Daughter of the Pirate King: ***.5/5
Daughter of the Siren Queen: ****/5
(By Tricia Levenseller)
"My father controls the ocean. There is not a single man who sails without paying a toll to him All pirates must pay a percentage of their plunder to him. Those who do not are blown sky high from the sea."
Book Review: (minor spoilers)
CW: this book deals with violence and child abuse
Alosa is, as you may have guessed, the daughter of the Pirate King. The book starts with her ship being boarded by an enemy, the two sons of the pirate lord Jeskor the Headbreaker. The first chapter had a little more cutthroat action than I had anticipated. It becomes quickly apparent that Alosa is working another angle: she intended to be captured by the brothers so she could retrieve something from there ship. However, she spends a great deal of the first half of the book searching for it and attempting to keep from getting caught. We get to explore her captors' ship, the Night Farer (we're even graced with a map of the ship inside the cover!) as well as a bit of nautical knowledge. Ship terms and sailor duties add to the immersive feel of the book.
However, among the many secrets that Alosa carries, there is one that would significantly turn the tables if others knew. It's a secret that we discover about halfway through the story, and it definitely changes both the game and the timbre of the book. It is, however, the catalyst that sends Alosa and Riden, the younger brother, into a new conflict, one that has raised the stakes. Now Alosa must choose between revealing her secret to her enemies or saving someone's life.
Overall, I enjoyed this book. Pirates are a subject I'm always curious about/interested in, but I do find myself disappointed by how violent and cutthroat the main characters can be. Alosa definitely fit this bill a few times, seemingly having no remorse for any lives she took, even if they hadn't personally done her wrong or hurt her. This made her hard to relate to at times. She would constantly say in her internal dialogue how she could kill some of these men without really trying, that if she wasn't holding back her abilities she would surprise them all. This got very tiresome because it made her out to be just as cocky as she criticized others for being.
The secret Alosa hides seems to come out of nowhere in the book. While it does make for a good plot twist, it threw me for a loop because suddenly Alosa was bringing out a new bag of tricks with no preamble or preparation for the reader. I only had suspicions based on the little bit I knew of the book and its sequel.
Parental Guidance: (Major Spoilers)
As this is a pirate book, there is a lot of death and violence. There are a few scenes of seduction where Alosa uses her secret skills to attempt to find the map piece she is looking for, and tries to seduce the two sons to find it, thinking it would be on their person. There is also several callbacks to Alosa's childhood and the abuse she suffered at the hands of her father.
This is a book I would let my daughter read with discussion after. The cutthroat and sometimes selfish nature of pirates can be very morally grey, and occasionally downright evil and depending on the age of my child, I would be very apprehensive allowing her to read this.
Daughter of the Siren Queen
Book Review: (mild spoilers including from the first book)
The sequel picked up very soon after the first book, only a few weeks had passed. Here we get a little more insight into the Pirate King and his fortress as well as the pirate lords that he commands. As the title of the book suggests, this story focuses more on Alosa's heritage from her mother, the Siren Queen. This time, instead of the high stakes of recovering the map pieces for her father, Alosa is in a race against the other pirate lords, and her father, to reach the Isla de Canta, home of the sirens.
This story adds much more depth to the various crew members aboard Alosa's ship, giving the reader a glimpse into their backstories and how they came to swear their loyalty to the daughter of the brutal Pirate King. A good part of the book takes place on the ship, adding even more nautical terms to the mix. The crew has to come together to unite against their common enemy, even if that means bringing
I enjoyed this book a little more. I had a better idea of Alosa's personality and what to be prepared for with her. I already was aware of her special gift so I didn't feel frustrated by feeling out of the loop when she brought it out. I appreciated that Alosa and Riden, while they certainly made strides in their relationship, we still had the angst of an enemies to lovers trope, but it had evolved more to resentful allies to lovers.
This book, however, had a few moments that reminded me that Alosa is 17, not a mid-20s adult. Her responses to certain questions and trials frustrated me at times because she would either brush it off like it was nothing or she would take it so personally without considering the other's needs. *cue eye rolls* The ending was slightly disappointing for me, because while we did have Alosa confronting her father as she should, there wasn't the type of hero/villain fight you expect in some story culminations.
However, the growth of Alosa and Riden was amazing in this book and truly gave it a star all on its own. While I was somewhat disappointed we didn't get heartwarming and bittersweet scenes of Alosa admitting some of her past trauma with Riden, and him being able to comfort her in that (I'm a sucker for scenes like that, I'm sorry!) there was still so much character growth with both of them, in their personal arcs and in their relationship.
Parental Guidance: (major spoilers)
This one had a bit more death with more gruesome details. There's a scene with island cannibals that was a bit disturbing. There was not nearly the kind of seduction going on in this book, but there were still a few romantic scenes that could be a little much for the moldable mind.
The biggest warning I can put here is regarding Alosa and her father: he caused her serious trauma as a child and now that she's fighting back for keeps this time, he is after her life. The "let's kill my father" trope is a hard one to swallow because we want to support cutting out toxicity in life, murder isn't an acceptable method in modern society. This is definitely something I recommend talking with your child about after they read this book, especially if they do have problems with authority.
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