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nmcannon 's review for:
Moon-Bright Tides
by RoAnna Sylver
Moon-Bright Tides caught my eye when it first came out because I am an absolute sucker for magical creature kissing. When Sylver and the Kraken Collective offered a free download to celebrate #MerMay, I jumped at the chance and was absolutely thrilled.
Quite short page-wise, Moon-Bright Tides is a lovely tale placed firmly as one of Sylver's "oddly optimistic dystopia books," as she describes them in her author bio. Humanity exploded the moon, and this catastrophe has caused a lot of problems. For instance, without the moon, the ocean's tides are kaput, and it has fallen to a family of witches to magically move the ocean's currents. Riven, the last member of this family, hates this task. Going out in the pitch midnight dark in a small coracle to sing a mournful song is creepy af and triggers nightmares of the time she almost drowned. One night, however, she returns from her woeful errand to find a starving mermaid on her doorstep. Driven as much by compassion as her own desperate loneliness, Riven feeds, befriends, and cares for the mermaid, named Moonbright, until friendship becomes something more.
See what I mean? It's a love story right smack in the middle of ecological disaster, almost a soft apocalypse. Sylver's writing glows with grief and healing, with beautiful descriptions of the darker, oceanic world Riven and Moonbright inhabit. For those who follow Sylver's serial fiction Stake Sauce, many similar themes are explored here: overcoming trauma, consent, body image, found family, redemption, mental illness, and queer experiences to name a few. Despite the grim setting, Riven and Moonbright's relationship left me a gooey, happy mess from the fluff. For romance readers wondering, the physical intimacy doesn't go beyond attraction, sensuality, and kissing. Sylver focuses much more on the emotional aspect of her protagonists' relationship, and this suited me wonderfully and certainly did not cause me to almost cry in a coffee shop. Why do you ask?
I 100% recommend Moon-Bright Tides to all humans and merfolk. Read it to be comforted and to find a soft glow of happiness in troubled times.
Quite short page-wise, Moon-Bright Tides is a lovely tale placed firmly as one of Sylver's "oddly optimistic dystopia books," as she describes them in her author bio. Humanity exploded the moon, and this catastrophe has caused a lot of problems. For instance, without the moon, the ocean's tides are kaput, and it has fallen to a family of witches to magically move the ocean's currents. Riven, the last member of this family, hates this task. Going out in the pitch midnight dark in a small coracle to sing a mournful song is creepy af and triggers nightmares of the time she almost drowned. One night, however, she returns from her woeful errand to find a starving mermaid on her doorstep. Driven as much by compassion as her own desperate loneliness, Riven feeds, befriends, and cares for the mermaid, named Moonbright, until friendship becomes something more.
See what I mean? It's a love story right smack in the middle of ecological disaster, almost a soft apocalypse. Sylver's writing glows with grief and healing, with beautiful descriptions of the darker, oceanic world Riven and Moonbright inhabit. For those who follow Sylver's serial fiction Stake Sauce, many similar themes are explored here: overcoming trauma, consent, body image, found family, redemption, mental illness, and queer experiences to name a few. Despite the grim setting, Riven and Moonbright's relationship left me a gooey, happy mess from the fluff. For romance readers wondering, the physical intimacy doesn't go beyond attraction, sensuality, and kissing. Sylver focuses much more on the emotional aspect of her protagonists' relationship, and this suited me wonderfully and certainly did not cause me to almost cry in a coffee shop. Why do you ask?
I 100% recommend Moon-Bright Tides to all humans and merfolk. Read it to be comforted and to find a soft glow of happiness in troubled times.