Here are 7 books that Upon a Starlit Tide fans have personally recommended if you like
Upon a Starlit Tide.
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I love The Sirens because of its deftly woven structure that explores the dangers of the ocean, the mysteries of femininity, and the bond between women. Two sets of sisters, Jess and Lucy, who are living in contemporary Australia, and Mary and Eliza, born in late 1700’s Ireland and forced to endure a harrowing ocean journey, are the featured characters in this novel which blends true crime disappearances with ancient folklore. The result is a text that drips with watery images of a salt-laced sea and a mystery that kept me reading well into the night. Like the sirens of old, Hart’s prose sings, inviting readers to drown in its depths. I couldn’t put it down!
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK • #1 LibraryReads Pick • Indie Next Pick
A spellbinding novel about sisters separated by centuries, but bound together by the sea, from the author of the runaway New York Times bestseller Weyward
2019: Lucy awakens from a dream to find her hands around her ex-lover's throat. Horrified, she flees to her older sister's house on the Australian coast, hoping she can help explain the strangely vivid nightmare that preceded the attack―but Jess is nowhere to be found.
As Lucy awaits her return, the rumors surrounding Jess's…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I love The Call of the Sea because it combines Arthurian lore, mermaid legends, and pirate life with beautiful descriptions, sweeping me away to a fantasy realm that serves as a mirror of the real world. This is the first book in The Grail Cycle, and though I normally prefer standalone novels, the writing pulled me in from the beginning, and I look forward to reading more books in the series. Schumacher provides romance, adventure, oceanic folklore, and magic into one gem of a story, and her plot and characters are fresh and engaging takes on the old tales and experiences that inform human life. Two sequels, A Song of Magic and On this Broken Earth await those who devour the first book and want to read more.
Once, the world was ruled by those with magic in their blood.
But once was a long time ago ...
Ever since magic was outlawed in Kernou, Jenyfer Astolat has been living with a secret that would see her bound to the stake as food for the sea. But when her reckless lies see her married to a man she does not love, Jenyfer has to forget fleeing town — and forget about Ordes Merlyni, the charming pirate who has been helping her wield magic in secret.
Arthur Tregarthen never wanted to be a leader, but it's a duty he…
Sorcha, the seventh child and only daughter of Lord Colum, faces the difficult task of having to save her family from its enemies, who have bewitched her father and six older brothers while forcing her to choose between the life she has always known and a special love.
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
I’m a bit fairy tale obsessed. I love how the characters go into the woods and face wolves, witches, stepmothers, and ogres. But despite the abuse and neglect and trauma, they somehow emerge whole. These five books each have a unique heroine, not with a sword, but with her own quiet strength. Each one is a cathartic but reassuring guide into the woods and out again, acknowledging that though there will be hurt and heartbreak, transformation and healing will follow. If you love fairy tales for the same reasons I do, come, step onto the path. The magic of hope and healing awaits.
Before reading Deerskin, I wouldn’t have believed any author could get away with writing a retelling of the "Donkeyskin"/"All Kinds of Fur" tale—and yet, Robin McKinley does a superb job.
McKinley keeps readers at a bit of a remove from this triggering tale (the one in which a lecherous king wants to marry his daughter), giving it a bit of a darkly dreamlike, dissociative quality. I love the way she focuses on the heroine’s healing rather than the trauma or its perpetrator.
It’s the tale of a long, dark teatime of the soul, and a quiet, very spiritual book.
“A fierce and beautiful story of rage and compassion, betrayal and loyalty, damage and love...A fairy tale for adults, one you'll never forget.”—Alice Hoffman, New York Times bestselling author of The Rules of Magic
The only daughter of a beloved king and queen, Princess Lissar has grown up in the shadow of her parent’s infinite adoration for each other—an infatuation so great that it could only be broken by the queen’s unexpected passing. As Lissar reaches womanhood, it becomes clear to everyone in the kingdom that she has inherited her late mother’s breathtaking beauty. But on the eve of her…
I’m a bit fairy tale obsessed. I love how the characters go into the woods and face wolves, witches, stepmothers, and ogres. But despite the abuse and neglect and trauma, they somehow emerge whole. These five books each have a unique heroine, not with a sword, but with her own quiet strength. Each one is a cathartic but reassuring guide into the woods and out again, acknowledging that though there will be hurt and heartbreak, transformation and healing will follow. If you love fairy tales for the same reasons I do, come, step onto the path. The magic of hope and healing awaits.
