Grade: 1st

This is a great book to educate children on the effects of natural disasters. The animals in the book give children a visual of what happens to them when natural disasters such as oil spills occur. While this book may be difficult to understand, it is a great introduction to a science lesson. The teacher will read the book Oil Spill! By Melvin Berger and explain to students that oil spills are an environmental hazard, and that oil spills hurt animals, because they destroy their homes. The teacher will then have a container of clean water and explain that it is like the ocean. Olive oil will be squirted in the water, and the teacher will ask how to get the olive oil out. Students will discover it cannot be scooped out of the container, just like it cannot be taken out of the ocean. Next, feathers will be dipped into the olive oil water to illustrate the effect it has on animals. Student will see that oil spills hurt animals. Lastly, students will discuss how to prevent oil spills.

 This is not my first foray into Juliet Marillier's spellbinding storytelling, I am a long time fan, and as such I was expecting the usual awesomeness.
In every aspect of the story.

Well, the author nailed the story telling part... like she always does.

 I don't think Juliet Marillier knows how to tell a bad story. Most of the big tomes that I have in my shelves, have her name on it and if you know anything about me, you're probably aware that I am not a big fan of big books, so they're better be good! ( look, if you can say something in two hundred pages, why use five hundred? Am I right? o_O)
Juliet Marillier is one of the few writers that I read, who don't fill her books with countless pages full of nothing.
 Sure, some of them may have a good couple of pages describing walking and more walking (I may have become a little traumatized with "Shadowfell"), but even the author's "not so amazing works" are always five hundred per cent better than the average book.
Why?
Because allied with perfect storytelling abilities, the author creates the most amazing characters. Who can forget Sorcha and Red? Or Liadan and Bran? And what about the lonely Faolan who stole my heart in "The Bridei Chronicles"?
They're unforgettable.
That happens here as well, and truth be said, everything that involves the two main characters gets a five star rating.
Blackthorn and Grim are not our average heroes: when we first meet them they are locked away in a prison. One of them has hold on to her need of revenge. The other one to his need of being useful.
Of them both, it will be a decision made by Blackthorn that will decide their future path.
In this volume we get more background information on Blackthorn, a once respected woman who has lost everything in life. That is not to say that Grim isn't an interesting character, or that he gets thrown to the sidelines: he definitely doesn't. He is someone with a big heart, and I can't wait to know more about him on the second volume.

The reason why I am giving this book a three star rating, is because the book is not all about these two characters.
There is also a prince, called Oran. Oran is a good person. He's kind. Intelligent. Literate. Likes dogs.
And he likes poetry...and he's not too keen on assuming his royal duties.
Truth is, I found him a bore. -_-
Yes, once again, he IS a good person, but I couldn't care less about him, and every time the pov would change to him, he would bore me immediately.  -__

Luckily there is a mystery involving Oran and his future fiancée, so that made things more interesting... unfortunately I found some other things problematic.
There's slut shamming directed at rape victims ( yes, it is done by the bad guys, but even so, it took one too many pages being dealt).
There's not one, but at least two rape victims in this book: some of you may even say, "oh, but that was usual back then"...
The second victim took me by surprise, and after what we already knew had happened to another character, I felt it was overdone. Of course I should be grateful that Marillier isn't GRRM.
But the thing is, I don't read GRRM. I am picky with my fantasy and what goes with it...

So, there you have it: some parts I more than liked, others, not so much. However I will definitely be following Grim's and Blackthorn's stories in the next volume, "Tower of Thorns".

TW's: memories of child abuse

Carousel Tides started out great. Extremely atmospheric, it caught my interest from page one.
However there were some things that prevented me from fully appreciating this:
_ The writing style
I wasn't crazy about it. The abundance of what I presume are Maine colloquial expressions made it impossible for me to sometimes understand what I was reading. Then the descriptions weren't that good: most of the times I couldn't see what I was reading.
_ The abundance of strange words that are part of this fantasy setting, and that most of the times aren't that well explained...«
_And then there's Kate, the main character...
Here's the problem, Kate starts out as an incredibly complex character with issues that are actually life threatening. This added complexity and interest to the story. Unfortunately this situation ends being resolved in a blink of a eye, in a very anticlimactic solution.
What follows isn't bad _ far from it _ but I was expecting a little more.
For instance, there's this possibility of a romance between Kate and a character named Brogan, and once again I was expecting a little more from it.  More intensity.
At the beginning, Kate is all: "Oh, I can't accept help from Brogan's kind because there's always some sort of payment to be had"...and after a little _ a really short number of pages_ she's counting on the guy as her sidekick. wth, woman?

