Book Review | Curious Tides #20booksofsummer2025

This one took me a while but it was worth it.

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Curious Tides
Pascale Lacelle

Emory might be a student at the prestigious Aldryn College for Lunar Magics, but her healing abilities have always been mediocre at best—until a treacherous night in the Dovermere sea caves leaves a group of her classmates dead and her as the only survivor. Now Emory is plagued by strange, impossible powers that no healer should possess.

Powers that would ruin her life if the wrong person were to discover them.

To gain control of these new abilities, Emory enlists the help of the school’s most reclusive student, Baz—a boy already well-versed in the deadly nature of darker magic, whose sister happened to be one of the drowned students and Emory’s best friend. Determined to find the truth behind the drownings and the cult-like secret society she’s convinced her classmates were involved in, Emory is faced with even more questions when the supposedly drowned students start washing ashore— alive —only for them each immediately to die horrible, magical deaths.

And Emory is not the only one seeking answers. When her new magic captures the society’s attention, she finds herself drawn into their world of privilege and power, all while wondering if the truth she’s searching for might lead her right back to Dovermere…to face the fate she was never meant to escape.

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I was a little intimidated by this book when I picked it up. I thought it sounded amazing, but it looked long. I shouldn’t have been that worried, though, because I absolutely loved this book, I was intrigued from the first page, and it didn’t take long before I was totally hooked.

The magic system in this book is marvellous, their power is both connected to the tide and the lunar alignment of their birth, and they are grouped in houses dependent on that. I thought that the eclipse students being so unique and having powers that the other houses fear was a brilliant touch.

I think dark academia works so well because the setting can be both insular and alluring, and Aldryn College is no exception. With a secret society and the mysterious Dovermere Caves close by, there is a lot for a reader to sink their teeth into. This book is not a quick read; it has a steady pace, but I appreciated this because there was so much to learn about what happened to Emory and so much to discover about the events leading to Romie’s drowning.

The legends of the Tides was also fascinating, as was their story, which was told through a book called the Song of the Drowned Gods. I loved the inclusion of this book in the story, as it parallels Emory’s journey to control her magic and find Romie in some ways, but also because of how differently the characters interpret it and how that affects their actions.

The story is told from two POV, both Emory and Baz, and whilst I enjoyed getting to experience it from both of their perspectives, I will admit that I much preferred Baz; he was just such a wonderful character, patient and considerate. Emory did wind me up at points, she would never be entirely honest with Baz, even though he was going out of his way to help her, and her falling for Kieran, but still kind of stringing Baz along.

There was so much that happened in this story, and I adored every moment of it. I feel like with certain aspects, we only just got to skim the surface of what was happening, and I am very much looking forward to picking up the next book in the series to discover more.