No book I’ve read before or since has made me feel seen the way Wendy, Darling does.
Author A.C. Wise perfectly captures the way a person’s past experience can be traumatic, and yet they still cling to it and think of it nostalgically. It felt like the author was inside my head (or I was in hers—but she was able to articulate things I never could). It’s cathartic and emotionally hard-hitting, and the writing is gorgeous. I love that Wendy is far from perfect but loves her found family fiercely and is on a path toward sorting herself out.
And yes, I know that some people don’t think of Peter Pan as a proper fairy tale, but I love this book too much to leave it out.
A lush, feminist re-imagining on what happened to Wendy after Neverland, for fans of Circe and The Mere Wife.
LOCUS AWARD FINALIST FOR BEST FIRST NOVEL
Find the second star from the right, and fly straight on 'til morning, all the way to Neverland, a children's paradise with no rules, no adults, only endless adventure and enchanted forests - all led by the charismatic boy who will never grow old.
But Wendy Darling grew up. She has a husband and a young daughter called Jane, a life in London. But one night, after all these years, Peter Pan returns. Wendy…
I’m a bit fairy tale obsessed. I love how the characters go into the woods and face wolves, witches, stepmothers, and ogres. But despite the abuse and neglect and trauma, they somehow emerge whole. These five books each have a unique heroine, not with a sword, but with her own quiet strength. Each one is a cathartic but reassuring guide into the woods and out again, acknowledging that though there will be hurt and heartbreak, transformation and healing will follow. If you love fairy tales for the same reasons I do, come, step onto the path. The magic of hope and healing awaits.
This book has everything I want in a fairy tale novel: an immersive setting, green magic, romance, shape-shifting creatures, and of course, resilience and healing.
Before I read Kell Wood’s debut novel, I had never thought about the long-term consequences Hansel and Gretel surely experienced at the hands of the witch in the gingerbread house, but now I can’t un-see it. Of course, these two people, now young adults, would have some serious (but unique) struggles.
Also, I love it when an author weaves multiple fairy tales and/or folkloric elements into a story, and Woods is fantastic at this!
After the Forest is a dark and enchanting fantasy debut from Kell Woods that explores the repercussions of a childhood filled with magic and a young woman contending with the truth of “happily ever after.”
Ginger. Honey. Cinnamon. Flour.
Twenty years after the witch in the gingerbread house, Greta and Hans are struggling to get by. Their mother and stepmother are long dead, Hans is deeply in debt from gambling, and the countryside lies in ruin, its people starving in the aftermath of a brutal war.
Greta has a secret, though: the witch's grimoire, hidden away and whispering in Greta's…
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
I’m a bit fairy tale obsessed. I love how the characters go into the woods and face wolves, witches, stepmothers, and ogres. But despite the abuse and neglect and trauma, they somehow emerge whole. These five books each have a unique heroine, not with a sword, but with her own quiet strength. Each one is a cathartic but reassuring guide into the woods and out again, acknowledging that though there will be hurt and heartbreak, transformation and healing will follow. If you love fairy tales for the same reasons I do, come, step onto the path. The magic of hope and healing awaits.
This reimagining of the La Llorona legend hooked me with its perfect, gorgeous first line and would not let me go.
I loved author Maria DeBlassie’s unique voice and her loving depiction of the Southwest US. But most of all, I love the way Weep, Woman, Weep digs in to intergenerational trauma, and the way women inherit it from their mothers and, if they aren’t careful, pass it on to their daughters in return.
This is a story first and foremost of resilience, though. I wept all the way through, and it was so worth it.
A compelling gothic fairytale by bruja and award-winning writer Maria DeBlassie.
The women of Sueño, New Mexico don't know how to live a life without sorrows. That's La Llorona's doing. She roams the waterways looking for the next generation of girls to baptize, filling them with more tears than any woman should have to hold. And there's not much they can do about the Weeping Woman except to avoid walking along the riverbank at night and to try to keep their sadness in check. That's what attracts her to them: the pain and heartache that gets passed down from one…
