User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
Richly dark and enthralling! The premise of Tidepool with it’s Lovecraftian vibe sucked me in with vivid imagery and deliciously creepy lore. Sorrow’s brother has not returned from a business trip to Tidepool and it is not like him to disappear without notice. Against her father’s wishes she travels to Tidepool and soon realizes the town has a lot to hide from outsiders and some will stop at nothing to protect their town.
I expected an enticing horror read but not in the ghastly forms of what lurked in these pages. I was riveted as Sorrow unlocks the secret behind her brother’s disappearance and the town around her erupts into chaos. Sorrow was a well-developed character. She has a genuine heart and righteous attitude that makes it easy to appreciate her perspective. Her persona follows a believable path of change as the fear slowly eats away at her. I was honestly impressed with the start to finish aspect of Sorrow as she morphs physically and mentally in this book. She isn’t all though. Ada and Quentin Oliver are just as fleshed out and unique as Sorrow. Each with a colorful past and characteristics that make you appreciate what they do for the plot.
The POVs fluctuate between a few of the characters but not in any way that makes the story confusing. I loved the backstory on Ada that was added. She is seriously a mixture of haunting, admirable and soulless that I could not turn away from. The writing style is easy to follow and expertly descriptive. I did feel it was a little longer than needed in some areas, but my anxiousness may be to blame for that. This is set in 1913 and there is a semi disturbing sexual scene. Also, a good dash of gore and murder and floating people parts. This is a horror after all, and you’ll probably never look at dark ocean depths the same way again.
Thank you to Parliament Press and Nicole Willson for the opportunity to read this gifted ARC in exchange for an honest review. If you love ghastly, gory and unique reads set in older eras than I highly recommend this. Especially if you’re a Lovecraft connoisseur.
True rating 4.5/5.
Rating: really liked it
*received from NG for some reason**
This is a lovecrafty-gothic horror type thing, set in early 20th century America and centering on a rundown coastal town with dark secrets. The heroine, Sorrow, has come to Tidepool in order to discover what’s happened to her missing brother—although this isn’t much of a mystery to the reader because we find out in the prologue.
I wanted to like this more than, in practice, I did. It has lots of elements I usually find appealing—and there’s definitely a decent sense of atmosphere alongside some moments of pleasing creepiness—but the writing and the characterisation ultimately fell pretty flat to me. The brother is kind of a lechy dick for the two seconds he’s on page, so it was hard to care that he was eaten by sea monsters (not a spoiler, he’s eaten by sea monsters literally in the prologue), even if he was an important to Sorrow. As for Sorrow herself, she’s got that independent heroine vibe going, but I never really felt I knew who she was. The secondary characters, similarly, had a sketched quality to them that never quite let them feel like individuals.
By far the most interesting character is the antagonist, Mrs Oliver—but, with only one chapter from her POV, I personally felt there wasn’t enough of her. I think she’s meant to be a dark reflection of Sorrow but the only reason I think this is because she literally gives the “we are not so unalike, you and I” speech near the end of the book. She also has faint queer vibes, although they ultimately manifest in her having dubiously consensual sex with her abusive husband and then murdering him in a scene that I found somewhat uncomfortable. And not in the “ooh, I’m out of my comfort zone” sense so much as the “I don’t quite understand what you’re trying to say with this” sense.
I also felt the middle section of the book degenerated the oddest quadrille around whether the heroine was going to leave Tidepool. I suspect this is an integral problem to what you might call place-based horror: you keep having to address the question of why the protagonist just doesn’t get the fuck out of there. The problem here was that the book kept addressing it, and then addressing it some more, with various characters apparently rolling a dice every morning to decide whether they were going to demand she leave or insist she stay. For me, the issue here wasn’t so much that the heroine doesn’t leave—with this kind of story, one suspends disbelief around such ideas. It was on-going hokey-cokey around it that made it feel like a distraction from the … you know. The actual story of whatever creepy shit was going down in Tidepool, and the degree its denizens were complicit in it.
And while the final reckoning in Tidepool felt both inevitable and darkly satisfying, this was not, in the end, the conclusion of the story. We move forward in time, jumping perspectives between Sorrow herself, Sorrow’s father, and Mrs Oliver’s weird brother. I think this was meant to give the events at Tidepool an impact beyond a single place and time, except it didn’t fully work for me. Not least because the very final chapter includes a trans woman named Natalie whose sole narrative purpose seems to involve being misgendered by some dickheads. Again, this is complicated—and it is definitely not my place to pass judgement on the representation of marginalised groups to which I do not belong—but I don’t think anyone is served by this particular inclusion since Natalie’s transness is less about her than about the cis-gaze of both the aforementioned dickheads and indeed (rightly or wrongly) the narrative.
