Daughter of the Pirate King || Tricia Levenseller

When a book has a blurb on the cover saying, "Readers should rejoice, because we now have a Lady Jack Sparrow on our hands," you better believe that I am jumping up and down in anticipation, grabby hands in want and asking, "Where do I sign?" 

I needed this book in my life and it seemed that a lot of other book bloggers felt the same way because Daughter of the Pirate King was frequently included in hauls, TBRs and Most Anticipated Reads videos. How could I resist it? The cover is gorgeous! Just look at it! It has a freaking pirate

version of Brave's Merida! Even the summary had me intrigued.

Sent on a mission to retrieve an ancient hidden map—the key to a legendary treasure trove—seventeen-year-old pirate captain Alosa deliberately allows herself to be captured by her enemies, giving her the perfect opportunity to search their ship. 

More than a match for the ruthless pirate crew, Alosa has only one thing standing between her and the map: her captor, the unexpectedly clever and unfairly attractive first mate, Riden. But not to worry, for Alosa has a few tricks up her sleeve, and no lone pirate can stop the Daughter of the Pirate King.

Doesn't that sound cool? It sounded very exciting. It sounded like it was going to be full of adventure, action and excitement. I thought that it was going to be the perfect read for when I went on my cruise. Ship. Pirate ship. Sailing. Seas. You get the picture. I was looking forward to sitting by the pool, a beer (or cocktail) in hand and reading this book.

The first chapter grabbed my attention. I felt that Alosa was definitely the cut-throat pirate princess that I expected from the summary and the cover. I was champing at the bit to find out what happened next. Sadly, that excitement and anticipation did not last into the next chapter or through the rest of the book.

I did not connect with the characters at all. There were moments when I felt like I was beginning to like Alosa; I believed in her strength but then she would do something that I felt was completely out-of-character and not something that she should or would be doing. I enjoyed her back-story more than her present-day story. Alosa's secret was intriguing, albeit no surprise, and it made me like her character a lot more when she used it but I became rather fed up with her reluctance to embrace it. I disliked how reluctant and unsure Alosa was despite claiming to be such a fearsome pirate, trained by the King himself. I doubt the King had such hesitations.

The enemy pirates themselves were feeble and flat in my opinion. The only pirate that I remotely liked was Draxen. I felt like he was the only one that actually was a solid pirate. Riden was confusing. When he was supposed to be interrogating Alosa, I felt that he was far too gentle. I didn't believe the scenes at all where he and Alosa were together. I even hated the romance that was blooming. It didn't feel natural.

 

I will say that I did enjoy Levenseller's writing. I felt that she had a good command of language and conveying this world. However, her execution of her characters and their use of language faltered in my opinion. 

When reading this book, I could not bring myself to be enthusiastic about it. I would read a chapter and then would happily set the book down. I could have happily left the book sitting instead of picking it up again. I simply did not like it. I thoroughly disliked the vast majority of the characters beyond Draxen and the Pirate King. I didn't care for any of them and so I do not care what will become of them in the sequel. I did finish the book on the aeroplane journey back to Ireland. Once finished, I gave it a 1✮ rating. With regard to the sequel, I know that I will not be reading it. 

This book was such a bitter disappointment. With that anticipation that Alosa was the Lady Jack Sparrow, I expected so much from this character. Alosa is no Jack Sparrow. In the first chapter where she is staging her capture, maybe she is like Jack. She could have been a female version of Sparrow but throughout the rest of the book, she is no Jack Sparrow. I have watched The Pirates of the Caribbean movies multiple times over and I feel like I know Captain Jack Sparrow's character very well. Alosa is not that character. Alosa is more a Will Turner. And I hate Will Turner. Or Barbosa because he changed tremendously post-trilogy so much so that I don't even recognise the original Captain Barbosa in him (don't get me started on Salazar's Revenge!). Like Barbosa, I did not understand Alosa. The whole repetition of 'escape from cell - search the ship - return to cell - stage escape - get caught - escape from cell - search the ship - get caught - stage escape' became tedious very quickly. That pattern took up a vast majority of the book with little or no result to show for it.

To round it all up and to bring this somewhat scathing review to an end, this book was a massive disappointment, the characters were weak and uninspiring and I am still on the hunt for a Lady Jack Sparrow. Have you read Daughter of the Pirate King? Is this on your TBR? Let me know your thoughts on this book. If you liked it, that's great. I'm thrilled that you did. However, my opinion is that I didn't like it at all. 

** All gifs in this post are from Giphy.com