4.5 stars
Naia(a new water nymph), Aleksi(the god of love) and Einar(the kraken) are sent on a diplomatic mission to the ice kingdom of a former adversary. While on this mission Aleksi decides to play matchmaker for the other two in spite of his feelings for both because he believes he is dying and he doesn't want to burden anyone like that. Naia and Einar however have other ideas, so we have an ongoing game of seduction amidst the political machinations of the Ice Queen's court.
The characters are interesting and I really enjoy the world and the relationships in it.
I think this might have been a full 5 star if I had reread the Bound to fire and steel duology first to refresh the characters backstories for myself because while I had a really good time my lack of memory for the small details meant this didn't hit as hard as it could have.

Daughter of Tides by Kit Rocha brings an adventurous and seductive tale set in a world where the eternal war of good and evil is changing the lives everyday. The authors has created a fantastical world of Gods with different powers, queens and kings, pirates and sirens and Dragons.. and you will be easily lost. It was full of intriguing characters with their ageless stories. It was suspenseful. It was scorching hot. It was enigmatic.>

🌊 fantasy romance
🌊 romantic suspense
🌊 MMF / MFM
🌊 The God of love + the Kraken + the nymph godess


On a diplomatic mission for the magical but evil kingdom of ice, Aleksi aka the Lover is joined by Einar the Kraken, infamous pirate lord, and Naia, a sweet young water nymph. The journey is dangerous. The Path is treacherous. Aleksi can feel his life fading away bevause even immortals can die. His last task is to help Naia and Einar's slowly building passion and emotions to reach the top but his own heart isn't immune. They are trying to beat the evil but the war of Hearts can be even more serious.

These three characters are very different. Aleksi is more light hearted and flirty in nature but he has immense power. He has the ability to see in depth of Hearts and that's why he can see Einar beyond his rough exterior. The island holds a special connection with the Pirate God. He is the Lost prince of the kingdom but he doesn't care about it. Einar is edgy and intense and hard. The Kraken is feared by all but they don't know the pain in his so called frozen heart. Naia is the connecting piece. She is younger than both the men but she still holds incredible energy. She is fierce and sassy behind her sweetness. The diplomatic mission forced them to spend a lot of tension filled time away from their homes and in the danger..their love flourished. Aleksi tried to stay away and hide his impending doom but even the God of love underestimated love's power. I loved how the whole structure and various characters were carefully crafted. It was sensual and heartaching and full of twists.

I reviewed an early copy voluntarily

Thank you NetGalley and Montlake for this eCopy to review

Daughter of Tides by Kit Rocha is the first book in the Born to Sea and Storm series, and it offers a unique blend of fantasy, romance, and political intrigue. The story follows Aleksi, the charming and charismatic god of love, who is on his final quest due to his deteriorating health. He sets sail for the mystical kingdom of ice, accompanied by Einar, the infamous pirate lord, and Naia, a sweet young water nymph.

The plot is rich with courtly intrigue and erotic tension as Aleksi, Einar, and Naia navigate the treacherous waters of the Ice Queen's court. Aleksi, determined to enjoy his last days, finds himself playing matchmaker for Einar and Naia, but soon becomes entangled in a complex web of seduction and political manoeuvring. As dark secrets from the past emerge, the trio must confront their own desires and the threats that loom over them.

Rocha creates a vivid and immersive setting, from the mystical seas to the icy realms, making the reader feel as though they are part of this fantastical world. The dynamic between the three main characters is compelling, with each bringing their own strengths and vulnerabilities to the story.

Daughter of Tides is a steamy romance with engaging characters making and political intrigue, offering a fresh take on the Romantasy genre.

Kit Rocha is near the top of my list when I need books that will distract me and feed my soul some hope and joy so that I can go back out into the world. Seriously, if you want to read about community building and mutual aid with a generous helping of queer normativity and sex positivity, Kit Rocha has several different series that will give you that. I pretty much always have a Kit Rocha book open.

