ALC Review: Upon a Starlit Tide by Kell Woods
Release date: 18 February 2025
Rating: 3/5
Narrator: Esther Wane
Narration Rating: 4.5/5
Synopsis: A dark and enchanting fairy tale-inspired historical fantasy combining elements of "The Little Mermaid" and "Cinderella" into a wholly original tale of love, power, and betrayal.
Saint-Malo, Brittany, 1758.
For Lucinde Leon, the youngest daughter of one of Saint-Malo's wealthiest ship-owners, the high walls of the city are more hindrance than haven. While her sisters are interested in securing advantageous marriages, Luce dreams of escaping her elegant but stifling home and joining a ship's crew. Only Samuel—Luce's best friend and an English smuggler—understands her longing for the sea, secretly teaching her to sail whenever she can sneak away. For Luce, the stolen time on the water with Samuel is precious.
One stormy morning, Luce's plans are blown off course when she rescues Morgan de Chatelaine, the youngest son of the most powerful ship-owner in Saint-Malo, from the sea. Immediately drawn to his charm and sense of adventure, she longs to attend the glittering ball held in honor of his safe return and begins to contemplate a different kind of future for herself.
But it is not only Luce's hopes at stake—the local fae are leaving Brittany and taking their magic with them, while the long-standing war with the English means Saint-Malo is always at risk of attack. As Luce is plunged into a world of magic, brutality, and seduction, secrets that have long been lost in the shadowy depths of the ocean begin to rise to the surface. The truth of her own power is growing brighter and brighter, shining like a sea-glass slipper.
Or the scales of a sea-maid's tail.
Review
While I absolutely adored Woods’ debut, After the Forest, the author’s sophomore novel did not feel up to par. The first 60% of the novel crawled along at a snail’s pace, and all the fun stuff happened toward the end. On a positive note, it seems to retell “The Little Mermaid” from the original Danish source material, which I found immensely refreshing. I still can’t stand retellings, but this one didn’t do too badly in that respect.
Don’t get me wrong. The setting in UaST, also one of the things I absolutely loved about After the Forest, set the mood and immersed me just like magic. Even though I despise books about ships at sea, this one mainly focuses on what happens after ships wreck off the coast, and the characters stay on land for the most part. I like shifts and changes in story settings because it keeps me from getting bored, and Luce goes plenty of places full of magic and wonder. When she gets there, however, she does nothing but a lot of wondering and staring and thinking to herself. That got old fast.
Luce as a main character didn’t really carry the novel until toward the end. She was passive and naive to the point of pain, and I had a hard time thinking she could have any kind of feelings of desire for anyone because she was so nascent in her thinking. Once that point in the novel passed where the book picked up and moved along, I adored her in all her many dimensions. Unfortunately, instead of a gradual growth progressively through the story, the change came about abruptly. Up to a certain point, Luce was one-dimensional. Then, magically, she had dimension and depth and layers.
While the opener really gripped me and gave a bit of a catalyst for some of Luce’s maturation, the romance was more seduction from one person and avoidance from the other in a love triangle that resolves itself well (blessedly, I hate love triangles) but readers will see the end of it coming. I also, for the most part, liked Samuel, but I don’t feel there was enough romantic development between Luce and him. They already started the book with a familiarity from knowing each other all their lives, and like Luce’s abrupt change as a character, their romance went from cold to absolutely scorching just as quickly.
I didn’t dislike Wane’s narration in general, but I felt the voices for the men, especially the main love interest, made them sound like raspy 80-year-olds. The pitch for the rest of the narrative hit a bit high for me, but that’s personal sound preference and not to do at all with skill.
Overall, 2.5-3 for the story and 4.5/5 for the narration. I have listened to hundreds of audiobooks, and I know if I’m having a hard time with pacing even in an audiobook, and it takes me as long to get through the book as it did this one, I would definitely have dnf’ed if I were reading it in print. I have a rule for my highly rated books, and they must, as Margaret Atwood says, “hold. my. attention.” Upon a Starlit Tide did not do that for me. The cover’s beautiful, at least.
Thanks so much to Macmillan Audio for the ALC, for which I willingly give my own, honest opinion.