Tidespeaker by Sadie Turner

Title: Tidespeaker

Author: Sadie Turner

Genre: Fantasy

Publisher: One World

Published: 31^st March 2026

Format: Paperback

Pages: 384

Price: $19.99

Synopsis: Corith Fraine has the power to control water with her words.

Corith has spent much of her life in an elite magic institution, training to serve one of the realm’s noble households. When she secures a post with House Shearwater, an aristocratic family living on a wave-battered island, she feels honoured. Until she discovers that her predecessor drowned in mysterious circumstances.

To avoid the same fate, Corith must harness the wild, unforgiving tides and cater to the whims of the enigmatic Shearwater siblings. But as she starts to unravel their secrets, she finds herself drawn to the brooding youngest brother, Llir.

With her loyalties pushed to breaking point, these treacherous waters may just pull Corith under…

~*~

Corith Fraine can control water with words, and after a decade in an elite magical institution, Arbenhaw. She’s an Orha, someone who control the elements. There are one hundred noble houses, and each has four Orhas who control the tides, the wind, the earth and fires. So, Corith is surprised when she’s summoned to House Shearwater to complete their Orha set.

She’s replacing her friend, Zennia, who drowned in mysterious circumstances, and nothing the Shearwaters are telling her makes any sense. Something isn’t right, especially with the brothers Llir and Emment, but each member of House Shearwater has their own secrets and motivations.

Yet, a rumbling rebellion has their claws into Corith. People who claim to know something about what happened to Zennia, and want to use Corith for their own means.

Tidespeaker is a fantasy, a mystery and a game of political intrigue and espionage set in a class stratified world, where the nobles look down on elemental magic. Where those with elemental magic, Orha, are shipped off to a school and cut off from their families and communities. Yet, this story is more complex and delves into issues about isolation, loyalty and privilege, and secrets. Everyone has secrets in this book, and it’s all about how they can be exploited.

Tidespeaker explores all of this through Corith’s perspective, and how she relates to her fellow Orha. She’s working against them as well, determined to find out what happened to her best friend, Zennia. Zennia was House Shearwaters previous Tidespeaker, or Floodmouth. It’s not a simple revenge story though or discovery story. Nothing is as it seems in this book, and the layers create the tension and the mystery. I kept thinking there was much more than we were being told, more to the story, and secrets that everyone had, even the nobles who thought they were better than everyone.

Tidespeaker explores issues that are relevant in today’s world in a fantasy context, working to create a sense of unease. I felt I never knew who I could trust, who was right, who was wrong and what was going on. And, I knew that there was much more to what happened to Zennia than what everyone, including Emment was telling Corith.

The ebbing and flowing tides work with the secrets, including the ones that the Shearwater children are hiding, the secrets that they’re determined to ensure nobody can use against them in anyway. But who is trying to force Corith’s hand to take advantage of things and get what they want. It’s complex and has depth, yet at times could have explained things to solidify their place in the story and the duology. However, I am hopeful that some of these things might be answered in the sequel.

It’s a fraught story, where everything is dictated by the tides and how Corith is able to manipulate them. It is also meant to be a retelling of Mansfield Park, and I looked up a brief synopsis to remind me of what happened in Mansfield Park, and the basics were there. It will be interesting to see if and how this extends into the next book, and how things are resolved.

This was an interesting fantasy book, and one I hope finds its readers.