4/5 stars.

"A queen should answer to no one. Not the heavens, not the earth, not the sea. Especially not something so temperamental as the tide."

Each year, ocean surrounding island of Caldella demands a sacrifice. The sacrifice keeps the tides at bay and stops them from swallowing the island. Year after year, the Witch Queen tricks a young man into coming back to the Water Palace, until the year that Thomas Lin convinces the Witch Queen to let him go and sacrifice herself instead. Two years later, Lina Kirk is determined to keep her brother, Finley, from being chosen at this year's revel. She enlists the help of Thomas to find Finley and keep him safe, only for Thomas to once again we taken by the witch queen. Determined to save Thomas from the queen, Lina and Finley enter the Water Palace where Lina offers herself in exchange for Thomas' life.

This book was a wonderful, dark, and atmospheric. The chapters rotated between the perspective of Lina and the Witch Queen, Eva. The world building was super cool - a sinking city, witches escaping the mainland to escape persecution and mistreatment, and, of course, a love triangle. The way the witches created their magic, through bits of themselves and weaving witch ladders with strands of hair was a unique spin on typical novels involving witches and magic. It looks like this is the start of a series, which is awesome because I would love to read more about this world! This would be an excellent read for any one who enjoys young adult fantasy novels!

I just closed the cover of THE DARK TIDE and oooooh man, I don't have words yet. It's haunting and otherworldly and there are SO many things this book gets right. Aesthetically this book is gorgeous, starting with the cover and moving straight into the writing. I don’t mean to exaggerate when I say I. was. hooked. Right off the bat the writing is dark and atmospheric. I fell hard for this world and the writing, and that’s what kept me sitting until I read this book cover to cover. The magic and myths are so rich it sucked me straight into the story, almost feeling dreamlike. The pacing is really fast, and kept me on my toes the whole time.

The one thing that keeps me from shouting this book’s praises from the roof tops is the distance I felt with the characters. Now, it might just be a stylistic writing thing that I wasn’t able to connect with, but just when I was ready for that satisfying emotional punch… things just fell flat. With a story as rich as this, I wanted characters to love just as much. I was sympathetic towards the characters, but at times they felt so distant that I had a hard time becoming invested in them just when I wanted to. It’s a gorgeous and atmospheric story, and one I would absolutely recommend to other readers, but I think the lack of satisfying emotional payoff with the characters is the only thing that keeps me from wholeheartedly loving this book!

The Dark Tide is a deliciously dark YA fantasy set in a beautifully written, atmospheric world. Every year, the tide demands suffering to save Lina's island from flooding, and the witch queen must sacrifice someone she loves to feed the ravenous sea. Traditionally, it’s been a boy from the village, but this year, it’s a girl.

So here’s how story goes:

Girl likes boy who evaded being a sacrifice the year before when the then witch queen Natalia sacrificed herself. Girl finds out brother is at the choosing party. Girl asks boy to help her stop her brother. Boy gets taken as sacrifice – again – and she chases after boy with brother to rescue him. Girl trades her life for boy’s and her brother’s, and new witch queen agrees. Cue enemies to lovers, but only one party knows that they like girls.

Lina is the quintessential “off to save the princess” type, naïve in her unwavering loyalty to fight for those she loves. At times her decisions made me want to throttle her, but they fit her headstrong-into-danger persona. The star, for me, was the darkly written witch queen Eva, seeming cold and aloof, yet tortured by the loss of her sister Natalia, and steeped in regret for the family she couldn’t save. For someone who cast her heart into the sea, she felt so deeply, from the bitter lows of revenge to spite for her growing feelings for Lina.

This was a fast, easy read with beautiful descriptions and a dash of predictability I didn’t mind. Four stars because I will never get enough of queer witches and bisexual girls. More, please!

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire for an e-arc of this book in exchange for an honest review!

I was absolutely thrilled to get accepted for this! I love witch-y books and this sounded absolutely amazing. There is something to be said for good books that cater to your interests. Nothing is more disappointing than a book you were looking forward to not working for you. All this is to say The Dark Tide was a great read. I really enjoyed reading it, and it felt like the perfect atmospheric summer or fall read.

