Review of The Sea Spirit Festival by Claudie Arseneault

How do we choose who we are? Or are we simply born to be something, our fate fixed from the start? The Sea Spirit Festival tackles weighty questions for such a brief novella. Claudie Arseneault continues The Chronicles of Nerezia with a high-stakes, dramatic story that centres Aliyah even Horace continues to grow into the hero e hopes to be. I received an eARC in exchange for a review.

Our intrepid adventurers have made it to Alleaze, a coastal city just starting its eponymous festival. At this time, for an indeterminate number of days, the citizens of this town celebrate and feast—and then allow the sea spirit to determine what their new jobs will be. To book passage across the ocean, our heroes play for tokens in the festival in the hopes that their contact will still be a sailor after its conclusion. But as the festival winds down, it turns out they have a larger role to play—one that will change the course of Alleaze’s history forever.

It’s so interesting what Arseneault is doing with this journey across Nerezia. Horace has led a relatively sheltered life, and with each new stop, e must confront eir preconceptions about life and society. Eir reaction to Alleaze’s culture, particularly the way in which everyone surrenders oneself to the will of the Sea Spirit, is so fascinating. E has a hard time understanding it because it’s so different from eir own experience being born into a clan. In both cases, we have a culture that’s quite different from what most readers would be used to. I love how Arseneault challenges Horace (and by extension, the reader) to become more culturally responsive and respectful.

As with the first two books, there is a great deal of emphasis on Horace’s growth as a warrior, protector, and hero. In the last book, Horace started training in earnest. This book features Horace making split-second decisions to save eir friend and protect the city. Horace’s good heart is the moral centre of this series, and it’s wonderful.

It was also fascinating to see Aliyah in a more active role. Last time we say them using their powers, it was more instinctual, accidental, than anything else. This time Aliyah steps up—less so out of an eagerness to help, like Horace, and more out of a sense that they have a role to play when it comes to corralling and dealing with the Fragments. The slow burn on this mythology is both frustrating and satisfying, but the selfish part of me that wants to stuff my mouth full of cookies hopes we get more in the next book.

The Sea Spirit Festival ably continues the episodic story of these adventurers. It’s cute and cozy yet also contains drama and danger. Arseneault balances these qualities with a practised hand, and the result is another finely crafted novella.