Daughter of Tides starts a new duology in the Court of High Dreamers world. Sorin, the Betrayer, has been removed from his Imperial throne. The dreams he stole from his citizens have been released, some twisted into nightmares, and the Court of High Dreamers are trying to help the people survive the chaos. Aleksi, the Lover, and Naia, the Nymph, are sent to Akesia to treat with the Ice Queen, Gwynera. Einar, the Kraken, the immortal pirate, is their ride and their protector. Aleksi is hiding that dying from an injury he suffered in the battle against The Betrayer. Someone else is trying to thwart efforts to build peaceful relations between the High Court and the shattered Empire. There is court intrigue, a hidden history revealed, someone is brought back from the dead, and so much delicious yearning.

I fell in love with Aleksi as a character in Queen of Dreams. During a sword fight, he delivers a lesson on love.

“People make assumptions, you see,” Aleksi said conversationally as Hinrick charged him. He stepped aside, and Hinrick skidded to a stop just before hitting the unseen boundary of their dueling ground. “Love is soft, a tender emotion meant for moonlight and babies’ blankets and a mother’s kiss. They forget…Love can be a blade.” A slice across Hinrick’s cheek. “A cudgel or a shield, harder than tempered steel.” Hinrick feinted and lunged. Aleksi bashed him in the head with the pommel of his sword, driving him back. “Love can heal,” he murmured. “But it can also wound. And it can be a fury that no one who has not yet loved another to the very depths of their soul could ever hope to comprehend.”

Aleksi is capable of exerting hard power, but soft power is his forte. His care, patience, and attention to detail make him a formidable diplomat. They also make him an excellent match maker and he has noted the attraction between Einar and Naia. But has he noticed their attraction to him? Einar is a grumpy, stand-offish sailor. Ballads have been written about his cold heart and his refusal to stay more than a night. But Naia, a powerful, newly born from The Dream, makes him want more than just his ship. Technically there is an age gap, but Naia, full of sunshine, may be new to the world but she has power over the sea, and thousands of years worth of memories.

It is very Kit Rocha to position the embodiment of love and generosity as the antidote to a cruel empire. They did it with Sachiel in Queen of Dreams, and again here with Aleksi. It’s very Kit Rocha for a character who is dying make improving the lives of the people they love better (see also Grey in The Devil You Know). In the worlds of Kit Rocha, caretaking, protecting, and making the world a softer place for everyone is the greatest good. It’s not surprising that Bree and Donna, who write together as Kit Rocha, were named Democracy Heroes for their work raising money for voting rights.

I can’t wait for the second book.

I received this as an advance reader copy from Montlake and NetGalley. My opinions are my own, freely and honestly given.

Alexei, the god of Love, is wounded, perhaps dying. Still, he embarks on a crucial diplomatic mission to a foreign court to repair the world the Betrayer tried to break (see Consort of Fire and Queen of Dreams). With him are Einar, aka the Kraken, a pirate captain and mythical sea monster; and Naia, a sweet and powerful young sea goddess born of the Everlasting Dream. Together they will face storms, political intrigue, battles and betrayal—but love could be their greatest trial and triumph.

How does Kit Rocha do it every time?! This really might be my new favorite of the series. I am high key obsessed with how vivid this world is. It’s so cohesive and poetic, like a painting but alive on the page. Along with these characters, whose pull on me is positively magnetic. It’s a marvel how a book so GD scorching hot can also so strongly convey its message of kindness, the power of faith, and the protective ferocity of love. And what a takedown of colonization, the definition of economic and strategic building of the mythical past and present of a fantasy world— an illustration of the colonizer’s control over language and history, and also a testament to the power of oral histories and perseverance of a people.

