Kaitlyn Schisler
Okay okay okay!! Normally not a big review writer, but there were a few unique firsts for me in this book I wanted to mention!
Kinda in love with the chills and creeps this gave me
Originally this chapter was in a special edition of “Daughter of the Pirate King”, but is now available for free from the authors website: https://tricialevenseller.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/DotSQ_RidensChapter-Final.pdf
Fantastic addition to the book to see the POV of the MMC leading up to meeting the FMC, giving some insight to Riden and Draxen. I definitely think it's best to read this after reading the first book in its entirety to keep the pirate men a little more mysterious!
Wonderful end to the duology! Full of heart break, action, betrayal, and revenge, the FMC remains true to her crew and gets the job done. Need to find me some more pirate books to read after this series!
Gives Jack Sparrow trickiness with a sprinkle of One Piece. Thinking I'm gonna have to find some more sea faring adventures after this one! Loved the premise and the subtle foreshadowing in this one, without being completely obvious of every major plot point.
Makes me very interested to read the work that inspired this, The Horror at Red Hook by H.P. Lovecraft! Maybe I am a horror girly at heart
2.5 ⭐, rounded down. No spoilers in review. I don't normally leave explained ratings, but I feel this 2 star needed some grace left behind.
Strong beginning, fell off about halfway through, tied up in a nice little bow at the end, with pieces that will lead to the other stories in this universe.
I wish the parts of the book flowed together a bit better. Kind of felt like the parts could the their own separate novellas rather than one full length book; not enough of what was going to be required was woven in earlier in the story, seems very “all of a sudden”.
My rating system says that a two is “at least I finished it”, but I don't think that's how I feel about this book. I don't wish I had my time back, the premise was good and had a lot of potential, I just wish it was implemented a little better. Rated 2.5 to be smack in the middle of the rating system, rounded down because there were points where I was like “ do I actually like this or do I just want to finish this “. By the end, I was glad that I finished it!
This book has so much potential after the first one and it simply fell through for me. Normally when I listen to audiobooks, I listen at 1-1.15x speed because I want to savor and enjoy the story. I literally bumped this speed up to 1.5-1.75 (as fast as I could listen without losing myself in the words) because I really just wanted to get it over with.
I likely will not be continuing the series unless I see reviews of the next book that convince me otherwise. There was a few sections that I did actually enjoy, particularly towards the end. This is what bumped it up to 2 stars from a 1 star rating, however, it was not enough to make me want to continue the series on its own.
My main gripe was how messy the POVs made the story. This book suffered from too many POVs that seemed rather pointless and didn't really have anything to do with each other, though they got closer towards the end to being related. I think this book would have benefitted from being split into either multiple smaller books, or three parts, separated by the main story lines: Delphine and the Sirens, Amina and the Valkyries, and Calliope and the Witches.
Sometimes, the POVs wouldn't even seem consistent, where section would start off in one person's perspective, but then suddenly they would mention something that only another character would know, like what their body was feeling or what they were thinking. On top of that, the relationships between characters and how they interacted with each other was completely unrelatable and dare I say unrealistic. Some things that people said I literally scoffed at.
I really wanted to enjoy this book, but alas everyone gets disappointed sometimes.