The Angry Tide

Warning: This review contains spoilers

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This book contains a great deal of turbulent emotion that rages like the gale toward the end. Ross and Demelza hope to have a good time in London, but Demelza encounters a slimeball named Monk Adderly, who pays her attentions that are depressingly relevant to the 21st century (right down to the idea of Demelza feeling she needs to placate him in order to fit in to society and to prevent anything worse from happening). This leads to a duel and some troublesome fallout. The nasty “reverend” Osborne Whitworth finally gets his just deserts, leaving Morwenna and Drake to potentially get back together. But after her experience with Osborne, Morwenna is reluctant to marry again…And the turmoil in show more the Warleggan clan is far too much to go into here. Suffice it to say that several jaws were dropped around these parts.

In an interesting bit of intertextuality, I read this shortly after reading Peter Ackroyd’s Revolution, which covers English history from the mid-1600s to 1815, and some of the issues raised in Parliament, as well as some of the characters, were familiar from those pages.

Overall I enjoyed this book very much. It could be argued that the storylines are a bit soapy, and I would assert that Osborne’s extracurricular activities did not need to be described in any detail whatsoever, but the pages flew by. Will have to find out soon who this stranger from the sea is. show less

But now and then you do not have all the control of your feelings
that you should have--and then thoughts and feelings
surge up in you like--like an angry tide.
And it is hard, sometimes it is hard to control the tide.”


This installment of the Poldark saga is, like all the others, stellar writing and storytelling. You have lived with these characters so long by this stage that you know them by heart, and yet there is always something new and exciting and vibrant and alive about them.

There is heartbreak and redemption and confusion and sorrow to be found within these pages, and much that makes you reflect on what it means to just be human. The name is so appropriate, for it is the uncontrolled feelings of each of these people that brings show more them to their greatest impasses. There is stubbornness and tenacity and failure to release the past and the redemption that is possible when you finally do.

One theme that runs through the series, and that we see more and more clearly as the books progress, is that the things we do matter. They influence not only our lives, but those of others, perhaps in ways we cannot ever imagine they will. One moment of passion, of thoughtlessness, of lust for revenge, can lead to consequences that haunt us endlessly and reverberate even after our deaths...in the lives of our greatest loves and our children.

I have not had a moment of regret in taking on this series. Or, if I have, it is that I cannot just sit and read it end to end without life interrupting. This is book seven of twelve, so there is a lot more of Ross Poldark’s life to come, but I am already sure that when I close on the last page of the last book, my heart is going to scream at me to start all over again. show less

A satisfying blend of death and drama to move into a new century, and from one generation of Poldarks to the next. Some of the characters have aged more in spirit than in years - though I was glad to find that Demelza still retains a spark of independent thought - but all remain well wrought and well written. As Demelza says, 'there is a different feeling, Verity. I have a different feeling'.

Graham packs The Angry Tide with the usual surfeit of triumph, tension and tragedy. There are three deaths - an excessively stupid 'misadventure', freeing up one tortured character, the youngest life lost yet, and an accidental but perhaps appropriately timed self-sacrifice. I still mourn Francis, and now I confess to feeling sorry for George! Dumb show more old Ross becomes an MP, after much humming and hawing, and Demelza trails after him for her first - and perhaps last - visit to London. Nature adds the angry tide of the title, a flood and a gale to add to the man-made difficulties of debt, duels and political discord. The usual fare.

Graham excels at great characters - in the dramatic sense, for I could still cheerfully murder Ross - and terrible grief. Otherwise, he's fairly harsh on women who do not display his favoured traits of loyalty and domesticity - Keren Daniel, Rowella Chynoweth - and every book seems to be made up of the same subplots: trouble at t'mine, world events (I think there might have been a reason why Austen eschewed the reality of the French Revolution over the comfortable fiction of invented romances), and Ross' ego. Have I mentioned how annoying Ross can be? Still, can't wait to move onto Poldark: the next generation, AKA The Stranger From the Sea! show less

After the minor disappointment of the Four Swans, Winston Graham is back in full force here. This is currently GoodRead's highest-rated Poldark novel and it is easy to see why.

After being behind so many other characters' thoughts in the previous novel, the reader finally gets to return to Ross's headspace which is as engaging as always. While there are many plot threads it is refreshing that Ross and Demelza are back as the central thread. This is especially fitting considering that this is the last novel before the junior Poldarks begin to steal the limelight.

In a way, this is the last Ross and Demelza novel and Graham weaves a compelling weave of a couple trying to move beyond past hurt. Fortunately, this is not the end of the show more series but if it were it would've been a good one. show less

The Poldark series is turning into historical melodrama but I do keep reading them. Once again, Ross and Demelza's marriage seems to falter and then recover, I'm almost getting tired of this theme. The secondary characters are more interesting these days, I am very much rooting for Drake and Morweena and hope for happy times for Sam and am even starting to have a grudging acceptance of Caroline. All Warleggans are awful but we knew that and I hardly know what to make of the horrors at the end. I think I still have five books left in the series and I'm sure I will still take them from the library.

In this seventh entry in the Poldark series, Ross begins to adjust to life as an MP, he and Demelza work to figure out where their marriage stands in the wake of Hugh Armitage's death, and Ross continues to feud via proxies with George Warleggan. In addition a major shake up in Morwenna Whitworth's life has ramifications for Drake Carne, Caroline and Dwight suffer a heartbreaking loss, and George and Elizabeth continue to grapple with George's insecurities and the effect they have on their marriage. All while an upstart named Buonaparte is shaking things up on the continent.

There are a lot of things going on in this novel but it felt like not much happened in the first half and I was dragging myself through reading it. Of course, as is show more typical with the Poldark novels, once things kick off they suck you in and make for compelling reading. While I predicted the big final event of the novel based on the blurb on the back cover, there were still several plot developments I didn't see coming. As always, I remain thoroughly invested in the lives of these characters and will continue to work my way through the remaining books. show less

HOLY CRAP BOMBSHELL.

This might have been my favorite to date. So many satisfying or surprising storylines. I think I love these books a lot right now because no one in them is ever really happy, or if they are, they won't be soon. It's comforting.