This is the classic romance of a rough warrior and the gentle goddess whose quiet strength undoes him. Einar sensed the moment Naia came into existence, and Naia can feel him like the pull of the tides. IT IS MY JAM. But Rocha goes even further into my wildest dreams and gives us more. Once united, these two expand their love to invite the matchmaker, the Lover. They desire him and they see him, his loneliness and pain. Alexei has been comfortable evoking and inciting love from a distance, but he deserves what he yearns for, a soulful, specific love. Einar falls for the man who helped him trust himself to let down his walls, Naia for the man who helped her see past those walls and not give up before they came down. Both the hottest and the most emotional moments in this book come from these MCs finding the strength to be vulnerable and the courage to claim the home they find in each other.

What Rocha does with expert precision is infuse their texts with an inalienable queerness. In their high fantasy books, this means immortals who have outlived jealousy, and for whom sex is always meaningful, but can mean anything. but possessiveness.

Unfortunately this is a DNF for me. Thanks to Montlake and Kit Rocha for letting me give this one a go ahead of release.

I've been trying to finish this on and off since December last year, and just not been able to get into it.
The first hurdle is that this is apparently a spin off of another series, which I haven't found an issue in the past, but so much of this stories content clearly comes from this and I didn't find it well explained. There's this wonderfully intricate magic system with a whole fleet of Gods, something that is normally right up my street, but I found this challenging to understand.
The writing itself is very good, it just needed some more explanation for the backstory and then I feel I would have been able to get into it.
The second hurdle was a personal gripe of my own, which is that a large number of characters were introduced pretty quickly. If this isn't an issue for you, just carry on, but I struggled to hold them all in my head long enough to figure out what they were supposed to be doing.
Final note. That cover. It's what drew me to this ARC in the first place and I still love it. It's really beautiful.

Thank you so much to Kit Rocha, Montlake and NetGalley for providing me with this review!

This was my first fantasy book for a while and I thought the premise sounded super interesting - the Kraken, the god of love and a beautiful water nymph? Sign me up!

It did fall a little flat for me for a number of reasons though. While I like books that throw us straight into the action, it did feel as though I had started reading at book 2 or 3 in a series. A lot of information about the world and the characters I felt like I should have already known about as I think it’s part of a universe of novels that are already existing. This made things a little confusing at the start as I wasn’t sure what was really happening - despite this though I felt like the world building was easy enough to understand!

I also felt like there was no real plot for me to understand. It all felt very character driven which isn’t something I’m used to in a fantasy book. I did love the relationship development between Einar, Aleksi and Naia though and I’m intrigued to see how other books for them unfold but for this one it felt like nothing really happened?

I did still enjoy it and I really like the authors writing style so I would definitely pick up another of their books but I think for anyone reading this one, do a bit of research and perhaps pick up previous books by the author which might make Daughter of Tides more satisfying.

This book…. I wanted to like it. I did. But nothing about it was interesting to me. I feel like I was just reading it so that I could get to the end, hoping that it was going to be more interesting than it was. The spice was okay but it wasn’t enough to create a more positive experience of reading this book.

As someone who greatly enjoyed the Bound to Fire and Steel duology, I was excited to dive back into the world and follow Einar, Aleksi and Naia's story.

Daughter of Tides follows the Kraken, the Lover and the water nymph as they embark on a dangerous and crucial diplomatic journey.
I liked that the book picks up in the continuation of the events of Queen of Dreams as our protagonists try to solidify alliances in the aftermath of the battle against the betrayer. I will say I feel like this book can be read with no prior knowledge of the world but a lot of background (worldbuiding and character work) has been laid in the previous books and I don't know if I would have had the same reading experience lacking that information.
It was overall an enjoyable book as Kit Rocha always deliver with the poly romance and spice. The court intrigue and politics aspects of the story were also well done and I really enjoyed the expanded world building as we discover more about our characters and Akeisa and the lore surrounding the island.
There's nothing about this book I necessarily dislike, what I struggled most with is pacing and the build up to the romance. While Einar and Naia's connection is established from the get go and evolves pretty organically throughout the book, I felt Aleksi's feelings for both of them a bit rushed and lacking proper set up. I felt the story needed a bit more page time to build toward the triad and set the events up in a smoother way as things unravel and resolve too quickly in the last 10% of the book.

