The Ship of Shadows
Aleja whiles away her days in her family’s dusty tavern in Seville, dreaming of distant lands and believing in the kind of magic that she’s only ever read about in books. After all, she’s always being told that girls can’t be explorers.
But her life is changed forever when adventure comes for her in the form of a fabled vessel called the Ship of Shadows. Crewed by a band of ruthless women, with cabin walls dripping with secrets, the ship has sailed right out of a legend. And it wants Aleja.
Once on board its shadowy deck, she begins to realize that the sea holds more secrets than she ever could have imagined. The crew are desperately seeking something, and their path will take them through treacherous waters and force them to confront nightmare creatures and pitch-dark magic. It will take all of Aleja’s strength and courage to gain the trust of her fellow pirates – and discover what they are risking everything to find.
I know I’m not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but when I saw the cover for this novel, I knew I absolutely needed to read it. The cover was simply so expressive and colorful, it reminded me of fairy tales. Then I began to read this book. This entire story is a modern fairytale, and I loved it from beginning to end.
Aleja wants to be an adventurer, as many girls do. But everyone in her village says she can’t be one because she’s a girl. When a mysterious ship of legend docks in her town, Aleja knows that this is her chance to go on an adventure? She doesn’t really have a choice in the matter, as a situation makes it necessary for her to go onto the all-female Ship of Shadows and begin an adventure with them.
I think one of my all-time favorite book friendships was Aleja and Frances. Their habit of eating cake and chatting about the goings-on of the ship made for some of my favorite scenes in the entire book. All of the women on the ship had so much character and backstory to them. I won’t tell you much else about those on the ship, as I don’t want to spoil too much of this amazing story for you.
The action scenes reminded me of what I enjoyed about the Percy Jackson series. They weren’t overly gory as to actually disturb middle-grade readers, but they were action-packed with enough minor grossness to engage me as an older reader. In fact, everything about this book reminded me of what I had originally loved about the Percy Jackson series. Aleja did not act younger or older than she was stated to be in this novel (around 12 I believe). I could have seen myself falling in love with this book at twelve years old had it been out. This is a must-have for a middle school / high school library collection.
That is not even beginning to mention all of the representation of different groups in this novel. Even though the book is written in English, Aleja’s primary language is Spanish and she is from Seville, Spain. All the characters on the Ship of Shadows are from different countries and must speak different languages for a variety of reasons throughout the novel. There is also at least one (if not more that I missed) instance of LGBT+ representation.
This book is just a great middle grade read, or read for anyone at any age. My only complaint was that I don’t believe it is a series, I absolutely need more from these characters!
I received a copy of this book and this is my voluntary review.
Overall Rating: 6 out of 5 books.
About the Author
Maria Kuzniar spent six years living in Spain, teaching English and travelling the world, which inspired her debut novel The Ship of Shadows. Now she lives in Nottingham with her husband, where she reads and writes as much as she can and bookstagrams at @cosyreads. She is always planning her next adventure.
Website: https://www.mariakuzniar.co.uk/
Twitter: @thecosyreader
Instagram: @cosyreads
