Last year Owlcrate had a shop wide discount for a couple of their previous boxes and I obviously couldn’t contain myself haha. One of the boxes had a sea theme and since I already knew what was in the box I had to get it. The book that was included was Daughter of the Pirate King and for the longest time I planned on reading it…. We all know how that goes right 😉 Luckily I finally managed to pick it up and I devoured it in one sitting! 

Cover

This is the kind of cover I really like! It’s pretty simple but at the same time there is so much going on. Alosa looks bad ass with her outfit, weapon and gorgeous red hair. I also love the red ‘blood’ spatters on the map. And you can’t see it in the picture but the structure of the cover is amazing. A cover like this gets me super excited to read the book.

Plot

I didn’t know to much about the plot of this book and there are actually only a couple of things you really need to know. As you probably gathered from the title, our main character Alosa is the daughter of the pirate king. He sent her on a mission that required her to get taken prisoner on another pirate ship. The author mentioned that this was inspired by her love for Pirates of the Caribbean (LOVE LOVE LOVE Jack Sparrow, I mean Capt Jack Sparrow) and it for sure has that vibe going on.

“It should not be this difficult to stay prisoner on a pirate ship. This is the second time I’ve had to stage my own capture. Ridiculous.”

The plot was pretty straight forward and while there were some twists and turns not all of them were that surprising to me. Still they were done quite well and were really enjoyable. As I mentioned, I read this book in one sitting, it’s a fast paced read and you fly through it. There is quite some banter between the characters, it’s funny, it has a nice writing style and was just plain fun to read. If you love pirate books, books with a quest for some magical object, or books with great characters this is the book for you.

“Oh, the ridiculous things one has to do when one is a pirate.”

Characters

Alosa is our main character and she is such a bad ass! She’s a great pirate, really tough and so smart. We’re not just being told that she’s all those things but we get to see it as well. I thought her character was really fleshed out and I would love to be her friend. And I never ever want to get on her bad side 😉 She was quite funny as well and I loved that she had to stage her own capture (twice haha). Alosa is more than she seems at the start and I hope to see more of that other side in the second book. Another fun fact: Alosa is captain of her own pirate ship and most of her crew are woman, how amazing is that?

Riden is the first mate on the ship Alosa lets herself get captured on and he was really fun as well. I loved their banter and shipped them right away. This is definitely enemies-turned to something more and that is a trope I completely support. While we did get to learn a bit about Riden I would really like to see more of him in the sequel. We got a bunch of characters who were pretty well developed for side characters but I think Riden could’ve been even more developed. The villains in this story were also super interesting and I loved reading about them. They’re smart and horrible and I just loved to hate them.

“Lass, you’ve the face of an angel but the tongue of a snake.”

Worldbuilding

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to include anything about the world building but since there’s definitely a fantasy element I figured it made sense. The reason I wasn’t sure is because when thinking back I don’t really know that much about the world. Most of the story is set on a ship and we only get little snippets about the rest of the world. At the same time, that didn’t bother me at all as it wasn’t that important. I expect that we will get more world building in the second book and I am really excited to read it.

“Even a man who’s spent his whole life at sea has reason to fear her when she’s angry. But not I. I sleep soundly. Listening to her music. The sea watches over me. She protects her own.”

I really enjoyed this YA novel with a lady Jack Sparrow! You might’ve picked up on it by now, but I’m super excited about picking up the next book. The more I think about this story, the more excited I get! Hopefully, I’ll be reading the conclusion to this duology soon. Have you read this book, or both? Let me know in the comments. I would also love to get more recommendations for pirate books!