The Writing
The writing is very good in this book. Much of it is due to Jasinska’s ability to create a world that is so atmospheric. There were moments in this book that I think I gasped aloud at because the writing was beautiful. There was something lyrical about the book, and I can’t quite put into words how I felt about it because it felt magical, ethereal. I know I flew through this book, and the writing was part of that. It was smooth and flowing and I was drawn in. Suffice to say, the writing was splendid. I was engaged every moment of this book.

The Pacing
At first I was hesitant about the pacing, I think in some ways it was good, and other ways it fell apart just a little. The beginning was quite fast paced, and I was wondering what was going to happen the rest of the book if the main part of the plot was taking place at the very beginning. Suffice to say, after the first few chapters the book slowed down immensely, and it became a slower pace, much more drawn out. So the pacing was good for me, it just made me blink a minute because it ended up not being fast paced after the beginning. Although the slowness later in the book worked in their favor.

The Plot
Essentially Lina wants to save a person, and so she decides she’ll be the sacrifice this year. Enter Eva, the Witch Queen. Their island city is sinking, and the witches must sacrifice someone every year to keep the tides back. This is the plot of the book, and it does occur over the length of the book, both past sacrifices and what is going currently, however, it often doesn’t feel like it is the focus. In fact, it very much feels as if although the plot exists, it is there to further Eva and Lina’s romance. It is hard to explain the plot because I feel that the characters themselves are part of the narrative more than the plot.

The Characters
First off, I really like Lina and Eva. I like them, and they’re good characters. I will admit I wanted a bit more depth from them at times, a bit more than strong-willed Lina and cold Eva. Which is fine, because this is very much an enemy to lover type circumstance. And yet...I wanted more of that. The romance aspect doesn’t occur all that much to the end, it’s built up, but I don’t want to give too much more away about it. Suffice to say I wish we’d had more depth on it, more...something. I wanted to see growth from Lina and Eva, and I wanted to see more of them together.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of characters in this book, and again, I wish there was more to them! There were so many interesting ones, and I’m sad that we didn’t get to see more of them, more of them developing.

The Worldbuilding
I really loved the world that was built. I think that it was magical and atmospheric. I think that the magic was lovely and how the witches and their power worked was awesome. I very much enjoyed the way this world was built and I think it was fantastic.

Overall
This runs along similar lines to Shea Ernshaw’s The Wicked Deep and Winterwood. It is a slow paced book, building up to the end, very much character and atmosphere focused. Highly enjoyable and a delight to read.

This is such an interesting concept that I was quickly drawn to. I loved the backstory of Thomas and Eva’s sister, why Eva holds such a deep hatred for him. I also like the relationship between Lina and her brother. While, the book has fantastic world building and character development, I feel like the romance between Eva and Lina was slow. The enemies to lovers trope is, let’s say more enemies with UST to an unlabeled relationship. Their is much more of the book where the two girls are enemies than when they are lovers. I loved the rest of the pacing, but with the summary of The Dark Tide being a forbidden romance, I feel like there was too little of their buildup and relationship. That being said, I know this is the first book to a duology, so I hope we see more of them next book. Overall, this book was a great fantasy universe with low key romance that I know many younger adults will love! Enemies-to-Lovers, Magic, Forbidden Romance, LGBTQ+, unconscious attraction, and badass females, not to mention the crazy UST. Go preorder this book!

This was a fast-paced dark fantasy read with Beauty and the Beast vibes…. well, with a gorgeous Witch Queen as the “beast”. The story dives right into the action and does not let up until the very end. I enjoyed the concept of the world Jasinska set up, the way magic works and the idea of the island being a sanctuary where witches and humans escaped persecution from the mainlanders.

The book fell a little short for me due the lack of broader world building and predictability. I felt like I came into an already rolling storyline and while some background was filled in as we went, I was still left with a lot of questions. The way the story was set up also allowed you to predict characters actions and the overall outcome of the story but was still overall a good read.

