Review: Black Tide

Black Tide by K.C. Jones
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Reading Black Tide by KC Jones felt like tripping through the imagination of Lewis Carroll as he directed Alice down the rabbit hole. Suddenly reality is skewed and the experience is as if seen through a lens of drug induced hallucinations.

Jones begins with an introduction to Beth—a young woman with a tough as nails exterior and battle scars that hover beneath the surface, coloring her every action and interaction. She is, by necessity, a wanderer, moving from one house sitting job to the next, untethered and uninhibited, with the haunting memories of her mother’s callous parenting chasing her from behind. One evening, while house sitting a beach home and a dog for a wealthy family she notices Mike, the enigmatic man next door, sitting by his fire pit. She finagles an invitation to join him, and their fates collide when that night an unprecedented and unexplained event causes a variety of vicious monsters to suddenly appear on earth—and a variety of earthlings to simply…disappear.

It is in the description of the hellacious alien creatures that author Jones shines, as the horror of each practically drips from the page and into the reader’s psyche. The suspension of disbelief needed to engage with the premise is seamless and occurs without hesitation—truly the hallmark of a writer who knows their audience. As cloud fish, shriekers and bowling ball entities shred the world as we know it to pieces, Jones maintains the banter that forms the basis of the budding relationship between Beth and Mike as they struggle to survive and save one another.

In the same way that the descriptive passages are the strength of the writing, the relationship building aspects of the story are the weakness. Whilst you don’t have to like characters to invest in the story, one does need to have an interest in their predicament and the eventual outcome. In this case, both Beth and Mike were so flawed as to be almost acerbic in their interactions. I had no horse in the race as to whether or not they survived, which tempered my reaction to a number of the presented scenarios. I was completely indifferent to the outcome.

Overall, well written and imaginative, full of vivid imagery that may leave you with nightmares for many days to come. Definitely worth a read for the monsters alone.

Thanks to NetGalley and MacMillan Tor/Forge for allowing me access to an ARC. Publication is scheduled for May 31, 2022.

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