Anyway, Tidepool didn’t end up working for me. But it’s certainly an engaging read, especially for fans of gothic-Lovecraftian horror.
Rating: really liked it
'Tidepool' is a dark, dank, deathly story about fate, truth, and human relationships. The story is set in Tidepool, a mysterious oceanside town harbouring deadly secrets beneath its ominous waters. After her brother goes missing on a business trip, Sorrow Hamilton ventures out to the eerie town where secrets alive and dead bind and menace her to its terrifying curse. A sinister woman dressed in black and macabre things that wash ashore haunt and horrify Sorrow until she is able to uncover the true goings on of the creepy town.
Atmospheric, tantalizing, and suspenseful, 'Tidepool' is dark gothic fantasy at its finest. The author Nicole Willson’s evocative writing creates a sense of doom and gloom that will keep readers on the edge of their seats. Willson’s dark elegant characterization and vintage horror inspiration, stains every page of this engrossing tale.
I look forward to reading more from the author.
Thank you to the publisher for providing me with a free ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review
Rating: really liked it
The creeping dread of Lovecraftian horror by way of American Horror Story - Tidepool will ensure you never look at the ocean the same way again!
Rating: really liked it
Super enjoyed Tidepool. Super inspiring female lead, venturing out [in 1913 no less] to rescue her brother and take matters in her own hand, even continuing as the gnarly, green and wet tentacle thingies rise from the deep. Bumbling non-committal men are along for the ride except one young/old fellow who is treated with kindness. Amidst the gore and the horror is REAL humanity from start to finish and that is not easy to do in a genre that is saturated with attempts to outdo Lovecraft in grossness and piling on tropes. Splendid debut!!!
Rating: really liked it
The pervasive odors of salt water and fish wafted off the nearby ocean, but another smell lurked underneath those, something even less pleasant. Henry couldn’t identify it, but it reminded him somewhat of the stench of a dead animal rotting in the woods. The putrid smell suited Tidepool well. The longer Henry remained here, the more anxious he felt to get home.1913. Young Sorrow Hamilton travels alone to the coastal town of Tidepool looking for her missing brother Henry despite her father’s orders to stay at home in Baltimore, just to meet silence and hostility from the local residents.
“Is it always this quiet in Tidepool, Mrs. Oliver?” He saw almost no other people out on the street. “I suppose so. People tend not to like going out at night.” “Oh? Why’s that?” “There are mostly silly, superstitious folk around here. They talk of ghosts. And sea monsters, if you can imagine.” She let out a chuckle that didn’t sound even the slightest bit amused.So, after ravaged corpses, torn apart by something not human at all, start appearing on the shore, Sorrow is ready to leave Tidepool and leave the search for her brother to her father’s investigators at last.
Mrs. Oliver lifted a lantern from the table and led him out of the sitting room to a door in the hallway. She paused, glancing back at him. “Please be careful on the steps. Lucy prefers the basement, and it’s rather dim down here.” Lucy? What sort of a child—and a girl, at that—liked to linger in dark, dank basements? And why didn’t Mrs. Oliver just call the child upstairs?Such a shame that fate and some denizens of Tidepool are willing to take action on making sure Sorrow never leaves their forsaken town and reveals to the world its dark, deadly secrets.
An entertaining gothic horror mash-up with great, thrilling atmosphere, gore and strong lovecraftian vibes.
As Sorrow passed a cemetery on her way to Cooper’s, her eyes were drawn to a hand painted sign stuck in the ground close to the gates. The wood bore a stark message painted in square black letters: If ye give not willingly, the Lords will rise. Whatever on earth that meant and whoever the Lords were, the graveyard looked positively vast for such a small town, and Sorrow shuddered.Not bad at all, sadly the setting and atmospheres were far more interesting than the cast of characters starring here, excluding Lady Ada Oliver’s depiction and backstory that I just loved a lot.
Besides, the rushed mystery revelations in the first chapters, main character’s name hinting things are not going to end well at all for her since the start, sex, blood and gore popping out sometimes just to remind the reader this was not a young adult novel, and a drawn-out epilogue after an already satisfying final reckoning, and final result was for me a creepy engaging read, just not as good as could have been.
