Review Detail

Curious Tides is a consuming fantasy in which you can get swept away by the intricate world-building if you aren’t careful. The magic system is determined by the tides and the moon phases during which you are born, so that it is infinitely complex in the type of magic you have. However, nearly everyone fears eclipse-born because their magic is unpredictably special and strong. Then there is the mythos established of how they came to have magic interspersed throughout the story that ends up being more important than I first expected.
The story is told from alternating perspectives of Baz and Emory. We are plunged into the thick of the action from the instant the book begins, with Emory waking up as the only survivor after following her best friend, Romie, into the mysteriously magical cave of Dovermere last spring. Now she has magic she shouldn’t have. To learn to control it, she uses Romie’s brother, Baz, and his attraction to her to overcome his fear of what she can now do. At the same time, she learns of a secret society, secret rituals, and gets in with the elite students at Aldryn College under Keiran’s protection. Baz, meanwhile, is learning about family secrets, secrets of his magic, and the government-sanctioned evil that is being carried out against eclipse-born.
I tried multiple times to use an audiobook for this story, but too much is revealed and explored in each chapter that I needed the written word to keep me grounded in the story, or it would have been confusing. I recommend reading it at a time when you have large chunks of time to dive into it, or it will be hard to keep it all clear.
As much as this book has intricate magic and multiple mysteries at the heart of it is a girl who has never felt adequate. She followed her larger-than-life, vivacious best friend down a life-altering path, and who wouldn’t get caught up in the fact that the coolest boy in school, who is a part of a group with real power, paid her attention. It was predictable that Keiran was using her, and she was the only one who couldn’t see it. Although even the way that was handled was surprising.
I kept expecting Baz and Emory to establish a love connection, so it was an unusual development that she used him just as she was hurt to discover that Kieran was using her. The ending was exciting, but also not what I expected. The next book holds so much potential that I am excited to start it soon.