- very queer fairytale
- philosophical merman x human blacksmith
- puerto rican & desi rep
- historical fantasy (1910s)
- illustrated
- found family
- disabled side character
- circus/menagerie

What a delightful read?? "When the Tides Held the Moon" had me gripping the edge of my seat, with prose so elegant you feel like you are swimming in the ocean and breathing underwater, and illustrations oh so ethereal that you can just feel the love between Benny and Rio emanating from the pages. This book is an ode to love, to cultures, to found families and to discovering yourself -- it is a siren's song about doing the right thing in a world where you don't feel like you could ever belong. I am off to grab a physical copy because I need to hold this book in my hands, read it over and over again and display it to everyone who has the misfortune of glancing at my bookshelf while I talk their ears off about how plunging into this deep tome and letting myself being carried away by its waves saved my soul.

A must-read for lovers of all things fantasy, romance, and oceanic.

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HOLY TIDES AND MOONS THIS WAS A GENIUS LITERARY MASTERPIECE? MORE BREATHTAKING THAN THE OCEAN ITSELF AND ALSO I'VE NEVER EVER SEEN SUCH WELL RESEARCHED REPRESENTATION AND I'M JUST??? THOSE ILLUSTRATIONS???? I NEED TO PURCHASE A PHYSICAL COPY ASAP, VENESSA, YOUR GENIUS IS ASTOUNDING

I'M STILL RECOVERING

When the Tides Held the Moon follows the story of a Puerto Rican immigrant, Benny, who travels to New York after the death of Titi Luz, his adopted caretaker. He is a talented blacksmith tasked with creating a stunning glass and iron tank for the slimy owner of an oddity sideshow. When his boss, Mr McCoy, takes the credit for his hard work, Benny storms back into work and soon finds himself without a job. Curious about the tank, Benny finds the sideshow by the water and finds himself with a new task: catch a mythical merman.

Benny is hired to give Luna Park, home of the oddity sideshow, a facelift and soon comes to know the merman, Rio. What starts as a small act of kindness turns into a close friendship. Once Benny learns to accept the parts of himself he has long denied, their friendship deepens into love. At this point, Benny realises that he will do whatever it takes to set Rio free, even if it means saying goodbye to the merman he loves forever.

The overall vibe of this book is immaculate. It's set in 1920's New York in a circus and I felt I was there the whole time. Throughout the book, there were illustrations of key moments and they further added to the overall mood.

The overall theme of the book was belonging and finding a home. Benny did this twice. First when he met the performers who mostly welcomed him with open arms and became his family. Second when his relationship with Rio escalated. I could sense what the ending would be about 50% of the way into the book and I'm so happy that it ended the way I hoped.

The book loses half a star because Benny took so gosh dang long to take action. For most of the second half of the book I kept thinking to myself "why won't he just find a tub on wheels and take him back to the ocean?!" but I can also understand how he wanted to keep the show running so the performers could make a living.

I also wanted it to be about 200 pages longer to build the romance a bit more. Regardless, this was an excellent book. I felt an attachment to the characters and I was invested in all their stories. I liked how Sonia's 'arrangement' was tastefully covered and not exploited for shock value. The epilogue was the cherry on top. I had wondered if we would hear more from Matthias.

Overall, I highly recommend bumping this book to the top of your TBR!


*Thank you to NetGalley for providing me early access to this book. All opinions are honest and my own*

This was really beautiful. I just loved all these characters and their relationships so much. And the art!! I definitely can't wait to see how it's all put together in the finished edition.

First off! The art for the cover of this novel is absolutely stunning. I know they say "Don't judge a book by the cover", but I really hoped that this one would live up to the beautiful artwork. It definitely did. I was engrossed into this story from the first chapter. I am a huge advocate for queer voices and their fiction stories and this one was one of the better I have read in 2025. I could not reccomend it enough. There is the perfect balance of plot, romance, and it is just beautifully done.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for my unbiased review.

This was a very sweet surprise. I loved the illustrations in this book, and the love story kept me captivated. I enjoyed the alternating perspectives as well. I would recommend this to any Romantasy reader who is draw to this book by its cover. They won’t be disappointed!

“𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘮𝘦 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘐 𝘢𝘮 𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘰𝘯.”

More merfolk, more merfolk, more merfolk!! (Or fish people in general) This story just goes to show how much I want more fish folk stories in my life! We were all in love with Ariel as children, why has that not transgressed into more fantasy stories?

