Review: The Silver Tide by Jen Williams

Trilogies are tricky things to work properly they should do more than simply be one long story there should be themes that ebb and flow. Narratives which build and peak and then build again. I usually count myself lucky if the trilogy I read is three decent books which hold together well. And then there’s Jen William’s Copper Cat trilogy which I am so deeply in love with right now it is a little bit obscene.
Here is my review of the Silver Tide, there will necessarily be spoilers for The Copper Promise and the Iron Ghost.
The Silver Tide is more than just a fitting close to an epic trilogy it touched so many of the right spots that I am literally seeing stars.
Wydrin is an amazing character I love her, I want to be her. She is strong and vulnerable and complex and I want to go out drinking with her although I’m not sure my liver would take it anymore. She is the centre of the trilogy she doesn’t get to wield magic and she doesn’t father a race of dragon kin but she binds the Blackfeather three together.
Sebastian regularly breaks my heart he’s basically a paladin and I love Paladins. A gay paladin who inadvertently becomes father to a race of dragon kin and who keeps falling for the wrong man.
And then we have Lord Aaron Frith who would claim to hate it but I just want to smoosh him forever because he really needs it.
The action picks up not long after the events of The Iron Ghost and the Blackfeather Three are coming to terms with past events. All are haunted by choices they have made along the way and the bonds that did hold them do not seem as strong as they once were.
The group accompany Devinia the Red a female Pirate captain who just so happens to be Wydrin’s mother on an expedition to an island unlike any other.
There is so much to love about The Silver Tide, three complex lead characters who all have their own agenda and their own motivations and past scars that guide their actions throughout. They feel so truthful and honestly rendered. In addition there is a supporting cast of diverse and interesting characters. Devinia who is everything you want from a pirate captain. Ephemeral, Sebastian’s dragon kin ‘daughter’ who is a ruthless hunter who wants to read books and to learn. In addition there are many characters whom I just wanted to root for and and can’t mentnion them because of spoilers butlots of them were women. Women in command, women being powerful in other ways it made my heart swell a lot.
Individually each of the novels in this trilogy work. There is no two towers sense of things are continuing along. There are three distinct stories but as a trilogy there are callbacks to earlier events which tie things together without relying too heavily on each other for meaning and this is to be applauded. Each novel has been pitched beautifully for tension. Williams teases the reader with climatic events which increase in scope within each book. So many huge things happen in The Silver Tide that I may have whooped and punched the air more than once. Its an exhilarating read and it is a rewarding one too. The ending to the trilogy was not just satisfying it was pretty much perfect bitter sweet and I am spent.