Dark Tides is the sequel to Tidelands, both by the outstanding author, Philippa Gregory. Each can be read individually, both both tell a compelling story. To reveal details about Dark Tides would give away plot points of the first book, which I am loathe to do. Suffice it to say, Dark Tides is an engrossing story, rich with details of 17th century Old and New World life. I hope she’s planning on writing a third book in the series and I look forward to reading it.

If I had been able to rate this 4.5 stars I would have.

i am quite a fan of Philippa Gregory. As anticipated, this book did not disappoint!

I found the first part of the book dragged just a bit for me (hence leaning towards 4.5 rather than 5 stars), but when it picked up it was a highly enjoyable, “un-put-downable” read!

Characters from The characters that readers connected with in the first book in this series hold center stage again, with the well developed addition of a mysterious dark haired beauty and her son, Matteo, who arrive on the doorstep claiming to be the widow of Alinor’s son, Rob, who, she claims, died by drowning in the marsh lands of Venice, Italy.

Fans of Ms. Gregory’s writing will be delighted with this book, as will fans of good historical fiction or, simply, fiction in general!

Special thanks to Atria books for the opportunity to enjoy an ARC from a favorite author!

Good continuation of the story from Tidelands.
Though it moved slowly at the beginning, it got better the more it went.
I especially liked the ending. I do hope to hear more of Ned's story one day.

It's midsummer 1670 London. I liked the characters,dialogue and descriptions. I liked the environment.

I was not exactly pleased with the cliffhanger ending of Tidelands, but I hoped the sequel, Dark Tides, would explain more and resolve everything. The first book ends on such an unsatisfying cliffhanger, when both Alinor and Alys were both secretly preggers (Alinor was pregnant for ages!) and then revealed to be pregnant, Alys's wedding was cancelled, and they were run out of their depressing marshy town as slutty witches. The second book opens with them living in London, with two young adult "twins" who are either Alinor's, Alys' or one of each, kept very vague for maximum drama. Actually, that sums up the whole book, full of intriguing hints, but kept quiet for maximum drama, for ages and ages.

Alinor's ex reappears, offering a pile of money, marriage, and adoption of whichever child is his heir. Then Rob's widow appears, a Venetian noblewomen with a baby and tragic tale of Rob's drowning death, and starts telling obvious lies and spending all their money.  I found myself skimming because there were just so many scenes of Livia being shady and Alinor silently, skeptically handing over money to her. This is interspersed with a second, equally slow-moving storyline of brother Ned in New England. Again, we have hints of coming tension, dragged on and on.

I read all the way to the end, because I kept thinking I must be missing something, or that something would pull it all together. By the end, when all the drama exploded in about an hour of book-time, I realized I no longer cared to see justice done. I was on Team Nobody by the end.

Thank you to Atria Books and NetGalley for my eARC of this title in exchange for an honest review.

Dark Tides is the second book in the Fairmile series and if you are familiar with Gregory’s work, you know that she is able to spin such historically interesting stories that it does make it hard to put down the book. Dark Tides involves a family living in both late 1600s England and America. One half of the family headed by matriarch Alinor is hard to work attempting to move out of poverty while Alinor’s brother, Ned, lives in newly settled Hadley in New England, working two worlds of white settlers and Native Americans. Alinor also learns of the death of her son, Robert, from his Italian widow, Livia, who shows up one day with Rob’s son in tow.

Livia is the perfect villainess. Just watching her in motion is both a joy and a lesson in “If it seems too good to be true…” The advantages she takes, the opportunities she keeps an eye out for, it would sound very exhausting for most people, but she thrives in such a life. It didn’t really click for me at first regarding her cunning, but when that ball start rolling….hooonnnnneeeeyyyyyy. Now, Sir James…..hmmm. Such a gentleman and I say that with love. /s I actually liked Felipe Russo even with all his calculations. It did my heart some good to watch him and Sarah interact.

Ned’s understanding is what we need more of in this world. It’s hard to think that a lot of the racism and discrimination that was faced by POC in the 1600s still lives on in 2020. I simply wish that he showed more strength. Good intentions are just that….intentions.