When the Tides Held the Moon is set in 1900s Coney Island where a Puerto Rican man, Benny, is hired to build a metal tank. Surprisingly ends up becoming cage to a merman from the deep.

This is a very beautifully written story. I really love the language the author uses—it really draws you in. It flows and ebbs like the tides themselves. It’s very poetic and prosey, just the way I love my books! Also there’s ART!! All books need art. Kids books, adult books, YA books. All of it. It just enhances everything about the story.

This is definitely a slower paced story, but I loved getting to know our main characters through the slower pace. Sharing a kinship for music and learning to accept parts of themselves they are afraid to show.

There’s also good development for side characters which is always a huge win for me! I love when side characters feel like real characters and not just tag alongs to the MC’s story.

A beautifully written, culturally diverse, kind of magical book. Thank you so much to NetGalley for sending me an early earc!

Read for:
LQBTQ+ Rep
Culturally diverse rep
Mermaids obv
Fairgrounds
Found family

Absolutely stunning, I had been waiting for this for such a long time and it was absolutely worth it.

Thanks to NetGalley and Kensington Publishing for sharing this ARC!

When the Tides Held the Moon is an atmospheric story with an intriguing premise, but I found myself struggling to connect with it. I absolutely loved the setting - it felt very original for this type of book. However, the pacing is incredibly slow and I found that more often than not I didn't have any desire to keep reading. The illustrations and artwork are absolutely stunning, and I think this book will resonate with many readers, but unfortunately it did not for me.

This book is absolutely brilliant. The language is gorgeous. Illustrations are beautiful. The storyline and the heart in it is simply amazing. I couldn’t put this one down.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a free eARC in exchange for an honest review!
Rating: 4.75/5

When the Tides Held the Moon is a beautifully written story, with a lovely romance and an amazing cast of characters. Though I found the writing style and the initial slow pacing difficult to get into, by 10% into the story, I was hooked. The prose was beautiful and really fit the setting and tone of the story. Each character had their own unique personality and backstory, and I loved the found family dynamic. The ending was left partially open-ended and mysterious, but there were enough hints left throughout for me to make a guess as to what exactly happened.

My favourite part of this book was certainly the romance. It was truly beautiful and tender with an amazing slowburn that led to a satisfying conclusion. Overall, When the Tides Held the Moon is certainly one of my favourite reads this year and I can't wait to buy a physical copy.

This book took me by surprise. But I very much enjoyed it!

We meet Benny, a metal worker from Puerto Rico, living in New York. He builds a big glass tank under the guise of a promotion but then gets taken advantage of and is sent away!

Turns out the big glass tank is to capture a merman for a sideshow. He takes the chance to go and find out what the sideshow is about and from then the real story begins.

If I were the merman I certainly would have been angrier than Rio was but alls well that ends well! I also enjoyed the side characters, the found family was a nice little extra.

I loved the ending, I'm so glad everyone got a conclusion and I wasn't left to wonder about anyone!

I would defo read again!

First off thank you to Netgalley and Kensington Publishing for the earc. This book will probably be well received but I have to say I struggled so hard to connect with Benny. I had to stop every paragraph to look up whatever spanish colloquialism was being used and so I did not actually get very far into this out of pure frustration. There is apparently a glossary in the back which I discovered afterwards. This will be fine for physical copies but it is frustrating to do on kindle. I did enjoy the illustrations. I'm not familiar with the Simon Snow series and so had no frame of reference for this fanfic turned novel translation. Ill may try to give it a go in physical form but for now its a DNF.

A young blacksmith, Benigno, from Puerto Rico caught himself in a "fishy" showbiz's affairs in New York City. He was unintentionally helped Sam Morgan—the owner of this showbiz company—to capture a Merman to keep their business running. But little did he know, it would change his life forever. Torn between saving the Merman's life or his new family's future, Benny must make the right decision.
This is a beautiful tale of found family & love. I was sobbing reading the last 25% of the book. I love the merman (Río), I definitely root for him. The romance between Benigno and Río is beautiful, it shows us that we must fight for the ones we love. I thought it's supposed to be a slowburn romance, but the pacing seems to be a little bit rushed between them. I feel like Río just suddenly trusted Benny just because Benny showed him kindness?
The first 20% of the book was slow, very slow paced it frustrated me. But the last 30% was action-packed, fast paced, everything happened at once. A very interesting read as a debut novel.
The ending... A chef kiss. Heartwarming, and it made me cry again. Oh, and the illustration!!! Very captiviting! I love it. 4.25 stars for this book.

