Release date: 2nd October 2012
Publisher: Strange Chemistry
Source: Gift
Reason for reading: Liz told me to
Rating: 4/5
Goodreads description:
Ananna of the Tanarau abandons ship when her parents try to marry her off to an allying pirate clan: she wants to captain her own boat, not serve as second-in-command to her handsome yet clueless fiance. But her escape has dire consequences when she learns the scorned clan has sent an assassin after her.
And when the assassin, Naji, finally catches up with her, things get even worse. Ananna inadvertently triggers a nasty curse — with a life-altering result. Now Ananna and Naji are forced to become uneasy allies as they work together to break the curse and return their lives back to normal. Or at least as normal as the lives of a pirate and an assassin can be.
My thoughts:
So, Asher
reviewed this many months ago and I thought “well, it does sound really great
and Asher really raved about it buuuut is it really my thing?” And I dismissed
it. And then I kept seeing it everywhere and got really into fantasy again and
thought “yeah okay, I’mma give it a go, maybe” and THEN Liz who is *clearly*
some kind of mind reader bought it for me for Christmas and I thought “well, I
have to read it NOW” don’t I? (Because every book Liz has ever recommended to
me and I have read I have ended up adoring) And you know what? I adored it. So
yes, you were right guys, well done.
What I loved
most about this book, was Ananna and Naji. Specifically, their faults. They
weren’t perfect characters by any stretch. Both could get sulky and kinda
moody, taking their moods out on each other and snapping. The flaws made them
seem more real, more normal. I much preferred it to them being perfectly poised
and always in control. They frustrated the hell out of each other at times and
it was so entertaining. Naji was so…enigmatic. Hired to kill Ananna because she
offended another pirate family by refusing to marry their son, the curse she
activates means he’s got no choice but to protect her. He was so secretive,
partly cause you know, he’s an assassin and they can’t share their assassiny
secrets, but also cause that’s just the way he is. He never gave anything way,
half the things he said were totally ambiguous and I loved it. How does he
feel? I honestly don’t know. I know how the conventions of YA says he should
feel, how I WANT him to feel, but does he *actually* feel that way? I do not
know. He is so OPAQUE. Ananna was kinda the same, in that she didn’t give much
a way, but she was less prickly about it. It was more of a ‘raised as a pirate,
don’t trust anybody’ vibe really. She kept her cards close to her chest, all
the way through the book, both in terms of what she admits to Naji and to
herself. They had such a reciprocal relationship, each of them bringing skills
and experiences to their journey, each of them saving the other at different
points. In fact, Ananna probably ended up helping Naji more, the combination of
the magic and the curse left him weak and sick at a lot of points and she often
had to resort to literally dragging him places. I liked this reversal, it was
very refreshing.
This book is a
superb lesson in ‘show, don’t tell’. Ananna never voices her feelings until right
at the very very end. But you infer how she feels from her reactions, from how
she acts, from throwaway comments and I loved that. Too often characters in
books talk of how much they love each other, without ever showing any reason
for such feelings.
I really enjoyed
the plot, it had a good mix of journey and action, meaning it was fast-paced
but left enough slow-time for character development and humorous moments. I
have a couple of tiny nags, the first is, this book felt kinda unfinished. It’s
fairly short, which coupled with the unfinished feel and the fact it’s (as far
as I know) book 1 of 2, made me feel as though only half the book was written
when the book was acquired and maybe the other half wasn’t finished in time for
publication. My other minor issue was I felt the language was sometimes a
little simplistic and repetitive, and it got a bit repetitive with all the
stealing Ananna did. Ananna’s colloquialisms annoyed me, but that’s totally a
personal thing, I have always found that irritating.
TL;DR: Cassandra
Rose Clarke has created an imaginative fantasy world, rich in detail but not
too bogged down in specifics. If you’re looking for a tale of adventure with some
kickass leads who aren’t afraid to be themselves, this is the book for you.