Thank you to Sourcebooks Fire and NetGalley for a copy of The Dark Tide in exchange for honest opinion.

This was so atmospheric and gorgeously written. The prose seriously took my breath away, it just had the gorgeous descriptions I crave in books, and reminded me of Anna Marie McLemore's work. Like let's just introduce you to this witchy, sea wild tale, full of salt and blood and longing girls and aching boys, sacrifices and sinking islands, witches bitter with regret, and girls who want to save the world but ending just breaking everything.

I definitely fell a bit in love with the world. 😍 The whole premise is this island is sinking and the people rely on the witches to hold back the dark tide, but to do that -- the witch queen sacrifices a human boy each year. The tide's malicious pleasure is sated. Everyone else gets to live. But this year, the boy Lina has a crush on (Thomas Lin) is taken and she refuses to let him die. So she takes his place. And then uncovers dark secrets behind the ritual while she's caught up in the witches tower with the dark and bitter Eva, witch queen who infamously has no heart. This all just makes my bones weep with joy and it's a tale crafted with words that just capture imagination and enchant you.

Dark. Bitter. Lovely.

I did want a bit more from the characters though. I loved them! I just felt I barely knew anyone except Lina. She was headstrong, brave, typical Gryffindor who ran into trouble without ever thinking about it. But I just wanted things to get deeper. The plot hinged on Thomas Lin but I barley understood him as a person. And I LOVED EVA (omg she is an antisocial piece of black and bitter coffee) and wish we had more about her backstory too. Eva, Thomas and Natalia's story would have been amazing to know...I almost wish the book started there?

A beautiful tale, very ethereal and atmospheric. Queer and dark and whimsical.

The world building in this novel and the subversion of a common faerie tale plot were both absolutely magnificent. The atmosphere that this book creates has the potential to swallow the reader whole, and the way that the author describes the events in the novel leaves you completely immersed. The enemies to lovers feels better than it does in most books- in this one, I was very much glad that Eva didn’t do anything overly egregious or abusive, which was a nice change. I struggle to like characters falling in love when there’s gaslighting or abuse involved, but this was very much a ‘all the cards on the table’ type of romance.

The gripe that I had with this book was that the characters feel a little disjointed. I didn’t really appreciate the fact that they weren’t as fleshed out as they could have been, and I didn’t feel myself connecting with them in a real capacity, which was disappointing. It could’ve done with a bit more of a slow burn, another 100-200 pages dedicated to the romance element. The other gripe that I had was that the ending was somewhat abrupt, but judging by the fact this has a #1 attached to it, I’ll hold hope that the next one does more of that.

I had very high hopes for this book, but unfortunately it fell just a little short of my expectations.
The Dark Tide reminded me a lot of The Wicked Deep by Shea Ernshaw, which I really liked. However, The Dark Tide is much darker, and set in a fantasy world.
The main problem I had with this book was that there was very little world-building. I didn't feel like I knew very much about the world beyond Caldella, or even Caldella itself. The magic system wasn't very well fleshed out; I don't really have an idea of how magic works in this world.
And while I loved Lina and Eva (especially Eva), I didn't feel like I knew much about either of them. For example, Eva is the Witch Queen who lives in the Water Palace, but I don't really know how she came to be there, or how her sister became the queen before her, or even how old she is. As for Lina, I know she likes dancing and has a flair for the dramatic, but I don't know much about her family or her life before the beginning of The Dark Tide.
A lot of this book was just witty dialogue between the characters, which I did enjoy, but I wished there had been a bit more background so that I could've had a better understanding of the characters and Caldella.
However, I did enjoy this book quite a bit, especially Eva's entire personality, and the beautiful descriptions of Caldella and the Water Palace. I'll definitely be picking up the next book in the series!

I absolutely love dark books and this one delivered! It is up there with my top 5 reads of the year so far! Pick this one up and I promise you won't be disappointed!

I enjoyed this book so much! It's a fast-paced fantasy Sapphic story about a girl trying to save her brother but accidentally putting the boy she loves in danger, only to trade her life for his. What a tragically romantic story that Lina would love! Even though there is romance in the story, it's not a very centric part of the story. It's a book about finding yourself and what you would really do for the ones you love. It's about wanting to make a difference and that even if you have all the best intentions, that's not really all there is to it.

