by

Sweet Black Waves by Kristina Pérez: Exciting and Sweet But Not Quite My Taste

Hey, all, it’s Alexa! Next up from my spring/summer reads list, we have new, magical retelling of the Tristan and Iseult tale, Sweet Black Waves by Kristina Pérez.

Description from Author’s Website:

Two proud kingdoms stand on opposite shores, with only a bloody history between them.

As best friend and lady-in-waiting to the princess, Branwen is guided by two principles: devotion to her homeland and hatred for the raiders who killed her parents. When she unknowingly saves the life of her enemy, he awakens her ancient healing magic and opens her heart.

Branwen begins to dream of peace, but the princess she serves is not so easily convinced. Fighting for what’s right, even as her powers grow beyond her control, will set Branwen against both her closet confidant and the only man she’s ever loved.

Inspired by the star-crossed tale of Tristan and Eseult, this is the story of the legend’s true heroine: Branwen. For fans of Graceling and The Mists of Avalon, this is the first book of a lush fantasy trilogy about warring countries, family secrets, and forbidden romance.

Plot:

This one’s got a sweet, but slow start. The beginning focuses on explaining the magic and the world, the backstory and relationships; it’s not till around the middle that things actually start to happen. I mean, it was interesting, learning all the foundational bits of what would kickstart the rest of the story, but in my opinion, it was a little slow.

However, once the plot gets going, it gets going; absolutely riveting, I was glued to the story, speed-reading the last two hundred and fifty pages because I had to know how it ended! Even when things seemed to be going well, there was an overhanging sense of foreboding that kept me devouring chapters, certain that SOMETHING was about to go down and it was going to be big and it was going to bad.

As it happened, my reader instincts were… absolutely right. I won’t give spoilers, but the thing was big, it was bad, and it’s likely going to cause 99.9% of the problems for the rest of the series. However, even though I did see it coming, the way it occurred made me kind of uncomfortable and the kind of conflict it’s going to cause isn’t really the type that I enjoy reading about. So even though it probably had to happen to continue the story, it wasn’t the ending I’d hoped for.

So, overall for plot, I say: sweet but slow start, exciting middle, and a slightly predictable ending with a twist that’s just not my taste.

Plot: 3 ½ stars out of 5.

Characters:

To be honest, I had a lot of trouble with these characters. I liked Branwen overall because I related to her sense of duty and I LOVED her undying loyalty to her cousin. It’s so rare to read relationships like theirs in YA, and it was just so refreshing to see that kind of pure and utter devotion dedicated to her little cousin. It’s an intensity of feeling that’s normally reserved—at least in YA—for romantic partners; and though I don’t strictly mind those (depending on how they’re done), it was nice to see that loyalty in a family setting instead. It showed there’s more to love than having a significant other and that there are other people in your life who can and should be that valuable to you.

As far as the others, they’re where the trouble comes in. Essy was pretty selfish. I mean, I know she was supposed to be; I know it drove the story, but I just couldn’t like her. She would have willingly ruined her kingdom multiple times, simply because she thought she knew what she wanted and she assumed that her crush was more important than peace between two kingdoms and thousands of people. Like, I get that she was young and had a lot of responsibility, but people were depending on her; she couldn’t just abandon them—yet she would have gladly. Plus, she could hurl some pretty brutal insults when she was angry, and they were almost always at the people who loved her most. She wasn’t without positive traits, but her negative traits made more appearances and made a lot of scenes with her very difficult.

Tristan was nice enough, but I was never sure if I could trust him. He was sweet, honorable, protective, noble, etc., but I just always felt kinda iffy about him, which made it hard to ship the pair or to particularly enjoy his character.

As far as the other characters, I don’t really have anything to say about them. They’re not badly written, but unfortunately, I just had a lot of trouble getting behind this cast.

Characters: 3 stars out of 5.

Writing Style/Setting:

The setting was very classic medieval—which I love—however, there were a lot of times when the style and storytelling either got too graphically violent or too into dark magic. The battle scenes and executions were probably accurate, but they were more descriptive than I was prepared for. And, although I enjoy most magic, several scenes in this book fell farther on the occult side than I personally am comfortable reading about. I did like a lot of it, but some scenes just felt disturbing.

Writing Style/Setting: 3 stars out of 5.

Overall, we come in at about 3 stars out of 5. I give Sweet Black Waves an overall positive rating because I don’t think it’s badly written; there were just a lot of things in the story that weren’t for me. If it sounds like the sort of thing you’d enjoy though, you can pick up a copy here for $14.73.

Read any fantasy lately? Stories where the main relationship wasn’t a romantic one? Can’t wait to hear from you and I will see you in the comment section.

Love, Alexa ❤

Notes: I voluntarily and honestly reviewed a free copy.

Content Warnings: descriptive violence, some gore, dark magic, sexual content.

Themes, Lessons, and Values: sisterly love, devotion to family, freedom of choice, the cost of choices, doing one’s duty, sacrificing one’s own desires for family and country.

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *