BLOOD ON THE TIDE by Katee Robert
- Mia Textual
- Apr 4, 2024
- 8 min read
Katee Robert's Ultimate Edging: a Tale of Homicidal Maniacs and Soft-Hearted Rebels
Blood on the Tide by Katee Robert is the second book of her Crimson Sails series. A fantasy romance between our favorite homicidal vampire, Lizzie, and the soft-hearted selkie Maeve, Blood on the Tide is very much a sea-faring romance. On her quest to recover her stolen family heirlooms, Lizzie is forced to help Nox, one of the leaders of the Rebellion, save Maeve. While Nox wants Maeve to return to her role gathering information for the rebellion, the selkie only wants to recover her stolen pelt. So who else to make a deal with but the sexy vampire who's on her own search and is powerful enough to paint the walls red?
This book fell a bit short of the first one, Hunt on Dark Waters, but I still found it a solid read. I really enjoyed the first book, and I consider it one of my favorite Katee Robert books. This series is definitely more plot-driven than some of her others, which comes at the cost of less smut. (But not to worry, there are still plenty of good spicy scenes.) I loved the world Robert built here. Threshold is so fascinating, and Book 1 did a great job of exploring it. My main gripe with Blood on the Tide is that I wished Robert used the world more to her advantage. While every element of the book was solid and well developed, I feel like each could have used a little more pizzaz to bring me over the edge.
The World Building
I really wished Katee explored more of the Threshold portion of the book more. The portals and the Cwn Annwn were a much larger part of the first book, and while this book does dabble in the resistance and does some island hopping, this book could have been set in just about any ocean-scape with some weird islands. The only thing that indicated that this world was not like ours were the large diversity of species (which would be seen in any typical urban fantasy) and descriptions of some weird foliage (I did like the purple plants that Lizzie were allergic too).
One of my favorite parts of Threshold is the portals. With the sheer amount of portals that opened up into strange lands, so many interesting things could have been done. Lizzie popping through a portal looking the picture of vengeance was one of the standout scenes in Book 1. But in this book, besides some cursory mentions of an eventual search for a portal to bring Lizzie home, nothing is really done with them. They could have not existed at all, and the plot of the book would be the same. There was no need for this story to be set in the Threshold, it could've been copy and pasted into any oceanic world.
The one part that did amuse me with the worldbuilding is how much Katee Robert used magic to get past the logistics of a situation. A discerning reader would ask questions of how do you stay comfortable in a small ship or how do you take baths in a non-tech world covered in blood? And while many authors choose to ignore the logistics of this, Robert uses the world's magic to explain away the inconsistencies. Here are pocket realms in the boat that provide spacious living areas and plumbing! Here's a magic tub spelled to keep the temperature perfect and the water clean! Robert is very aware that these things realistically do not make sense, but she just pats you on the head and lets the vague promise of magic take care of it. It's an incredibly clever way to let us know the focus on the book here is going to be on the Maeve and Lizzie, and let's not worry our pretty little head with the boring details.
Character Development
Lizzie is an incredibly fascinating character and Katee Robert does a good job of fleshing out why she works the way she does in a succinct way. I did not realize that Lizzie here is the sister of one of the vampires in Robert's Bloodline Vampires series. I read the first two books of the series, but never finished it (I think either the library hold was too long (STOP DEFUNDING LIBRARIES! to learn more about New York library budget cuts and to show your support, please visit Invest in Libraries) or I read up to the amount of books published and I didn't keep up with the new releases). I did remember fairly enjoying the series, and this book made me more intrigued to finish it. But the family dynamics Robert weaves in explains a lot of how Lizzie became such a prolific murderess.
Because Robert traditionally writes shorter novels/novellas, she's gotten very good at getting the bare bones of a character across the page in the shortest amount of time. Book 1 Lizzie seemed like an invincible killing machine, and book 2 does a lot of work humanizing her. From her fear of the ocean to her allergies, Robert does a fantastic job shifting our view of Lizzie to someone who can feel profound emotions and is capable of maintaining a healthy relationship.
However, Blood on the Tides is very much a full length novel (gasp! I know), and Robert failed to take that extra step that the additional word count allows. In a novella, I would be completely fine with the amount of character development Robert fit in. But given the length of the book, I found that there were still some missing pieces.
