Curious Tides by Pascale Lacelle – Review

Published: October 3, 2023

Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books

Series: Drowned Gods #1

Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult

Pages: 544 (Hardcover)

My Rating: 4 Stars

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Synopsis:
Ninth House meets A Deadly Education in this gorgeous dark academia fantasy following a teen mage who must unravel the truth behind the secret society that may have been involved in her classmates’ deaths.

Emory might be a student at the prestigious Aldryn College for Lunar Magics, but her healing abilities have always been mediocre at best—until a treacherous night in the Dovermere sea caves leaves a group of her classmates dead and her as the only survivor. Now Emory is plagued by strange, impossible powers that no healer should possess.

Powers that would ruin her life if the wrong person were to discover them.

To gain control of these new abilities, Emory enlists the help of the school’s most reclusive student, Baz—a boy already well-versed in the deadly nature of darker magic, whose sister happened to be one of the drowned students and Emory’s best friend. Determined to find the truth behind the drownings and the cult-like secret society she’s convinced her classmates were involved in, Emory is faced with even more questions when the supposedly drowned students start washing ashore— alive —only for them each immediately to die horrible, magical deaths.

And Emory is not the only one seeking answers. When her new magic captures the society’s attention, she finds herself drawn into their world of privilege and power, all while wondering if the truth she’s searching for might lead her right back to Dovermere…to face the fate she was never meant to escape.

---

Lunar magic, a prestigious magic school, secret societies, and year after year of student deaths. Curious Tides has all the elements of a story I would love, plus that gorgeous cover art is going to look amazing displayed on my shelves when my finished copy arrives. I think I say this every single time I review a young adult book, but I’m far more selective in my choices when it comes to that age range now that I’m older but I could not resist the allure of this book.

Curious Tides follows Emory Ainsleaf, a student healer of average skill who has just returned to university after the death of her best friend and seven other students the previous semester. Students routinely brave the Dovermere sea caves for some arcane ritual that Emory snuck along to witness, and thanks to the unpredictable and deadly tides students often drown. It’s not often that eight students drown and it seems to be a singular occasion that the student who survives washes back ashore with extraordinary magical abilities. The story follows Emory as she dares to uncover the secrets of Dovermere, the secret society who recruits the most talented students, and learns to wield her deadly powers. 

We also get to follow these events through the eyes of Baz Brysden, the older brother of Emory’s best friend, Romie, who drowned the previous semester. Baz is Eclipse born, and those born under an eclipse are cursed with deadly, terrifying magic and they risk Collapsing, which is a tremendous and deadly cascade of power. Baz can manipulate time and once the discovers that Emory seems to be Eclipse born herself, despite having previously only shown healing abilities he reluctantly agrees to help her. He desperately wants to know what happened to his sister, if only to get the closure he needs. 

This was a really compelling, if somewhat slow to get going story. It felt like it took me forever to really immerse myself in this fascinating magical world, but once I did I sped right through the remainder of the book. I liked Emory, though I felt she was somewhat manipulative and just wanted to be told she was special and thus fell in with the popular kids. Baz, however, I really liked. He’s impeccably controlled thanks to his fear of Collapsing just like his father did and he’s quite in love with Emory, though he doesn’t really admit this to himself until near the end of the story. He’s quite brave and got some very cool chapters towards the end of the book. I think my biggest disappointment of the book was that it was painfully obvious right from the start who the “bad guy” was. My thought was immediately, “why would this popular, talented guy suddenly have one iota of interest in sidekick Emory unless he was going to use her or expose her?” and I was right. 

Overall, I enjoyed this and I’m interested in the sequel. If you’ve already read A Study in Drowning and liked it, I think Curious Tides has a lot of the same vibes and it has characters of a similar age. It is comp’d to Ninth House and A Deadly Education, and though I think Ninth House was a lot darker and had a better mystery element I can see the comparison. So, this was a success for sure but it literally took me ten days to actually finish it! I’d like to just throw in that I wish there had been more of a focus on the school part of things – why have a magic school setting if you don’t spend some time enjoying all the things about the school setting? I don’t know what they eat or what the classes were like – the characters spent all their time either lurking in the libraries or partying on the beach.