Sorrow slipped out of bed and cracked the window open slightly in the hopes that the rhythmic sounds of the ocean might soothe her. As she settled down on the hard mattress and closed her eyes, she heard voices. Whispers. Murmurs. Low, sibilant sounds that made her think of hissing.Three stars and an half.
Rating: really liked it
Do not go to Tidepool. Unless you want hungry ocean gods to feast on you. As a fan of sinister seasides and Lovecraftian overtones, I had a blast reading Tidepool.
Sorrow Hamilton loves her brother Henry. When he goes missing, she follows him to Tidepool, the last place he visited before disappearing. The small shoreline city seems boring and its residents backward-thinking. Just when Sorrow wants to leave, a body washes up on the beach. From there, things only get worse.
Once I started it, I couldn't put the book down. With twists and scares aplenty, Tidepool won me over with its creepy atmosphere, well-rounded characters, and compelling mystery.
ARC through NetGalley
Rating: really liked it
This was good fun. Or maybe bad fun? Because it is a horror novel, and it delivers on those things that people expect from horror novels like the claustrophobic setting that characters mysteriously cannot escape from. And the extravagant true story that half the cast just cannot believe. I would've liked to know more about the monsters/spend more time with them, but perhaps that will be in another novel.
Rating: really liked it
TIDEPOOL had me by the collar right from the jump. I finished it in less than 24 hours.
Let’s start with the world-building. With any genre of fiction, immersive descriptions are the first indicator I will enjoy a book. If I am grounded in the environment enough to feel as if I’m experiencing events right along with the characters, I know I won’t be able to put a book down.
Nicole Willson does this effortlessly. (Which means she took a *lot* of effort as a writer, because the depth of her research shows itself with her historical world-building.) I could see, hear, and even smell Tidepool, the fictional coastal town where the novel is set.
Sorrow is a wonderful lead character with a wonderfully ironic name. When she goes to Tidepool to investigate the recent disappearance of her beloved older brother, she encounters an intriguing cast of locals...and hears disturbing rumors of an ancient eldritch horror that holds the town hostage.
Insular small towns with dark secrets and a snarling wariness toward strangers are a favorite trope in Gothic fiction. I truly felt for and empathized with Sorrow as she kept coming up against the meddling townsfolk and the endless, frustrating dead ends that complicated her quest for the truth.
As for villains, I swoon for a fully-realized Byronic antiheroine who is just as well formed and seductive as her oft-portrayed male counterparts. In Ada, Willson has created a brooding and sinister foil for Sorrow’s youthful exuberance. I fell in love with Ada’s malevolent presence in this book. Her backstory had me riveted. Even though her actions were dubious, her reasons for doing as she did made for an antagonist with sympathetic qualities. She was my favorite character and I couldn’t help but picture Eva Green while reading her.
The horror elements and monsters were well-placed and didn’t feel forced or contrived. While parts of the book are darkly humorous, the sense of looming dread is carried effectively throughout, ramping up fear and anticipation ahead of the climax.
This is a quick read, coming in just under 300 pages, and will satisfy readers who enjoy Lovecraftian horror. Readers who enjoyed Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent and Melmoth will also enjoy this book. I’m excited to see what Nicole Willson creates next!
You can pre-order TIDEPOOL from your favorite bookseller.
Rating: really liked it
Eh! This was entertaining, but also repetitive and fairly predictable. I also found there is a certain amount of presentism which grates me in historical fiction.
Henry Hamilton went to the small coastal town of Tidepool, Maryland, to explore the possibility of developing the area into a resort town. But he never makes it back home to Baltimore, never even sends a message to his father or his beloved sister, Sorrow, to let them know of any delay. Convinced that something terrible happened to her brother, Sorrow decides to go to Tidepool and try to find out what happened to Henry. What she finds in the strange little isolated community is odd, to say the least: a little fishing town that seems inexplicably protected from bad weather, yet everything seems shabby and dark, people refuse to talk to her – or even acknowledge that her brother was there just days ago. Just as Sorrow begins to think that coming to Tidepool was a bad idea, a dead man’s body washes up on the beach, and soon, there is no way for her to go back home…
This is a debut novel, and it shows: there’s a lot of enthusiasm, but Willson didn’t really make the ideas her own or polished. The novel reads fast, but I feel that that was mostly because repetition and short chapters were used where pacing should have been. I appreciate what she was trying to do: Lovecraftian weirdness, a dash of “The Woman in Black”, period-appropriate head-strong heroine… Those are all cool things, but they need atmosphere to really stand out, and I just didn’t feel it.
