Fable was abandoned on an island by her father when she was only 13, a day after her mother died. Now she is 17, and she’s determined to get off the island to find her father and prove to him that she survived and that she is worthy on being on one of his ship’s crews. First, she has to get off the island and find her father, but no one ever gets off the island. That is, until a trader named West saves her life and allows her to accompany him and his crew off the island to the mainland.
I have read 2 whole pirate books over the past few weeks, I think this is more than I have read in the past 2 years. I am really enjoying this genre, especially in books where there is a female MC.
I could tell from the beginning that Fable’s quest was not going to lead her down the path which she thought she was going, but I couldn’t imagine all the twists and turns that her journey was going to take. I felt so sad for those who were left on the island, as none of them truly asked to be in that hellhole. Even if Fable had no friends on the island, everyone was just trying to stay alive, even if that meant hurting others.
My absolute favorite part of this book was reading about West and the rest of the crew. They have their own backstories, which Fable learns as she spends more and more time on the ship with them. Each area that they travel to has its own culture, and they have to sneak around in different ways in order to not get in trouble with the different traders, crews, and law enforcement on and around the docks. I hope to be able to learn more about the crew in the sequel to this novel, and especially more about the world outside of the traders. That is one thing I didn’t feel was focused on as much, the world outside of the ships and their crews. Hopefully, this will be expanded upon in the second novel.
There was romance in this book, but no love triangles that I can see so far. This is definitely a pleasant surprise for me, as I am so used to YA/NA novels including some sort of love triangle (which I hate). I wish that things will stay this way for the next book.
The only thing that brought down my rating from 5 stars to 4 stars was the fact that the pacing felt a little slow at times. I felt like I wanted to take a break, as I slowly lost excitement for what was coming up next. Then a new event would happen and I would decide to keep reading it a little more. I feel like these gaps in excitement made some parts of the book feel less exciting to read and more of a wait until the next cool thing happens. This did not ruin the book for me, but it did make the book less than perfect for me.
I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a new YA fantasy/pirate read to enjoy.
I received a copy of this book and this is my voluntary review.
Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 books.