Oh, another thing that really, really bothered me: I tend to get away from books that are "rapey" just for the added shock. When the thing involves children, it leaves me way, way madder.
f II am reading a fantasy book, I do not want to have traces of child abuse floating in the god dam book.
Yes, the guy was a villain, and that's what villains do, some of you migh say.
I don't care. I don't want to read child abuse in a fantasy book.
That is why I've stopped reading thrillers.
Give me flying horses with bat wings, selkies and dryads, but just leave the kids alone.

p.s. As for the cover, I have no idea what Kate looks like, but at the beginning it is said that Brogan has dark skin. Oh, and that his hair is cut really short with the exception of a braid...then towards the end, he is described as being Indian. I am guessing, native American... maybe?

Also I don't see any high cheekbones -_-

Also the horse actually flies with his bat wings...not that you would know from that tiny little things...

Yeah, the cover is a mess.

You know those books that you start to read and you love the beginning so much that you think you are going to devour them in no time at all...but then you get "hit" by a crazy amount of silliness and you just feel like crying, because you spent your money on that??

Yup, this one was one of those.

Lucky me. -_-

Once upon a time _ more like in the beginning of the twentieth century _ there was an heiress _ well, I guess there were lots of them, but... you know what I mean _ called Louisa Stratton who was in desperate need of a husband.

A fake husband, after all she is rich, why would she need a husband after all?

So... why the need for a fake husband?

Well, poor Louisa has a family from Hell.

Her parents drowned when she was a small child, leaving her at the "care" of an aunt who basically kept her imprisoned until the girl came into the possession of her inheritance, at the age of twenty five years old.

Besides the aunt, there's a cousin _ The evil aunt's son! _who apparently spent a lot of his time trying to compromise or even rape the girl!

For crying out loud.

Now a year later, and having tasted freedom for the first time, she finds herself being summoned home, because she may (yes, she did that) have written that she had married a handsome devil _ aren't they all? _ rich _obviously _ and intelligent guy.

When your family already thinks that you aren't the smartest person in the world, telling them that you married an idiot, wouldn't probably be wise...

Now the family wants to meet such paragon, which leaves Louisa in a bit of a situation.

Luckily for Louisa, Mary Eversong the proprietor of the Evensong agency has just the right candidate for the job...

Enter's War hero Charles Cooper...

Okay, I am going to stop right now with the book description.

This story had everything to work, but unfortunately around chapter twelve/ thirteen things started to fall apart.

The whole romance or attraction ends up being developed full speed ahead which was really disconcerting considering that it involved two individuals that were in the presence of one another for about a day. Two days maximum.

Also, apparently suffering a head trauma may be considered as a prelude for having sex, which was also  -_- weird to read...

And after that, it just went downhill with all the soap opera silly moments that ends up taking place.

It goes from, "oh, after this night of debauchery that we had, we'll keep our hands to one another"...five minutes later they're in bed.

Every single day the guy is the target of some sort of attack: with all the hits to his head, I'm surprised he didn't go into a coma -_-

Then there's the "marry me" _ says he, two days after they've met _ that will be followed by " no, I am not good enough for you...

They are a boring lot of characters.

Louisa as the main character is one of the most boring heroines I've ever read about.

She's supposed to be wild and reckless with her shocking modern way of thinking, but I never "bought it". I wanted to see some character development because the girl starts with no backbone whatsoever... unfortunately she ends up in the same way she started as.

As for Charles, he has a sort of wtf back-story that was supposed to make us see him as a hero, but which was in truth appalling to read about. He was a capt in the Boer war, and during a time responsible for a women's concentration camp

Why am I not giving one star to this?

Bottom line *cough* this story has one of the weirdest combination of themes.

Yes, through most of it it manages to be idiotic as hell (with all the failed attempts to Charles' life), but then the author manages to show us what it was like to live in such a time especially for a woman that didn't want to comply with her family wishes. The fear of psychiatric  internment was still very much alive back then.

For me the story's setting was better developed than the actual story, or even its characters.

WATCH OUT WATCH OUT OMG!

LOOK WHAT MONROE ABOUT TO BRING

RING AND SING!!!

ALERT THE KING!!!!

PAPER EDITIONS ARE HERE BABY!!!!

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All My Love--------------Monroe