Gregory has a way of writing women that I appreciate. They do not fade into the background, they are not just women of their time, you can feel how real they are in a sense. It doesn’t matter if her female characters are “good” or “evil”, they are women living in a difficult era and fighting tooth and nail every day to make that day better than yesterday. I have been a Gregory fan for a long time and I see no reason to stop now. I look forward to the next published work.

This book was so interesting and I feel like it was very well written. I was drawn into this story from the beginning and didn't want to put it down.

First line: The ramshackle warehouse was on the wrong side of the river, the south side, where the buildings jostled for space and the little boats unloaded pocket-size cargos for scant profit.

Summary: Twenty-two years have passed since the events at Foulmire. Alinor and Alys have established themselves in a warehouse along the Thames with a decent income from sailors and merchants. But on the same day two people happen into their lives that will change it once again. Sir James who has spent years in exile is looking for his child. And Rob’s widow from Venice arrives with their young son. The women try to deal with these changes the best they can.

On the other side of the ocean, in New England, Ned has traveled in the hopes of starting a new life where he is free and far from the reaches of the King he hates. But even with an ocean between his old and new life he finds that things are still the same. He has befriended the native people and learned much from them but he is looked down upon for this from his fellow Englishman. He is stuck between two worlds and doesn’t know which side to choose.

My Thoughts: Once again Philippa Gregory writes a stunning book! I loved this just as much as the first one in the trilogy but for different reasons. The first part was very character driven and where the landscape plays an important role. This one is more plot driven but has strong characters and amazing locations. From the very beginning I was strongly invested in the story. At one point I had to put the book down because I was so frustrated with the characters.

I loved being back with Alinor even though she was not the main character anymore. This centered more on her brother, daughter and granddaughter. A new generation of the Reekie family in a new time. The picture of these poor women striving for a living along the Thames is perfectly done. And then we visit Venice in the second half of the story. I can picture the canals, gondolas, and beautiful buildings. I visited Venice years ago and loved the city on the water.

Ned’s life in New England reminded me so much of Gregory’s book, Virgin Earth, with her beautiful descriptions of the forests of America before the settlers cleared the lands. The plants, the people and wildness of the land comes alive in her telling. It is so hard to read about the past at times when you see all the injustices that were done. Settlers took advantage of the natives and treated them terribly.

FYI: This is book two in the Fairmile Trilogy.

I was unable to finish this book, which is painful for me to admit. I love Plilippa Gregory but really struggled with this book and "Tidelands". I'm not sure what is off for me but I listened to "Tidelands" and read "Dark Tides". We meet the characters from "Tidelands" twenty-one years later and the reader will be quite confused if they haven't read the first book. I had a hard time getting into this one and stopped a quarter of the way through. Not my favorite Gregory book, I am sorry to say.

Fantastic atmospheric historical fiction; no one captures the time period and rich historical retelling like Phillipa Gregory. The sequel to Tidelands is a must read. Beautifully written and doesn't disappoint. Thank you NetGalley for allowing me to review this ARC.

My most anticipated read of the year!! And it was SO GOOD. 4.5/5

Alinor Reekie used to be a midwife and herbalist, like her mother and grandmother before her. Years ago, she fell in love with a man she shouldn’t have, and her life fell apart. Now, she is an entirely different woman, sickly and frail, living with her daughter Alys Stoney by the dirty waters of the river. It has been twenty years since Alinor and her children, Alys and Rob, left their beloved home in the tidelands. At the beginning of this story, a beautiful and mysterious Italian woman named Livia arrives at their door with baby in tow, dressed in black mourning clothes, claiming she is Rob Reekie’s widow. Alys welcomes her in, but Alinor isn’t convinced her son is dead. Also! Out of the blue, James Avery shows up to outrage and no-fanfare-whatsoever, after twenty long years of no word at all. He desperate to make amends with Alinor after allowing unspeakable horrors to happen to her long ago. But none of these women nor their circumstances will make it easy for him to reacquaint with Alinor.

Before anything else, I want to say that I LOVE the way Philippa Gregory writes women. The women in this series are such badasses. At first glance, they don’t seem to have much and they seem like their lives matter very little. But these women have a strength that is larger than life and they can handle far more than anyone in their world wants to give them credit for.

This story is not at all like Tidelands in terms of atmosphere and tone. The main POV’s have shifted around a little bit and the world is much larger. The first story took place in a very small community in England, but this story has spread to London, Venice, and New England. It was super compelling and all I wanted to do was read it. (I thought about it nonstop when I couldn’t be reading.) The chapters are short, which made it easy for me to sneak a few pages here and there throughout the day: while I was in the line at the grocery store, while dinner cooked, in between subjects while homeschooling my kids.

Here’s the thing: I had a hunch that something was up with Livia from the beginning. She was coy and her story often didn’t line up with reality. (I loved to hate her!) I kept hoping everyone would wise up to [what I assumed were] her schemes, and then when things really picked up, I couldn’t wait to see how everything would unfold for these characters.

GAH, it’s going to be a long wait for the next part of the story!! The ending thankfully isn’t a cliffhanger, but there is definitely more story to be told. I’m really happy for some of these characters and I really feel like some of them got what was coming to them.

Sidenote: I can’t wait to reread Dark Tides via audiobook. Right before I started this one, I reread Tidelands via audiobook and it was fantastic. Louise Brealey narrated and did such a fantastic job. Her accent is beautiful and I cannot wait to hear her bring Dark Tides to life.

As a fan of Philippa Gregory’s royal family novels for 25 years, I was really looking forward to reading this book. Tidelands (Book 1) was queued on my Kindle but I hadn’t made time to read it. When I was gifted an ARC of Dark Tides (Book 2) by Simon & Schuster via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review, I had to make time. I love historical fiction and love Gregory’s writing style. I was anxious to try this new series as I had taught about the English Civil War but had never read a novel set in this period. However, both these books just seemed to fall flat. I realize Dark Tides is only the second book in a series and there are more threads to pull together to create the big picture, but I pushed myself to finish it and I’m so disappointed. I really wanted to like this series.

Dark Tides, book 2 of The Fairmile Series, continues to follow a family from a remote island in Sussex, England to the lagoon in Venice and finally to frontier USA. It’s a story about deceit and lust interwoven deftly with concern for money, unrequited love and prestige. Gregory has written in the third person sharing three different perspectives; three businesswomen in London during the Restoration, Ned forging a new life in New England, and Sarah intent on uncovering deceit in Venice.

You’ll read about no-nonsense, strong women on the banks of the Thames River who struggle to make an honest living, a deceitful widow who arrives from Venice with a child and attempts to inch her way into a family, a ferryman who rebelled against the Crown now living amongst the native tribes in New England and a wealthy man with royal contacts suffering from unrequited love.

Gregory knows her religion and history; it comes across in the manner the characters interact. However, I struggled with the timelines, identifying the protagonist, connecting with the characters, and was unsure at times why Gregory had added so much superfluous information despite clear, defined characterization and wonderfully descriptive writing. I felt it was not typical of Gregory’s work. I don’t anticipate reading another book in this series.

While I am familiar with Philipps Gregory’s historical fiction, this book Dark Tides is different . It focuses on the low-born Reekie family in London., and their Uncle Ned in the New World. Cromwell is gone and the King has returned, but those machinations are far from the intrigue the Reekies experience. This book was slow to draw me in, but once in, I couldn’t wait to read more. Be persistent in reading this book and you will be rewarded. Ms.Gregory hasn’t lost her touch.

I somehow missed that this was a sequel when I requested it, so I have to admit I was a little lost to start. But after reading a synopsis of the first book in the series, I was back on track. I really do love everything Philippa Gregory writes and I was happy to see a new book from her that wasn't based on the War of the Roses.

This book takes place twenty-one years after the end of "Tidelands". I re-read that, just to remind myself how it ended so now I can remind you. It ended with the town attempting to drown Alinor Reekie for being a witch after the miller's wife discovered money missing, and some of the trinkets Alinor collected in its' place. It turned out Alinor's daughter Alys had taken the money because she was short on her dowry, and it was her wedding day - she knew the family would not allow her to marry their son without the full payment. After the town tries and fails to drown Alinor, Alinor and Alys escape and leave for London to start over.