I liked Lina's character because even though she loves fiercely and would do anything for the ones she loves, she's still a kid with limited resources that is bound to make mistakes but she always tries to correct them.

Eva's character is a bad ass that can't understand why people would sacrifice themselves for the ones they love. She lost her sister to the very thing that rules her queendom and she can't stand it. She's not a powerful queen but she's learning.

Their relationship is sweet and filled with a lot of confusion and this is just the beginning.
I also want to celebrate the amazing sibling relationship in this book, it was very sweet to see them care for each other and have their issues but still try to fix them. It was a fierce thing and they would give their lives for the other in a heartbeat.

Really recommend this book!

Hold up. Wait a minute. THIS IS ACTUALLY AMAZING.

This is hands down one of the best fairy tale retellings I have ever read. I did not have high expectations at all, but this story hooked me right from the start.

Let me give you the simplistic baseline plot. It's a dark fairytale retelling about 2 girls who have to decide if they should save the sinking city that the live in. That's right! We have a city that is sinking beneath treacherous waves and in order to combatant that and slow the process down is a ritual where a local boy has to be sacrificed to the sea. Oh, that's not all! TRUST ME. We have a girl who tries to save her crush from the witch but inevitable falls for the witch!

If that's not a auto-buy, I don't know what it.

I adored the atmospheric setting, the flawed characters, the representation, and how dark the curse was. Of course, there are the characters, too, who are so lovable despite being ridiculously flawed (or because of that, maybe, because they all feel so complex and multidimensional!).Seriously, though, I just don’t have anything negative to say about this gorgeous fantasy novel. Between the writing, characters, story, rep—it’s the whole package. I’d recommend this to any fans of fantasy stories, especially if you enjoy retellings and/or high/low fantasy crossovers!

Every once in a while I read a novel that has all the promise in the world, and yet I can't connect with it for no other reason than the fact that the chemistry is just not there. I really like the concept of The Dark Tide; it's fascinating, and there were things about the book that I enjoyed. But overall, it did not win me over.

The island town of Caldella is beautiful. Like other readers pointed out, I was reminded of Venice the second we began to weave though the streets while led by one of our leads, Lina. It's a picturesque place full of lively people. The history of the land, with its Witch Queens of past, and the sacrifices that are forced upon the island, was an intriguing idea. And while I like it when stories begin with a bang, I think that there was far too much happening in The Dark Tide from the get-go for me to easily get my bearings. By the time that I finally did, there was a huge lull that lasted until the last few chapters, when things exploded into action once more.

This is listed as the first in more books to come, but as this novel stands on its own, the characters were flat save for the leads, Eva and Lina. Eva was great, she's smart and sharp with a wicked sense of humor and a soft side that she tries to hide from others. That last is a bit stereotypical, because of course she doesn't want others to see that she cares being the big bag Witch Queen that she needs to be, but she pulls it off. Lina, on the other hand, comes cross as naive and impulsive, doesn't really think about the consequences of her actions until she's smack in the middle of a bad one, and she's overall infuriating. I didn't fall for the romance between these two until the very last two chapters, and while not wholly convinced, the ending was rather sweet between them. There's a nice build up there for the next book.

The rest of the cast of characters are one-dimensional, with barely anything happening among them unless they're needed to step in so that they can advance the plot along. The exception to this is the trio of Thomas, Marcin and Finley. These three hold the role of “bad guy” in one way or another throughout the story: Thomas is selfish and reportedly doesn't care about much other than to save his own skin 'til the end, when he seems to grow a conscience; Marcin so obviously wants to be king of the witches of Caldella that I have no idea how it takes Eva so long to notice; and Finley is the big bad brother who has a quick temper and apparently that means that he likely can be prone to make others suffer physical violence. And then to make things worse, Jun—yet another lad—tries to murder Lina. Yes, they do nice things here and there, but they're still cast in this mostly negative light. I don't know why it was just the guys that always hold the bad lot in this novel, or if this was unintentional, but it still grated on me.

