Upon a Starlit Tide Kell Woods 9781835411797

WINNER OF THE AUREALIS AWARD 2025 FOR BEST FANTASY NOVEL.

A dark and enchanting fairy tale-inspired historical fantasy combining elements of "The Little Mermaid" and "Cinderella" into a wholly original tale of love, power, and betrayal. From the Sunday Times bestselling author of After the Forest, for fans of Ava Reid and Naomi Novik.

Saint-Malo, Brittany, 1758. To Lucinde Leon, the youngest daughter of a wealthy French shipowner, the high walls of Saint-Malo are more hindrance than haven.

While her sisters are busy trying to secure advantageous marriages, Luce spends her days secretly being taught to sail by Samuel, her best friend and an English smuggler. Only he understands how the waves call to her. Then one stormy morning, Luce rescues a drowning man from the sea.

Immediately drawn in by the stranger's charm, Luce is plunged into a world of glittering balls and faerie magic, seduction and brutality. Secrets that have long been lost in the shadowy depths of the ocean begin to rise to the surface, but as Luce wrestles with warring desires, she finds that her own power is growing brighter and brighter, shining like a sea-glass slipper.

Or the scales of a sea-maid's tail.

One of BookPage's Best Books of 2025!

A magnificent blend of reimagined fairy tale and epic adventure, anchored by excellent research and buoyed by brilliant writing. This is a must-read!
-Juliet Marillier, award-winning author of the Sevenwaters and Blackthorn & Grim series

Readers will spy familiar stories in Upon a Starlit Tide, but Kell Woods makes them her own. This is not your conventional fairy tale. Instead, a lush, historical novel awaits, supported by a beautifully rendered sense of time and place. Often poetic, occasionally dark and humorous, Upon a Starlit Tide is for all those who ever dreamed of escaping over the horizon.
-Lucy Holland, bestselling author of Sistersong

Upon a Starlit Tide is an enchanting read, as rich with historical detail as it is with magic, with surprising beings around every corner and a sea-foundling with a grand, dark secret. The novel mines the material of fairy tales in a unique and delightful way that fantasy fans will love.
-Louisa Morgan, author of A Secret History of Witches

A dark and enchanting twist on two fairy tales in one, Upon a Starlit Tide will draw you into its depths from the very first page.
-Genevieve Gornichec, author of The Weaver and the Witch Queen

A tapestry of sea and starlight, romance and heartbreak, a journey to the truth of self. Utterly enchanting.
-A. G. Slatter, award-winning author of The Briar Book of the Dead

A dark, glittering blend of history, fairy tale, and romance, steeped in magic and shot through with adventure. Absorbing, beautifully written, and utterly spellbinding.
-H. G. Parry, author of The Magician's Daughter

A gorgeous, atmospheric tale full of glittering fae and wild magic, Upon a Starlit Tide will sweep you away in its waters and bury your heart at the bottom of the sea.
-Mary McMyne, author of The Book of Gothel

To enter a world fashioned by Kell Woods is to be entirely won over by magic and history. Upon a Starlit Tide is enchanting in every sense of the word. Drawing on stories we know well, Kell Woods presents us with something deliciously and thrillingly new, alert to women's secret desires... I could have floated in the lagoon of this story forever.
-Hayley Scrivenor, USA Today bestselling author of Dirt Creek

Upon a Starlit Tide shimmers darkly, like polished sea glass, as hauntingly beautiful in the ocean's depths as in the grandeur of aristocratic courts. With an intoxicating blend of history, magic, and forbidden love, this lyrical fairy tale reimagining sweeps you away on tides of enchantment.
-Lyra Selene, bestselling author of A Feather So Black

Upon a Starlit Tide is relentlessly enchanting; I was spellbound from start to finish. Kell Woods' lyrical prose dances off every page, sweeping the reader into a world of delicate opulence, stormy desire, and knife-sharp betrayals. I cannot recommend Upon a Starlit Tide enough.
-Sarah Street, author of A Curse of Salt

Upon a Starlit Tide firmly establishes Kell Woods as a master storyteller, with an ability to manipulate the most appealing archetypes and legends into a fantasy uniquely her own. Upon a Starlit Tide is the perfect cocktail of historical detail, myth-stery and magic, with characters and a setting so wildly romantic you won't want the heart rush to end.
-Jo Riccioni, bestselling author of The Branded

Like a master alchemist, Kell Woods has (once again) combined well-worn stories to produce a new, shining thing; as recognisable as it is entirely original. Upon a Starlit Tide is so richly woven, surely it is the true history, from which all other retellings have rippled.
-Michael Earp, author and editor of Everything Under the Moon: Fairy Tales in a Queerer Light

A beautiful, dark, and magical tale that cleverly weaves together several classic stories and overlays them with a fresh feminist lens. Woods' writing is rich and her storytelling compelling. The sea and the Saint Malo setting are characters in their own right enchanting and mercurial and I was completely swept away.
-Vanessa McCausland, author of The Last Illusion of Paige White

Upon a Starlit Tide was a compelling and fascinating novel...Woods' vivid writing will sweep you off on an adventure you will never forget, it is a magical story of self discovery in the best way.
-Grimdark Magazine