A bit of a bummer.
Rating: really liked it
The nitty-gritty: Dripping with atmosphere and creepy characters, Tidepool is a treat for lovers of cosmic horror.
Tidepool is Nicole Willson’s debut novel, and wow I had so much fun with this! This is a horror tale that takes place in 1913 Maryland and almost feels like a cozy mystery in the beginning. But watch out, because this story has teeth—or tentacles, maybe I should say—and it doesn’t take long before blood is spilled and bodies are torn apart. But I’m getting ahead of myself!
The story centers around Sorrow Hamilton, a young woman whose brother Henry has gone missing after he visited the seaside town of Tidepool. Henry and his father want to turn Tidepool into a tourist attraction, but the reclusive locals have no interest at all in opening their town up to a bunch of strangers. When Henry doesn’t return after a couple of weeks, Sorrow decides to take matters into her own hands and sets out for Tidepool, even though her father forbids her to go.
But when she arrives, she finds a dank, shabby town full of unfriendly locals who insist that they don’t know what happened to Henry. And when Sorrow sees a dead body wash up on the shore, she knows something isn’t quite right in Tidepool. Who is the mysterious Mrs. Ada Oliver and why does she keep her daughter Lucy in the basement? What really happened to Henry? And what does the ominous message in the cemetery-—“If ye give not willingly, the Lords will rise”—mean? No matter how hard Sorrow tries to leave Tidepool, she's thwarted by one thing or another. If she doesn’t get out soon, it might be too late…
This is one of those stories that creeps up on you, and I do mean “creeps”. The first chapter is told from Henry’s point of view, as he arrives in Tidepool and tries to make friends with the locals, telling them his grand development ideas and how they will benefit the town financially. But by the end of the chapter, the reader has an idea of Henry’s fate, although the details are a little vague. When Sorrow decides to go after him, we switch to her perspective. Sorrow doesn’t know what the reader knows, so it was fun to see her try to piece together all the clues. At the same time, there was always a question in the back of my mind about what really happened to Henry, so reading that chapter didn’t spoil anything, it only added to the suspense and creepiness of the tale.
Willson drops hints about the weirdness of Tidepool as the story goes along—the suspicious behavior of the townspeople, the odd man on the beach who is gathering sea water into jars, the local police who don’t seem concerned about a dead body on the beach—and that weirdness grows as the reader comes to realize that something sinister is lurking just below the surface. Sorrow senses this right away and tries to leave town over and over, but something is keeping her in Tidepool.
The story is full of fascinating characters, and my favorites by far were Sorrow and Ada, two very strong women who are complete opposites but actually have a lot in common. Sorrow is a woman way ahead of her time. Her father wants her to act like a proper lady and get married, but Sorrow is a writer and her dream is to become a journalist someday. She has an annoying suitor named Charlie Sherman, who is sent to Tidepool by her father to find her and bring her home. Charlie tries to push her around, but I was happy to see that Sorrow wasn’t going to have any of that nonsense. She was a delightfully independent woman in a time when women weren’t allowed to do much on their own.
Ada’s character surprised me, because in the beginning I didn’t like her much. She’s portrayed as the villain, and there are oh so many secrets swirling around her. She’s rich, for one thing, and she always dresses in outdated dreary black dresses. She lives in a creepy mansion on the hill with her daughter Lucy and her brother Quentin, and the townsfolk seem to respect her and her odd family, for some reason. It isn’t until Ada gets her own chapter that we learn about her past and how she came to live in Tidepool. This is the point where the story really took off for me, since another layer of the mystery is pulled back and the reader finally learns about what’s really going on in Tidepool. Ada is driven by her duty to protect the town, and in fact she reminded me a little of Buffy!
I also loved Quentin, Ada’s weird brother. Quentin and Sorrow develop a nice friendship during her stay in Tidepool, and he turned out to be a really interesting character with plenty of his own surprises. As for Charlie, well I couldn’t stand him, but I don’t think you’re supposed to like him. Charlie has only one thing on his mind—getting Sorrow to follow him around and do whatever he says. Luckily, Sorrow isn’t that kind of girl!