Now, twenty-one years later, James Avery shows up once again, this time eager to claim the child that Alinor was carrying when they tried to drown her. He needs an heir to his estate and he is a widower with no children so he is ready to accept Alinor and his offspring. At the same time, a beautiful Italian woman in widow's garments shows up carrying a baby saying she is the widow of Alinor's son Rob. She claims he drowned and she is penniless and has nowhere else to go. Alinor refuses to believe Rob is dead and feels something is off about Livia, but she isn't sure what just yet. It is obvious through the entire book that Livia is up to something shady, something to do with her antiquities, or possibly she isn't even who she says she is, but you are not sure what. Livia immediately begins sinking her hooks into James Avery, after realizing he is a wealthy man, and I spent the rest of the book on the edge of my seat as she built her shady house of cards, hoping something would happen to expose her before it was too late.

Interspersed throughout the book are parts about Ned, who has also left the tidelands and is now in New England, where he is living among the Indians and trying to adapt to the new way of living over there.

I have to say, I enjoyed the first book more, but this one was still good. I felt like this seemed to drag at times. Also, I really Like Alinor and there was not much of her in this book and Alys is very unlikable and she is one of the main characters in this one. I really enjoyed Aly's daughter Sarah, though. She had a lot of spunk and I hope to see more of her in future books in the series.

A great sequel and in typical Philippa Gregory fashion, her characters and story are rich with detail and depth. She’s a fantastic storyteller; one of my favorites. This one was a little slow for me compared to some of her other works, but still worth the read!

Dark Tides, the sequel to Tidelands, suffers from a number of flaws — namely, poor characterization, no atmosphere (which she actually had going for her in Tidelands), and the most transparent, preposterous, and convoluted storyline imaginable. If there's a third in this series, I will not be returning for it. This makes me question Gregory's other works — which I have not read, but heard so much about.

First, there's such a slow start to Dark Tides in addition to constant back-and-forth between the two settings: London and New England. Gregory would've done better to not chop it all up, especially at the beginning, into such tiny segments of changing points-of-view to set up the novel. In fact, I really don't think Ned's storyline was necessary at all. Adventures with Ned and his Chain of Ethical Issues (with which most of us agree by now, and which was not common viewpoint back then) that he drags around with him was so clearly draped across his shoulders by the author. The weight of what basically amount to an essay is a lot to carry, especially when all the plot is actually happening across the ocean in London. His story is dull, dry, and entirely predictable, dropping the history lesson like a piano in a cartoon.

The characters themselves suffer from no development, particularly since Gregory once again favors telling and not showing. Twenty years has passed and no one seems to have experienced any growth — aside from the deceptive first ten percent of the book when Gregory lays out some loose groundwork that is meant to do all the heavy lifting for the rest of the book. Alys should be a savvy businesswoman, yet she falls so quickly into allowing herself to be duped that it is wholly unbelievable. How is she more naïve than in the first book?!

And James, with all his talked about heartache and pain, should have experienced more than just passing disappointment once he believes that he has no son and never did. Apparently he never truly loved Alinor; for all his twenty years of pining, with letters sent every year, his feelings seemingly disappear within an instant's notice.

Alinor should be a much wiser woman, given her age, her experiences, and her belief in her gift — she was never a dummy to begin with. And while she's not acting much out of character in this installment, I have to say it's mainly because she's hardly in this book. She's shoved into the corner, barely playing a role. The biggest blow to Alinor's character is actually her relationship with Alys. It is entirely muddied and mishandled. Throughout the book, Alinor continues to keep her feelings hidden from Alys, as though Alys wouldn't understand or believe her. As though they have not lived together Alys's entire life — have not remained close and even gotten closer. It's confounding and disappointing. What a missed opportunity to really display a bond between these two women — having raised two children together — in this time period of history!

