ARC Review: The Dark Tide by Alica Jasinska

I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

The Dark Tide by Alicia Jasinska
Published by Sourcebooks Fire on August 4, 2020
Genres: YA Fantasy
Pages: 320
Source: the publisher
Format: ARC
My Rating:
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Synopsis:

The Wicked Deep meets A Curse So Dark and Lonely in this gripping, dark fairy-tale fantasy about two girls who must choose between saving themselves, each other, or their sinking island city.

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, they must choose who to save: themselves, each other, or the island city relying on them both.

My Review:

It took me a bit to get into this one, and originally it was supposed to be published in June, but I had trouble reading it with how my brain has been fighting to read anything other than mostly contemporary during this quarantine/pandemic time. It was definitely an original story in my opinion. The magic was very interesting, and the fact that the main characters weren’t quite set in who they were attracted to, but fell in love with each other anyway was a very different way of telling the story. Although I did kind of figure out early on who might be sabotaging or causing things to not go as planned, that’s okay, because in the end it turned out to be an interesting enough ending.

While this isn’t one I necessarily would recommend to people, it isn’t bad, and some people might enjoy it more than I did.