There were still noteworthy moments not to be ignored, however. Eva's pet sea serpent is magnificent, as is the mythology of her love for dancing. The water palace itself is magnificent, and I wish that more time would have been spent exploring it other than its incessantly mischievous and spell-bound doors. I wanted to see more of the island town of Caldella itself, as well as the ruins of the old city. I enjoyed the loophole that Eva thought of and the way that she had of saving the year's sacrifice, even if I saw it coming halfway through to the event.

This tale has its charms, if only they'd been exploited to their limits. I have my fingers crossed that we'll see more of what I enjoyed in the next book, as well as what's still to be explored. The potential is there for this world to grow and flourish.

I really liked the atmospheric feel of the book with a very lyrical and poetic writing style. Every relationships were interesting and well done. I thought there was a little bit of pacing issues but enjoyed the worldbuilding, I loved knowing more and more about it. Great read!

The tale of a sinking city and a tide that demands a sacrifice. This book quite literally pulled me under. The hero x villain dynamic was SO satisfying to me. Part of me thinks this book would have worked as a standalone but a much bigger part of me doesn't want this to be the end of Eva & Lina's story, so I'm glad that it's not. I truly truly loved this book and how it pulled on my thoughts and made me ask myself questions about standard "fairy tale" stories.

I absolutely love this cover! I thought that it worked well with the book. But the story didn’t hit the right points for me. I didn’t DNF it which is a definite positive but I can’t say I recommend it either.

3.5 stars
I was a bit disappointed because I had way too high expectations but don't let this stop you from picking this book up. I had a great time and I think it was a very clever concept. Plus a "villain" as the love interest is everything we could have asked for.

Actual rating is a 3.5.

THE DARK TIDE is easily the most evocative book I've read in quite a while. I'm a huge fan of books where the setting feels like another character in the story, which is something THE DARK TIDE does quite well. The slowly-flooding city of Caldella and the crumbling palace the city's witches live in both felt incredibly real. There's so much rich lore built into this world and it added so much to the story.

One thing I found really interesting was that lots of other reviewers are describing THE DARK TIDE as a dark fairytale with a romance. Despite the premise of the book, I was surprised to discover that the romance actually plays such a small part in the story. There's definitely a hint of romance between Eva and Lina (and I definitely do ship them together) but the story is a lot more about the two main characters' personal growth than a romantic relationship. It looks like this is the first book in a series so I'm definitely curious to see if there will be more romance in later books.

I really loved the premise and setting ofTHE DARK TIDE. At times, I was a little bored with the plot (probably due to a mismatch of expectations vs. reality on the romance front). Overall, I enjoyed THE DARK TIDE and definitely plan on reading the sequel.

I was drawn in by the cover and then hooked by the synopsis. I think what I struggled with is that this book drops you right into the middle of a huge cast of characters during an important festival with very little world building and the plot takes off at a breakneck pace.I felt like I was constantly catching up with this book and just found the lack of structure and world building really confusing, which made the book a lot less enjoyable. This book has a lot of potential,  but it ultimately just wasn't for me.

Not only am I a fan of hate-to-love stories but this involves a f/f romance and I was instantly intrigued. It's been a while since I was this excited to read an arc, which I thank Netgalley for.

Eva and Lina weren't expecting to fall for each other when Lina takes her love, Thomas's place, as a sacrifice. But as they spend more time together and open up, it just starts to happen. I wanted more time with them together, connecting, but that is a personal preference. I always want more time with the love interests as they fall for each other.

One of my least favorite parts is Lina's "love" for Thomas, which sadly took away my excitement too often. I didn't understand her reasoning and it came off as more as admiration. Lina tries to prevent her brother from being taken, and Thomas is instead, but if Thomas would've been cut out completely and instead, she takes her brother's place, I would've felt more.

Overall, world-building and magic are explained well. Lina and Eva are likable, but as I said, if there was more time between them and them learning about one another, I think that excitement I had at the start would've stayed the entire time.