I'm a long-time fan of Kit Rocha, and I am always impressed with their world-building--they are masters of it. I've read the previous books in this world, but we move into a different part of the world, and they put in the work to build it up. The focus, though, is on Naia and Einar and how their relationship develops, and Aleksi, the God of Love, feels more like an afterthought to the eventual throuple, so I hope he will be equal with them eventually. It's a slow burn and there aren't very many stakes established until the very end of the book (which ends on a cliffhanger), so it might be slow for some. But the pieces are all here, and I'm excited to see where it goes in the next book.

A wonderful read!
This novel drew me in from the very first page and kept me hooked until the end. The characters were vibrant and relatable, the writing was engaging, and the story had just the right balance of heart and humor. Highly recommend!
Many thanks to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for my ARC. All opinions are my own.

I loved Consort of Fire, and was really looking forward to spending more time in this world.

The Kraken is my guy, and I really liked the views on imperialism that thread through this book.

I’m usually a proponent of a 300 page romance book, but with as much as this book had to do, I found myself wanting more. More of the characters giving words to their feelings, more of Einar’s backstory, more time spent with the mystery of the island and the plots against our three. I think I may have preferred if this and the next book were just one big, honking novel, but I had a good time here, as Kit Rocha always delivers.
Definitely start with Consort of Fire and Queen of Dreams, if you want any context for what is going on.

ARC received from NetGalley. Book out 5/6/25

Daughter of Tides is book one of the Born to Sea and Storm series by Kit Rocha. This one is linked to the Bound to Fire and Steel series so if you haven't read that one you might be a little lost picking this one up as the characters overlap and the stories do too. That said, I think you can dive into this one without reading the other if you truly want to.

This book focuses on Aleksi, Einar, and Naia. They are sent on a diplomatic visit to Akeisa and at the same time, Aleksi sees it as an opportunity to nudge Naia and Einar to take a chance on each other. While they eventually want to take the leap, they also want to bring Aleksi along with them. What they don't know is that Aleksi is dying.

The politics portion of this one focuses on trying to create problems between Gwynira and Aleksi and Einar. Whether it's through false attacks or poisoning, those behind what is happening are doing whatever they can to create problems and we are just introduced to those responsible for everything at the end of this book so I'll be curious to see what happens next and who else is involved.

If you enjoyed the other series of books, I encourage you to pick these up too. They not only continue to have the politics and danger but the spice that Kit Rocha do so well.

DAUGHTER OF TIDES - KIT ROCHA

This was my first Kit Rocha novel, and I don't think it'll be my last! Daughter of Tides starts with a whole lot of worldbuilding. With so many references to other characters and events, I wasn't quite sure if I had missed that this might be a sequel.

Rest assured, it's not a sequel, but it does occur within the same world as Kit Rocha's Consort of Fire and Queen of Dreams. You don't need to have read these books to understand what's happening in Daughter of Tides, but you'll need to concentrate in the beginning of the book so that you don't get completely lost.

For me, Daughter of Tides is primarily about the central romance between its three main characters: Aleksi the god of love, Einar the pirate lord and Naia the water nymph. There is some plot, where the characters are sent as a delegation to a mysterious island called Akeisa (cue court intrigue and hidden agendas).

But it's the bond and chemistry between the three characters that really propel the story forward, and I found that the pace picked up once I got just past halfway through the book. It's worth stating that this book is very, very spicy. Kit Rocha's writing manages to bring their dynamic to life in a way that's passionate but also sincere and believable.

I look forward to seeing what happens next for this trio! Thank you to Kit Rocha, the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this eARC.

