It’s pretty much impossible for me not to enjoy a Toby Daye book – they’ve become my comfort blanket whenever I need to disappear from the real world for a little while and I’ve not yet been disappointed. The Unkindest Tide – the 13th outing for Toby – is no different.
Hundreds of years ago the Roane, children of the Luidaeg, were slaughtered by the Selkies who took their skins for their own. While the Selkies have long known that the Luidaeg will one day call in the debt they owe, it was always a problem for a later generation to deal with. Except the Luidaeg has decided that the time has come.
To complicate matters, Toby’s daughter Gillian is now a Selkie using one the skins to hold off the death that would have resulted from being elf-shot as a human in the previous book. Losing the skin now will return Gillian to that predicament, but Toby owes the Luidaeg and is drawn into the committee that sets off to deliver the Selkies their ultimatum.
But when the denizens of the sea gather at the territory of Captain Pete, another Firstborn, someone seizes the opportunity to murder a Selkie while the youngest child of Diana Lorden is taken hostage in a coup attempt.
The Luidaeg is one of my favourite characters, so any outing where we get to spend more time in her company is always a good one for me. Add in the various underwater races that we get to meet in this less familiar territory, and my pleasure buttons are constantly being pressed – even when the story I’m lost in has the tinge of bittersweetness as it does here.
My only complaint with these books is that the kindle releases in the UK are so far behind, meaning I’m always getting busted bringing new books into the house.