Mainly, Lizzie's reasons on why she needs the heirlooms so badly is never fully developed, and so I never completely understood her motivations. If these heirlooms really were that special, why were they just on a random bowl on some mantel that Maeve could easily steal from (this may not be the exact way this went down but it captures the essence)? Also if the heirlooms were so important Lizzie would jump through a portal to an unknown realm to retrieve them, what actually were they? I don't think Katee Robert fully explained what the heirlooms actually were at any point in the book. In my mind, Lizzie's family is incredibly rich, so why do a few pieces of jewelry mean that much to her? What were her emotional ties to them? Without expanding upon the importance of the heirlooms, I couldn't care about whether or not she recovers them or not and I found her end choices lacking any emotional impact or consequence.
Maeve was sweet and likable. I don't think too much stood out about her. She starts off as any typical rebellion side-character that eventually finds her spine. I do like how Robert admits many times that it's an incredible cliche that she's a selkie that lost her pelt. It was nice seeing her grow through the book and develop her strength. Her character is much less nuanced than Lizzie's which is both a pro and a con. Maeve's development and growth is easy to understand and hard to criticize.
Relationship Development
Maeve and Lizzie have a surprisingly sweet relationship and I like how they even each other out. I will say, this book is the epitome of the morality chain trope. Morality chain is when one character has absolutely no moral compass but meets another character who "chains" them and inspires them to be good. Generally, morality chain is not one of my favorite tropes. If you're developing a villain, I prefer it when the author leans into their evilness. If you're writing a redemption arc, I prefer it when the villain does so on their own accord and not for someone else. Morality chain leans a little too much into the "I can fix you" territory, and one wrong move can make this fall apart.
That being said, I do think Katee Robert walks the morality chain edge-of-the-knife pretty successfully. Lizzie is able to channel her murderous inclinations from "kill everything on sight" to "kill anything that threatens Maeve." This of course, is a trope that I ADORE. But again, like everything else in this book, I felt like this could've been developed more. You hear Lizzie talk about this a lot, but there isn't a lot of action backing it up. Perhaps I am a ~tad bloodthirsty but I really would've liked to see Lizzie actually rip people apart for threatening Maeve. I did however, appreciate her inaction of refusing to kill people that annoy her solely on the basis of not upsetting Maeve.
Also, this relationship is clearly built upon forced proximity. I see that they are sexually attracted to each other, and they grow to like each other personally as well. But if the two were given the ability to separate, I don't truly buy why they would choose each other out of everyone else. I did enjoy the Hyacinth scene showing that they do prefer each other over strangers even when given attractive alternatives, but the why isn't completely there. A little extra emotional connection between the two would've really helped.
Plot Development
For a Katee Robert book, there is a lot of plot here. For a romantasy book, there really is not a lot of plot. Blood on the Tide is doing a lot of work setting up the world and the rebellion. More characters are put on the board and more allies are made. But in terms of actual plot, not a whole lot happens.
The selkie pelt recovery plot line get resolved incredibly quickly. I did like this though, because it's clear that the emphasis is not on Bronagh (the man who steals Maeve's pelt). His ending is swift and uneventful and the whole sequence occurs relatively early in the book. This really showed that Bronagh is not important to either the plot or to Maeve, and shifted the focus from Maeve the Victim to Maeve the Rebel. It allows Robert to develop the relationship more in terms of how can we make this work when one person is dedicated to leaving the realm and one is dedicated to committing herself to bettering it rather than how do we get over the exes?
But once the pelt is recovered, not much happens. The book shifts much more towards developing their relationship and showing them getting over their fears and preconceived notions. Very little happens with the rebellion and very little happens with the Cwn Annwn (besides meeting a few more players). And like I've said multiple times already, this is acceptable for a novella, but for a book of this length, how did so little action occur?
I did, however, like the mix of plot and smut. Robert knows when smut is needed to push the relationship forward and when a fade to black is needed to push the plot forward. She balances the two so well and at no point did I find myself trying to skip through certain segments to get to the next.
Final Thoughts
Overall a solid read if you're looking for a light romance. I wouldn't go so far as to call it a romantasy as it's much more a romance that happens to have fantastical elements as plot drivers. Given the longer length of the novel, Katee Robert had the opportunity to develop all the elements of her story in much more detail. However, I felt like we were incredibly edged in this book. While the world, the characters, the relationship, and the plot all hit the spot, I found myself needing more to really get there. Katee Robert provides the basics, and provides them well, but more is needed to elevate this book to soul-shattering pleasure.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the free eARC in exchange for an honest review.
Ratings
⭐⭐⭐1/2 overall
🔥🔥🔥3/4 (this is a mild katee roberts book)
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