Release date: 6 May 2025

Review score: 4/5

TWs: s*xual content, violence

There is something about how Kit Rocha approaches throuples that is just so delicious and perfect. Einar and Naia are the pair that we first see longing for each other. Both gods of the sea, though Einar is infamously known for having his heart closed off and Naia wants more than he’s ready to give her. Aleksi, the Lover, completes their trio when they are sent off to politick with the Queen of the ice nation of Akeisa.

I was expecting a longer time spent on the ship traveling to Akeisa than we were given but it didn’t harm the plot. On the ship we’re given glimpses of the growing attraction between the three, though the main focus for the first half of the book is very much Naia and Einar. It is only when Naia and Einar’s attraction sparks that we truly see why Aleksi is so focused on helping them get together. I adored the way Einar’s attraction to both of them was approached, and it really spoke to him becoming my favourite character.

As usual, Rocha does take their time getting to the spicy bits, but don’t worry, it is very much worth it. We have one scene with Einar and Naia alone, but the rest is with the burgeoning throuple as they are finally able to come to terms with the full extent of their connection to each other. Einar is rough and wild, Naia is ferociously hungry, and Aleksi is so wonderfully bossy - they are a joy of a throuple to read.

The politicking plot is eclipsed with how well the romance is done though, and I felt like one convenient plot event really wrapped things up far too swiftly for the amount of tension the politicking had been given. But since this is a Romantasy with the romantic relationships being the main focus, I wasn’t all that bothered.

I’m thrilled to read more from Kit Rocha and can’t wait to see what characters they’ll write next so I can become obsessed with them all over again.

*I received an eARC from NetGalley & Montlake. All opinions are my own*

I love books that feature Sirens/ Mermaids or take part in some way under the sea and so I was so excited to get to read this. I really enjoyed it and finished it in two sittings,

Daughter of Tides is the first in the Born to Sea and Storm duet, but I would recommend reading the Bound to Fire and Steel duet first. There is some world building and plotline carry over from that first duet that will be helpful to understand the events of Daughter to Tides.

Aleksi, the Lover, sets sail to a frozen island kingdom for a diplomatic mission. Along for the journey are Einar, the Kraken, and Naia, a newly created water nymph. As Aleksi watches the two dance around each other, he can't help up undertake one last matchmaking endeavor. But when he watches them, all he feels is longing.

Read if you like:
-Courtly Intrigue
-Oops, I'm in Love
-MMF Romance
-Gods & Magic

I really enjoyed Daughter of Tides. It's definitely a little slower of a book compared to Consort of Fire. More character driven than plot, though the ending makes me think that book two will have more urgency to it given the revelation Kit Rocha snuck in there. I'm excited to see where it goes! Naia was my favorite character, so sweet and fresh and ready to experience life. But I loved the tragedy of Einar's backstory. They make such a great pairing and Aleksi completes them.

This was okay. I was a bit lost for a majority of the book (maybe that's on me) but the premise was interesting and once I figured out what was happening, I did start to enjoy this more. I think reading it a second time through I would give this a higher rating.

I thought it was a stand alone, but instead it is not only yet another start of a new series, but it is also connected to Consort of fire and Queen of dreams, with several appearances by Sachi, Ash and Zanya.
The pace is rather slow, the story is confusing, and only after halfway through do things come back into some order; the characters didn't grab me at all. In short, maybe it wasn't the right time or maybe it's me who needs a break from Kit Rocha...and to think that the Beyond series remains one of my absolute favorites....

Pensavo fosse uno stand alone e invece non solo é l'ennesimo inizio di una nuova serie, ma é anche collegato a Consort of fire e Queen of dreams, con parecchie comparsate da parte di Sachi, Ash e Zanya.
Il ritmo é piuttosto lento, la storia é confusa e solo dopo la metá le cose tornano in un certo ordine, i personaggi non mi hanno preso per niente. In breve, forse non era il momento giusto o forse sono io che ho bisogno di una pausa da Kit Rocha. E pensare che la serie Beyond resta una delle mie preferite in assoluto....

I received from the Publisher a complimentary digital advanced review copy of the book in exchange for a honest review.