SuitabookPoison Tides
Jay McGuiness
- Reading
- If possible, begin with Blood Flowers or recap its key relationships and conflicts. Pause after intense escapes, battles or revelations, and invite the reader to explain how they understand the characters’ choices without requiring agreement.
- Themes
- Discrimination and belonging: Felix is hunted and mistreated for being a Fennex, within a wider conflict involving unfair treatment between communities. The book takes a critical view of this.
- Power and responsibility: High Lady Meya rules after a cruel father and is described as trying to correct his wrongs; the wider story addresses poverty, inequality and power. The book appears to examine whether inherited authority can be used to repair harm, rather than presenting power as uncomplicatedly beneficial.
- Friendship, loyalty and sacrifice: Bear seeks Felix while travelling with witches who need help freeing their captive sister; characters face separation and choices about leaving familiar lives behind. The book’s stance on this remains unclear.
- Worth knowing
- Consider whether the reader will welcome a sequel whose story depends on earlier events and continues beyond its ending. Talk about how the characters respond when loyalty, freedom and responsibility conflict.