Ratings:
Star Rating: ★★★★☆
If This Book Was a Movie Rating: PG-13
Review:
you say female Jack Sparrow.
i say sold.
AND GOLLY GEE THIS BOOK ACTUALLY LIVED UP TO THE HYPE.
let’s start with Alosa.
“Being underestimated always works to my advantage. But sometimes I find it offensive. That often makes me violent.”
ALOSA YES QUEEN. My girl is snarky, smart, ruthless, strong (like I’m talking mentally, physically, and emotionally), is a crack shot, and can beat up full grown pirates until they cry. She’s a deadly leader, legendary captain, pirate princess, AAAAAND has a killer secret.
basically alosa’s got the complete package, and no one can convince me otherwise.
Alosa’s father, the pirate king, is the most ruthless and powerful pirate on the seas. He’s the one who trained Alosa to be as strong and as ruthless as he is. His methods were callous and harsh (not to mention borderline abusive), but he made her strong. He taught her to know her limits by pushing her to them. He’s the one who helped her become the deadly pirate she is today. He trusts her because he trained her.
So that's why she’s the only one sent on a mission to retrieve the second piece of a map, a map that was cut up into three pieces and given to the heads of the three most powerful pirate dynasties centuries ago. Once stitched together, the map will lead to Isla de Canta, the home of the sirens and their priceless collection of treasure.
Alosa and her father, as the heirs of the Kalligan dynasty, have one piece of the map, but they need to find and steal the other two to find Isla de Canta.
Cue back to Alosa’s mission. Alosa fakes her own kidnapping so she can get close to and find the Allemos piece of the map. She’s taken aboard the ship holding the Allemos brothers, but Alosa needs to stay on the ship to be able to search and her captors are not exactly making it easy:
“It should not be this difficult to stay a prisoner on a pirate ship. This is the second time I’ve had to stage my own capture. Ridiculous.”
How many places can one map hide? To make matters more irritating, her search is complicated by the constant presence of the infuriatingly attractive younger Allemos brother, Riden. And he may know more of her secrets than she realizes.
AHHHH THIS WAS SOOOO GOOOOD.
I’ve already talked about the plot and how amazingly kickbutt Alosa is, so let’s discuss Riden.
*swoons gracefully onto her much overused pillow*
Riden’s a deadly pirate as much as Alosa is, but he’s still the most honorable and sweet pirate I’ve ever met. Think Will from Pirates of the Caribbean. And he’s just the most perfectly deadly pirate. With a soft spot for Alosa. And this boy’s got ridiculous gunslinging skills, so I really need to ring up Jesper Fahey so these guys can have a properly dramatic shootout *sighs*
and SPEAKING OF WHICH, the romance between Riden and Alosa is PERFECT. They totally felt like the deadly enemies-to-lovers edition of Will and Elizabeth.
“Don’t even think about it.”
“I already did.”
“He relaxes considerably. "Thank the stars. I was trying so hard to be supportive and forget what I want most."
"And what's that?"
Those beautiful brown eyes glint. "You.”
AWWWWWW.
now that I’m actually thinking about this, I’m not sure why I’m saying AWWW so much because they would probably go to a pirate brawl as a first date and knock me unconscious into a nest of acura eels as they say “I love you.”
but i love them both to pieces, so i forgive them.
Friend me on Goodreads (yes, you, I wanna be your friend): https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/136268749-isabelle
Recommendations If You Liked This Book:
Daughter of the Siren Queen by Tricia Levenseller (the second book in this duology)
The Shadows Between Us by Tricia Levenseller
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