As for the story itself, it did not go at all where I was expecting it to go. The big, bloody finale happens well before the end of the book, which surprised me because I couldn’t figure out how the author was going to wrap things up. But then, we get to follow Ada, Quentin and Sorrow after those events to see what happens next, and I really loved the fact that Willson includes these “bonus” chapters in her story.
If you’re a fan of slow burn, creeping terror of the Lovecraftian variety, you’ll probably love Tidepool. I’m hooked, and I can’t wait to see what Nicole Willson does next!
Big thanks to the publisher and the author for providing a review copy.
Rating: really liked it
I knew within the first few pages that
Tidepool would be my type of book.
Against the wishes of her father, Sorrow Hamilton ventures to the East Coast town of Tidepool where her brother mysteriously vanished. Along with Sorrow, we find that many things seem
off about Tidepool: the dilapidated look, the rotting ocean smell, and most notably the stand-offish people. What is the dark secret this town hides, and why oh why can't Sorrow leave?
Willson does a great job creating the town of Tidepool so that it becomes its own ominous character in the story. The cast of characters are well-realized and engaging with complex motivations. It's a very easy story to visualize and would make a wonderful movie or limited series. Is
Tidepool the first of many adventures into the world Willson has created? I sure hope so!
Rating: really liked it
I loved this book which is a creepy, unsettling, Lovecraftian inspired horror story.
The setting of the small, seaside town of Tidepool is brought to life with such vivid imagery. It sent shivers down my spine with the dark, eerie suspense that was being created in the pages in front of me. Bodies in the sea, missing people, secretive townsfolk and a lot of graves for a small population . . . this would all make me want to get the hell out of Tidepool! The main character, Sorrow, however, is determined to discover what has happened to her missing brother and when she finds out what has happened to him, it is beyond her worst nightmares.
The mysterious and sinister Ada Oliver I found terrifying to read about! I certainly will not be forgetting about her for a while. . .
This is the perfect gothic read for the forthcoming spooky season with its vintage horror inspiration and American Horror Story type goriness oozing out of the pages. I certainly will be checking out more from this author in the future.
Rating: really liked it
*Content Warning* - Gore, unwanted sexual advances, suicide attempts, PTSD, and stillborn babies
Thank you Parliament House Press for the eARC! Omg this was such an amazing book! I got chills from reading it. I totally agree with Willson’s dedication because horror is amazing and will beat serious fiction any day. This entire novel has such a dark, eerie, and mysterious vibe that I really enjoyed and it drew me deep into the story right away. The setting was so spooky and was just so well written. It was easy to imagine how dismal Tidepool was and I swear I could smell dead fish by the time I finished reading it. The characters were superbly written and it was great because I don’t think anyone was totally good or evil. The villain was morally grey too, so it was hard to automatically disagree with what they were doing. The book does pose a good question though of whether it’s ok to sacrifice one bad person to save an entire town. One thing I really enjoyed about this story was how Willson includes chapters of other people’s POV in order to add more information and backstory to the plot. Also this ending omg I think it ended perfectly. I love how you get to see the ending from multiple peoples’ perspectives and how everybody’s storyline gets tied up. Oooh and the gore! The gore was the icing on this horror cake. The kill scenes were quite gruesome and added to the chills you had going down your spine from the already eerie vibe of the book. Overall, this book is amazing and spectacular and you will not want to put it down! Go check it out I highly recommend it!
Rating: really liked it
“If ye not give willingly, the Lords will rise…”
How amazing is that line on the cover? What else do you need to know? Alright, I’ll give you a little more.
Sorrow (yes, that’s the protagonist’s name) has come to the small town of Tidepool in search of her missing brother. She quickly realizes not everything is as it seems in Tidepool and there are those that will do anything to keep its secrets.
This book was a lot of creepy fun! As we find out more about Tidepool and why they’re not fond of visitors, things get Lovecraftian in a really cool way. I was pretty invested in Sorrow’s story (just let her leave!) and that kept me reading late into the night. What’s the deal with the widow that lives in the big house on the hill? Why are there bodies washing up on the beach? Things just get worse and worse and you’ll want answers.
One of the things I really enjoyed were the chapters from the widow’s perspective. Finding out more about what’s happening and why from a different POV kept me engaged and caring about a character I probably wasn’t supposed to like.
If you like your small towns with secrets and your scaled creatures with scary teeth, you have to check this out. I know I’ll be anxiously awaiting whatever Nicole Willson puts out next.
*Thanks to The Parliament House Press for the ebook ARC for review.
