming a new favorite for me.

One thing I did think this book did well was the world-building and general pacing of the plot, though it may be too slow for many readers. I found the way the story unraveled to work well for me, and it was balanced well with us learning more about the magic system, the secret society hidden Aldryn, and the world’s history in general. When there are so many moving pieces in a story it can often feel like they’re racing each other or fighting for the reader’s attention, but this book was a good example of how it all can work together. There were moments it did drag a little bit and I did start to feel the book’s length, but it wasn’t generally an issue for me!

Unfortunately, this book lost me a little in the characters. A lot of the motivation for our narrators comes from Romie, the sister/friend who died before the story began. Even though we do see flashbacks of before, it didn’t really endear me to Romie and it made the intense motivation to bring her back feel hollow to me. We really only see the moments where Emory and Romie’s friendship is already suffering and beginning to fail, and it honestly didn’t do enough to help me understand Emory and Baz’s intense desire to bring her back. I completely understand wanting to reverse the loss, even at the expense of others or yourself, but it’s an easier motivation to follow when you (as the reader) as feel the loss of this character. I also wasn’t always a fan of Emory and the decisions she would make, and it made some of her choices quite frustrating to read and follow. Lastly, I also wasn’t entirely convinced by the romance in this book and the love triangle that ended up forming. I didn’t find either of the relationships very appealing, and I was often left more frustrated than intrigued by the romantic subplot.

Overall, I enjoyed my time with this book and did like where the ending seemed to be heading, though I’m not entirely sure yet if I’ll end up continuing the series!

This was haunting. It's on the very edge of how dark I can handle books, and it *felt* like being there with the tides pulling at you and whispering your name. Dark Academia Vibes for Daaaaaaaaaays.

I loved that all the characters are a little morally grey. I loved (and hated) them anyway. And I was swept up in their urgent striving - for the door and the epilogue and for acceptance... Pretty much every character is striving for something different, but they're all striving and that gives the story so much tension.

I wasn't a huge fan of the love triangle because I generally hate love triangles, but I can admit that it was necessary for the plot to work out the way it did. I hope Emory and Baz *don't* end up together in the next book though.

I finished it a few days ago and I can't stop thinking about it.

*Thanks to Simon and Schuster Children's UK for providing an early copy for review.

Really interesting magic system using lunar magic!

I love a mystery, I love dark academia. Give me more!

It took a while to get into the story but one I did, I enjoyed this book.
It has a unique magic system and enjoyed the dark academia vibes.
Will read the next in the series.

Curious is definitely the right word to describe this book.

I found myself engaged and surprised, the mythology was interesting and the setting well crafted but there was something missing that means I just can't say it's a perfect 5*.

I think it is because I found Emory quite an unlikeable protagonist. She wavered in her emotions, used people around her and was a complete idiot in relation to male characters. Baz on the other hand was wonderful, he was flawed but also deeply lovable. His journey in the book was much more satisfying for me as a reader.

I will read the second in the duology as I am interested in where the story will end up! I am curious to see if the romantic plot comes to fruition and also who the new antagonist might be, seeing as the main one is now (seemingly) dead.
Definitely good for fans of dark academia and fantasy.

I can not believe I waited this long to read this book. It was utterly amazing and I want to know how this story continues so I can’t wait for the next book in the series.

The story follows a girl on an academy where weird things seem to happen every year. When her best friend goes missing during a ritual and she is a witness of it all, she wants to find out what exactly is happening. This however isn’t as easy as she thinks. She finds out things about herself, things that may have anything to do with the ritual. And more people know things about these strange happenings than they are willing to show. A lot of mystery, secrets and magic comes along and I loved it!

Curious tides is a wonderfully gloomy book with an intricate magic system. It had a slow start, but if you can get through the start and then it really picks up! I really enjoyed the world building as well as the interesting subplot that runs within the book. The characters were loveable and flawed, which for me is a perfect combination. I'm not sure what, but it did feel like the plot was missing something but hopefully this will be picked up in book 2!

I really loved the magic system in this book - well thought out and well developed, as well as being original! Overall a very enjoyable dark academia novel.

I tried a couple of times to read this book and couldn't get into it.
It seems like something that is right up my street and I was intrigued by the magic system.
The cover is stunning.
Hopefully one day I'll give it another try and get back whatever keeps getting me stuck.
No rating for now.

The vibes were great but can authors stop using dark academia when what they mean is GOTHIC?!? This book was a gothic YA fantasy, not dark academia, because dark academia as a genre is meant to point out the flaws of academia! Anyway, I'm also annoyed at the love triangle because we KNOW who the MC is going to end up with since he has his own POV and the other guy doesn't... Aside from that, it was fun and I liked the magic system. 3.5 stars

Whilst the magic system was gorgeously rendered, the characters felt less cohesive than I would have liked, and left this feeling a little like the potential of the premise wasn't entirely filled.

I got given acces to this title when I was new to netgalley and didn't know that the pdfs in the app expired so I never got to read it. This was also before I realised my kindle doesn't render PDF documents successfully and thus I am unable to read them on my kindle.

I don't understand why the NetGalley shelf app has an expirey date on the titles on there.

If you’re looking for a dark and gloomy dark academia book, Lacelle really nails those vibes ands you won’t be disappointed!

The magic system in here is complicated, necessitating the cheat sheet that is thankfully included in the front, and it does take a bit of time to get your head around. The concept of people only having access to their powers at certain times unless they effectively borrow that power from their future selves was really interesting! I do think it’s a shame that the main character ends up being so overpowered though. I would’ve preferred for her pov to be more constrained by the world’s established magic system, given that the other pov character was already an overpowered exception to the rules (even if he refuses to let himself use his abilities outside of emergencies, which is so boring of him but also completely understandable given the circumstances lol.)

Speaking of those characters who are exceptions-to-the-rules, the Eclipse-born, the way that they’re treated within the book’s world was certainly interesting. The explorations of in-universe mythology, and differing sources offering different accounts of what actually happened in this world’s past, were also interesting. In my mind, there is undoubtedly something of a metaphor here how some people use particular translations of holy texts to justify their hatred for queer people, while ignoring other passages, interpretations, and translations that provide no justification at all or even imply the opposite. If I felt like rereading this book with a pen in hand I could potentially write an entire essay exploring this metaphor but I don’t want to do that so we’ll just have to leave it as that was my interpretation of this aspect of the story. The emotional arcs that the pov characters went through certainly resonated with queerness to me.

I have, on more than one occasion, described at length to my irl friends the ways in which this book reminded me of watching Supernatural or Merlin, specifically in regards to a certain relationship in this book. There are just certain ways of describing people that, when used, are generally romantically coded, and the ways in which Basil talked about Kai had me checking and double checking and triple checking to see if this was a queer book or not. It was a bit of a surreal reading experience ngl. Eventually it turns out that Kai actually is queer and it’s Very Strongly Implied that he has feelings for Basil and I’m not saying that they should end up together because clearly the main romance plot is between the two pov characters but Basil is bi and I will die on this hill.

Also Kai is the best character in the whole book which I have a feeling Lacelle is very aware of dsfjhg

I really enjoyed how descriptive this book was, almost as if I was there myself! The dark acadamia vibes were vibing, it was super dark and gloomy. Enjoyable writing!

Curious Tides is a glamorously dark fantasy full of lunar magic, secret societies, love triangles, and dark academia.

Really nice dark academia read but just a little bit too long. I found the characters to be a little hard to connect with. I think the story idea was really good, I just didn’t connect with the main characters which pulled me out of the story a little bit.

This lunar fantasy debut was one of my most anticipated books of 2023 - dark academia, lunar fantasy and that art deco cover? It was a yes from me, but I ended up being pretty disappointed by it.

An atmospheric dark academia fantasy for fans of The Atlas Six, The Binding, The Hazel Wood and Fourth Wing, set in a world of lunar magic, secret societies and dangerous friendships.

Emory is returning to the prestigious Aldryn College for Lunar Magic for one reason: to uncover the secrets behind the night that left her best friend, Romie, and seven other students dead.

But Emory has plenty of secrets herself, not least that her healing abilities have been corrupted by a strange, impossible magic, granting her power no one should possess.

Turning to the only person she believes she can trust, Emory enlists the help of Romie’s brother Baz – someone already well-versed in the dangers of his own dark Eclipse magic.

But when the supposedly drowned students start washing ashore – alive – only for them each immediately to die horrible, magical deaths, Emory and Baz are no longer the only ones seeking answers.

There's a hidden society at the heart of the school, and they’re attracted to nothing more than they are to power...

This was the second book we discussed in this season of our podcast, ‘The Dark Academicals’, and you can listen to the full episode right here:

This is a long book - the UK hardcover sits at 544 pages and the audio racks up 16 hours and 41 minutes - and not a lot happened for the first 400 pages of it.

I was so excited about discovering the magic system, and with the promise of such a long book I was expecting a lot, but it didn’t quite give me the depth and breadth of it that I had hoped. Lunar magic isn’t something that I’ve come across before and I loved the idea of a person’s type magic being dependent on the moon phase that they were born under and the way that it waxes and wanes along with the changes every month. It’s a really fascinating set-up, but we so rarely actually saw the characters practicing magic in any way, or even learning about it in the school setting, it just was.

I wanted more from it.

When it comes to the characters, I ended up wanting something just different to what was delivered. In our podcast episode we discussed the want for the novel to written from the perspective from side characters who were meatier, more challenging and more unexpected and the way that would change the narrative and push more focus onto the things that we both felt were lacking - the magic system and the wider world-building.

Pascale Lacelle’s writing is beautiful and her ideas are vivid and exciting, but the execution just missed the mark for me this time.

I picked this book up because of the cover and that it was a murder mystery with magic and I ended up really enjoying it. It started off a little slow and I wasn’t sure if I would like it but then once we got into the story it was a lot more interesting and I enjoyed the different PoVs. I loved the build up and slowly piecing the pieces of the puzzle together until we got to that ending and the secrets that were revealed. I’m looking forward to the next book!

What a way to welcome in 2024. With its luscious worldbuilding, captivating magic system, and atmospheric dark academia vibes, Curious Tides gripped me from the very start. I couldn’t stop reading and yet I didn’t want the book to be over as I delved further into the mystery of the ritualistic drownings plaguing the magical Aldryn College. With two equally driven, voicey POVs searching for the truth absout their lost friend/sister, I could never truly predict where their quest for answers was going to take them next. Such an amazing debut from Pascale, and I’m so excited to see what’s next from her.