Kell Woods
At a glance
Upon a Starlit Tide is a dark and enchanting historical fantasy combining elements of "The Little Mermaid" and "Cinderella" into a wholly original tale of love, power, and betrayal.
Saint-Malo, Brittany, 1758. To Lucinde Léon, 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 seamaid's tail.
"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, 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 Daughte
"Kell Woods delights readers with a scintillating love story that rewrites classic fairy tales. . . If you are a fan of Gothic tales, family mysteries, romantic unions, ocean legends, or ancient fairy tales retold in innovative new ways, you must read this book. I loved it!"
- The Fairy Tale Magazine
Clos-Poulet, Bretagne
May 1758
She thought him dead at first.
A man, draped lifeless upon a wedge of broken hull, cheek pressed against the timber as tenderly as a lover’s as he rose gently up, gently down with the exhausted breath of the sea. The storm had raged all night, howling and hurling itself against the shore, rattling the windows so hard that it had taken all of Luce’s will not to fling them open and feel its cold breath on her face. Only the chintz drapes, her mother’s great pride, had stopped her. Papa had brought the fabric all the way from India, and there was no telling how Gratienne would have reacted had Luce allowed the weather to spoil them. And so, she had kept the windows closed, watching the storm as it battered the gardens and orchard and pried at the roof of the dovecote as though it would rip it free and toss it, rolling and bouncing, down the sweep of rain-soaked fields and into the furious waves.
It was the kind of weather that stilled the world and sent folk hurrying indoors, that closed shutters and covered mirrors for fear of lightning strikes, that caused ships to fly before it into the harbor at Saint-Malo. One ship, at least, had not been fast enough.
Its remains dotted the gray water. Shards of decking, slabs of hull, tangles of rigging. Luce narrowed her eyes against the glare of the early morning sun, skirts held out of the weed and foam. She had seen the sea’s victims before, of course.
