Orphans of the Tide

October 15, 2021
In this British import, a girl struggles to do what is right. Decades ago, the Great Drowning destroyed most of civilization; only a small island called the City remains. Periodically, the God Who Drowned the Gods, known as the Enemy, possesses a citizen of the City as its human Vessel, through which it gains power and sows destruction before the City's power-hungry Inquisitors find and execute the Vessel by burning them alive. When a boy with light-brown skin and blue eyes is discovered inside the belly of a whale beached on top of a church, everyone in the City is convinced the new Vessel has arrived--everyone except Ellie, that is. The orphaned daughter of Hannah Lancaster, the City's inventor, Ellie makes it her mission to protect the boy, figure out his secret (and why he can manipulate the ocean with his emotions), and keep her own tragic backstory and deepest secret safe. She's aided by her best friend from the orphanage and Lord Castion, a town leader who was friends with her mother. Excerpts from the diary of the last Vessel are interspersed between third-person chapters that follow Ellie. The pacing is compelling, but superfluous details detract from the narrative, and several worldbuilding questions remain unanswered, presumably leaving space for the sequel. Blond Ellie reads as White; Castion has dark-brown skin and uses a prosthetic limb. A promising series opener, although the quality ebbs and flows. (map) (Fantasy. 9-12)

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October 18, 2021
After the death of her brother and inventor mother, orphaned gadgeteer Ellie Lancaster, 12 and cued as white, is left responsible for maintaining many of the intricate mechanisms that help “catch whales, gather oysters, filter seawater, and more” for the inhabitants of the City, a last bastion of humankind that juts out of the flooded world’s sea. When a dead whale washes up onto one of the island’s rooftops, Ellie frees an amnesiac boy, blue-eyed and light brown–skinned, from its stomach, calling him Seth. The City’s Holy Inquisition swiftly declares the newcomer a Vessel of the Enemy—a rogue god who periodically manifests and terrorizes society—and sentences the boy to death. To prove Seth’s innocence, Ellie sets out to find the true Vessel with assistance from charming but capricious Finn and adventurous best friend Anna. Alternating an intriguing third-person narrative with first-person accounts from the previous Vessel, Murray weaves an ambitious tale of paranoia, religious zealotry, and adventure. A strong sense of unexplored history combined with the dynamic characters and atmosphere offers potential for further exploration, and readers will enjoy Ellie’s struggle to protect her friends and home. Ages 8–12. Agent: Stephanie Thwaites, Curtis Brown.

November 1, 2021
Grades 4-7 The City looms out of the ocean, surrounded with buildings submerged by the Enemy, a god that destroyed the other gods and regularly possesses an innocent individual to be its Vessel. When a boy emerges alive from the stomach of beached, cut-open whale, the Inquisitors of the City decide that he's a Vessel of the Enemy and must be executed. It's up to Ellie, who has taken over her late mother's inventing business, and her best friend, Anna, who lives in the orphanage, to rescue the boy they call Seth. When Seth demonstrates an ability to control the ocean, the girls know they have to help him escape the seabound City. Murray has written a complex and often dark tale about friendship, courage, love, and loyalty, filled with well-rounded characters with complex personalities and motivations. He depicts the City in carefully crafted detail while maintaining the pace of the intricate plot. Vivid characters, a breathtaking story, and the promise of a sequel all come together in this alluring middle-grade fantasy.

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January 1, 2022

Gr 4-6-The City is the only land in existence-or really only part of it, since the majority of it sank underground in the tragic Great Drowning. Ellie, a bedraggled, pale-skinned girl rescues a boy from the belly of whale. Unfortunately, as soon as the light brown-skinned, muscular Seth emerges from the whale, the City guards believe he is the new Vessel who contains the Enemy, the evil god that destroyed The City, and decide the only way to save them all is to kill him. Ellie makes it her mission to save Seth and along with redheaded orphan Anna and her mysterious blond, pale friend Finn, she attempts to figure out who Seth is and where he's from. Ellie, however, has her own dangerous secret. The pace never slacks in this page-turning adventure, with well-crafted twists and secrets. Pages of a journal written by a former Vessel are interspersed throughout in a different format, making readers feel even more intertwined in the story. Murray's prose is descriptive and vivid; kids will think they are in Ellie's workshop, piled high with crab catchers, broken machines, books, notes, and unidentified items. The only bump in the plot is the attempted description of the gods of the world, their roles, and not-quite demise. Because this mythology is underdeveloped, it detracts from the story instead of adding to the worldbuilding. VERDICT An action-packed tale in a unique fantasy world that features a girl finding great power with the help of friends.-Clare A. Dombrowski

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January 1, 2022
In the Last City, one of the final outposts of land against the rising seas, a whale becomes beached atop some of the lower-lying drowned houses. Twelve-year-old Ellie, an energetic, practical-minded girl with a knack for inventions, punctures the carcass to let out the gases of decomposition. Shockingly, a boy around her own age emerges from the hole in the whale. Despite Ellie's protestations, he's taken away by the Inquisition, as Inquisitor Hargrath believes he is the Vessel, a person the noncorporeal Enemy uses as a steppingstone to wreak havoc on the City. But Ellie knows he's just a boy who must be rescued. Chapters about Ellie's efforts to free and then hide Seth (as Ellie's sidekick and fellow orphan Anna names him) alternate with pages from the diary of Claude Hestermeyer, a scholar who became the Vessel a generation ago and was then killed. It's through these diary pages that readers begin to suspect the grand plot twist that controls the entire second half of the book, raising the stakes by several orders of magnitude. Against a deep backstory, Murray deploys levers of guilt and love to ensnare a believable protagonist in an impossible situation, then provides her with the kinds of friends to help her get out of it. The explanation of Seth's origins fits into the story's framework with a satisfying completeness, capping off a psychologically intricate, steampunk-infused horror tale that will please adventure-lovers as well. Anita L. Burkam

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