With three threads; one in which we find mother and daughter, Alinor and Alys, making a living in a ramshackle warehouse on the London docks, another set in the 'New World' where, Alinor's brother, Ned, had made a new life for himself and, yet another, in which events in London, take us to Venice ... and back again. A book I enjoyed though not nearly as much as I'd expected to. After Tidelands {the first book in the series}, I found Dark Tides rather disappointing. Rather disappointing in that .... Set twenty one, twenty one, years after the events in the first book. Why such a huge gap? Rather disappointing in that ... Driven by plot rather than characters. As an author renowned for her strong female characters, I thought the main female leads rather weak. Alinor, wise woman, midwife and herbalist {some would say witch}; a character I had loved, here, seemingly relegated to little more than a secondary character, I was greatly saddened that we only caught the odd glimpse of her former self. Alys {Alinor's daughter}, raised solely by her mother and having lived her life as she did on a London dockside, I'm afraid I just wasn't buying into her naivety and gullibility, of how easily and quickly she was duped. And talking of not buying into things ... We have Sarah {Alynor's granddaughter/Alys' daughter}, a young woman, an indentured apprentice in a milliner's shop in seventeenth century London who knows more than one language. Really!!! I just about found it believable that she she was highly literate. Then there's Livia. A character I had expected to love to hate but as it was, supposedly mysterious, as my nana was won't to say 'a blind man galloping past on a horse' would have instantly seen right through her ... as I did. Rather disappointing in that ... Pointless to the larger narrative to which it proved something of a distraction but more than that, very much a secondary consideration; vividly depicted, I felt Ned's story warranted so much more. However, that said ... Not entirely put off, whilst Dark Tides didn't end on a cliff hanger, its obvious that there is more of the story waiting to be told {maybe's with Alinor and Ned's world's coming together? Who knows}.