It might just be a me thing but I really had a hard time getting through this. The pacing was so slow it made it very hard to get through. I loved the illustrations and that there was an alternative perspective, but this book was just not for me. I think for someone else especially first person perspective enthusiasts—it'll be a hit.

I'm giving it 3 stars because I think the issues I have with it are me issues and there's enough things here objectively that work well.

Made me cry, 5 stars.

I absolutely loved this with my whole heart. The story, characters, everything was amazing. Benigno drew me in from the first page. The narration and writing is so beautiful and whimsical, especially Río's parts. Their romance is tender and heartwarming and I found myself tearing up reading some lines.
Every character is rich and diverse, they all feel so alive. I love the found family trope and this was perfectly done. I really cannot recommend this book enough.

Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington Publishing for the advance copy of this book!

I loved this so so much 🥹 in this book we follow Benny, a blacksmith living in Staten Island who is commissioned to build a large tank for a mysterious client. He soon discovers that this client runs a menagerie of oddities over on Coney Island, and after an injury that prevents him from working for the smithy, he ends up with the menagerie. We then learn that the tank he built is meant to hold a merman, and Benny gets roped into helping capture the wild merman. The story that follows is one of love, trust, and family, and is just so beautiful.

Through reading this book, I realized that I really love a circus/carnival/menagerie setting in books! There is always such an amazing element of found family, and this book was no exception. Following Benny as he learned to open up to others and trust them to have his back was so beautiful, and I loved the way Rio really saw Benny for who he is and not what others typically projected onto him.

In addition to the incredible love story, there was such an amazing use of languages and art throughout the book! I wish I had known there was a glossary at the end, as this would’ve helped my comprehension of a lot of things, but I still didn’t mind figuring it out as I went. The art sprinkled in throughout the pages was so beautiful, and was a powerful addition to the story.

Overall I just cannot say enough good things about this book! If you enjoyed Water For Elephants but wish it was more diverse and queer focused, then I’d absolutely recommend this one.

Puerto Rican blacksmith falls in love with merman in 1911's New York. Sounds intriguing for sure, but this short little sentence basically describes the entire plot of the book and that just wasn't enough for me. It started out well enough. 22-year-old blacksmith Benigno Caldera is commissioned to build a glass tank for a Coney Island sideshow called "Morgan's Menagerie of Human Oddities". Benny quickly becomes involved with the show's newest exhibit – the merman Rio who was violently captured from a river and is now held in Benny's tank. I really thought this would make an interesting dynamic for Benny literally built the cage that is holding Rio captive, but Rio was pretty forgiving towards Benny and they quickly warmed up to each other. The story is very straightforward from that point on – they talk and fall in love and plan to free Rio. Not a single surprising thing happened, and I was quite bored while reading. The whole sideshow theme wasn't used much either, because it's off season for the majority of the book. There are a lot of "human oddity" side characters, but I didn't care much about them even though some of them got little backstories. The character illustrations by the author were great, though. The relationship between Benny and Rio was nice, but it was a little strange how no other character seemed to care much for the literal supernatural sea creature in their midst. All in all not a bad read, but not one that will stay on my mind for too long.

Huge thanks to NetGalley and Erewhon Books for providing a digital arc in exchange for an honest review.

This was a lovely genre-bending historical fantasy. The early 1900s Coney Island, sideshow setting was unique and fun, and the found family aspect was comforting. I loved Benny and Rio, and how they found their way to one another. Despite some anxiety over the more tense moments, this was overall a cozy and hopeful story.

I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect when reading When the Tides Held the Moon, but it was much more emotional than anticipated. And I mean that in a good way. It was a beautifully written book about finding yourself, finding by your people, self acceptance and insight to both the best and worst humanity has to offer.
It’s an incredible love story full of fascinating characters, interesting mythology, and interesting setting. I highly recommend this story if you’re looking for for an emotional read with a hopeful ending.

I honestly had to DNF this book. It’s NOT bad, I swear it’s not. But the main character has my father name and I couldn’t get into the romance because unfortunately of the name. It’s NOT a bad book. I swear. It’s just me. I am the problem. I am sooooo sorry ! Thank you so much for this opportunity, i truly appreciate it. Again I am so sorry!!

- I won’t be posting anything negative on any sites.