Series: Book One of One Dozen Daughters
Pages: 300
Copyright: 2014
Publisher: A Tor Book
Buy: Amazon
Summary: from Good Reads
The tiny nation of Swansgaard is a lovely place with abundant natural resources, including the royal family, which has been blessed with twelve daughters and a son. As this boisterous baker's dozen approaches adulthood, the king and queen lovingly tell their daughters, "You must make your own fortune, for we cannot enrich you without impoverishing our people or leaving our lands defenseless, and that we will not do."
Happily, the princesses of Swansgaard are eager to meet this challenge, for they yearn for adventures both near and far from home.
Clarice, an expert swordswoman, is the first to depart. Disguising herself as Clarence, she signs on for a voyage to the New World. The captain is vile and blackhearted, and the crew soon mutinies. Clarice becomes first mate - and finds her heart captured by the new captain, Dominick, who is, to his own surprise, increasingly attracted to Clarence.
Now outlaws, Dominick and his crew turn to piracy - though their hearts are not entirely in it. They soon run afoul of the Pirate Council, who orders them to retrieve the Heart of Light. All who have searched for this great treasure have vanished, with neither ships nor crews ever seen again and no sign of their fates ever discovered.
But none before have carried with them the sorceress Shamal, who stakes a claim of her own on Dominick's heart.
Feelings:
This book says it is Book One of One Dozen Daughters, however, I see no indication that there will be more books to come.
I'm going to admit to doing something when I go to the library to pick books that adds some randomness to what I read. When I don't have a lot of time to look at books or I can't find the book I was looking for, I will pick up the first book I see with a fantasy sticker on the spine. This was such a book. Looking at the cover, I knew it was not going to be the best book I've ever read. Sometimes though reading a book with mediocre writing is alright if the story is interesting. That being said I enjoyed the story, but at times the dialogue felt fake.
Clarice is an interesting character and I enjoyed reading from her point of view. The story starts with her leaving home, and then we skip six months of her adventures to when she decides to book passage on a ship to the New World. She is told that three ships will be leaving soon, and the first two ships she tries to book passage on she finds do not have any room for a passenger. The third ship is not highly recommended but as the only option she books passage on it. While she doesn't like the captain of the ship, she find Dominick, the navigator, enjoyable company and decides if he is sailing on the ship it can't be too bad.
Once out to sea things do not look good though, and Clarice wonders at her choice. This is when the book dragged a bit for me. It wasn't until the second half when they get to the pirate haven that it started to pick up for me, and I started to enjoy it more.
Every once in a while a pirate book can be great fun, and this was that for me. The writing wasn't great, but I did enjoy reading it.
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