Review ~ Tide ~ Daniela Sacerdoti

Title: Tide

Author: Daniela Sacerdoti

Published:  21^st February 2013

By: B&W Publishing

First line: It was the first time that Sarah ever felt close to Morag Midnight and the last time that she ever saw her alive.

Last line:  “I love you too.”

Fave line: “The King of Shadows is coming.”

And so Daniela Sacerdoti returns with Tide, book two in the Sarah Midnight trilogy.  For the uninitiated, Sarah Midnight trilogy tells the story of well, Sarah Midnight!  Sarah is a member of a secret family, one of many responsible for ridding the world of demons. Each family has its own skill and Sarah has the blackwater a force that flows through her hands enabling her to kill what she encounters.  She is also a dreamer, someone who has visions of the demons that threaten the secret families and is able to guide the secret families and their aides, the gamekeepers in the battle to destroy them.  Still reeling from the death of her parents Sarah met Harry, her cousin or so she thought.   Even as she formed a relationship with him she was plagued by dreams about another guy. Leaf as she called him turned out to be real, called Nicholas and a member of another secret family. Meeting Nicholas exposed her to the truth about Harry. Actually called Sean he was a gamekeeper and friend of Harry’s or at least he had been until Harry had died and even though he had trained and protected her and helped her in her battle against the Sabha, the council that has turned on them, his deception had been too great and Harry was cast out, leaving Nicholas to take his place.

And this is where Tide picks up. Sean is still frozen out but even then he still watches Sarah from the sidelines, making sure that she is safe.  Nicholas in the meantime is settling into life as Sarah’s boyfriend very easily and far too readily and it’s apparent quite quickly that he has a hold on her that goes beyond simple boyfriend infatuation. Nicholas may be able to take away the pain, but it goes further and Sarah no longer dreams and seems as though she is starting to lose control of her own life. For her part Sarah still misses Sean as much as she tries not to and whilst she knows now what she is and how strong she has the potential to be there are so many more questions unanswered.

The need to answer those questions takes her to Midnight Hall, her ancestral home on the Isle of Islay and she doesn’t go alone. Nope, she ends up going there with Nicholas and Sean as well as many of the major players that we met in Dreams.   I was really pleased to see the return of Mike and Niall and it was great to get to know Elodie (Harry’s widow) more as well as she takes more of a central role.  For a while I thought she was really going to throw a spanner in the works for Sarah! While she’s at Midnight Hall Sarah gains possession of a series of letters written by Morag Midnight that reveal more about Sarah’s family as well as some surprising insights about Sean and all the time the inhabitants of the small isle find themselves under attack from various demons and something appears to be happening to Nicholas…

I liked the way that this story progressed.  The slow change in Nicholas was really good and I felt more than a tad sorry for him as the story progressed.  I also liked Winter as well as the roles that Elodie and Niall took on this time.  As for Sarah, she became stronger over the course of the book and by the end it was good to see how much stronger she had become.  There is a really good final battle in Tide which sets everything up really well for book three.  There are some losses in this book and allegiances do switch which result in big repercussions but whilst the major players were understandably suspicious it was good to see everyone working as a team when it could have quite easily all fallen apart. 

It looks like there’s one hell of a battle coming in book three and I can’t wait to see what happens! As for Sarah and Sean, who knows what’s coming next?!

4/5. Really enjoyed this.  I can’t wait for the final instalment!