Speaking of the children, Johnnie and Sarah, they play strange roles within the story (his basically disappears), but Sarah really shines brighter later on when Alinor sends her on a secret mission to Venice. While the Venice section really picked up the pace in a much needed way, it only added to the absurdity by the end of the book. Sarah herself wasn't much of a character beyond what was needed for the direction of the plot — and she had some conveniences with which I really struggled accepting. Mainly this is centered around Sarah's multilingualism and literacy. I'm willing to accept her level of literacy, seeing as how she's her mother's daughter and whatnot — fine. However, Sarah flippantly remarks that she can speak some Italian and, when in Venice, she acts as though she understands some words only because of her understanding of French. How in the world does this young woman who is an indentured servant and apprentice in a milliner's shop in 1670 London know more than one language on top of being able to read and write with no problems? We are repeatedly told of how poor they are, and how they barely scrape by. I found her character to not only be hard to believe, but to be just a game piece on the board being moved around by the author. She felt completely out of the story.

And then there's Livia. She's obvious from the start and in such a painful way. Utterly transparent, she was exhausting and so thinly developed that she may as well have had an evil cackle she accidentally let loose once in a while. I found it increasingly hard to believe that anyone would fall for her nonsense — not just from the start, but continually so. It only worked because Gregory conveniently has all the characters refusing to talk to each other about things that are happening — it was like a damn YA novel where the main character refuses to ask for help and if she had, all the problems would've been solved and there would've been no story.

However, on top of that I have a real issue with the pseudo-relationship between Alys and Livia. Livia clearly works at seducing Alys into trusting her, capitalizing on her years of loneliness. But the vagueness with which Gregory leaves their scenes hanging ... you have to simply guess at what exactly happens in their shared bed. How far does Livia take the deceptive relationship? How far does Alys allow it to go? And for someone who dropped the word ‘cock’ without hesitation in Tidelands, I find it hard to imagine that Gregory simply wanted a nondescript (let's say) scene. Was it just because it was two women? Disappointingly unbalanced. And what does that say about Livia? She's another villainous LGBTQ+ person who wields her sexuality any which way she wants? What does this say about Alys? Is she bisexual? Was she just manipulated with very little effort? What are we doing here?

Regardless, the book loses itself halfway through once James proposes to Livia — at that point it completely stops making sense. Tell and not showing strikes again. I typically don't like being so far removed from the characters, but having a baffling storyline on top of that made for a frustrating and painful read.

Philippa Gregory brings her rich insight into human behavior, her deft touch with narrative and her extraordinary knowledge to the period to a novel which follows up on her previous TIDELANDS. While love unrequited was the touchstone for the earlier novel, DARK TIDES is spun around deception--which makes this a grimmer read in many respects. It isn't absolutely necessary to have read TIDELANDS before this, but I suspect it helps. A wonderfully wrought, complicated and ambitious novel for any lover of historical fiction.

Dark Tides by Philippa Gregory

480 Pages
Publisher: Atria Books
Release Date: November 24, 2020

Fiction (Adult), Historical Fiction, Family Drama

The story begins on Midsummer Eve 1670. Livia, Rob’s widow, has come from Venice to London to live with his family. She is horrified to find they are a poor family and sets her sights on marrying into nobility. Alinor sends her granddaughter Sarah to Venice to find out if Rob is really dead. Ned has left England for the colonies. Winter is approaching and he is trying to adapt to the cold weather and relations between the colonists and the indigenous people.

The theme of first book in the series, Tidelands, was unrequited love. This book is all about deceit. It is written in the third person from three different perspectives: Ned in New England, Sarah in Venice, and the three women in London. The story is fast paced, and the characters are well developed. There were twists in the book that I did not see coming and the ending makes me long for the next book in the series to see what will happen next. This book did not disappoint at all and I highly recommend it.

The Fairmile #2

This is the follow up to Tidelands.

The year is 1670. Midsummer Eve. On the poor side of London’s wharf area two women work hard to survive. They have both been treated horribly by the men in their lives and they must make their own way in the world.

I really think you should read the first book before this one. I was in the dark most of the time.

London at this time was no place for a woman. Men ran the world and treated women as less than human.

When an old lover shows up no one is happy to see him. There is some backstory there I never got.

Next a brash woman from Italy who claims she has the older woman’s son's child and the son has died.

I have to say I wanted to like this, but it was so depressing and dark. I thought the grandmother and the granddaughter were the only decent characters.

We will give the next one a try, however.

NetGalley/ November 24th, 2020 by Atria Books