When I got my June email from The Nerd Fam listing all the upcoming releases I could apply to read an ARC of, I figured I could fit one of those books into my schedule. As my luck would have it, (good or bad) there were three titles I couldn’t resist applying for. All three sounded so amazing that I figured I’d roll the dice with all of them and see how many I got. I’ve made tight deadlines work before and I’ll do it again. The best motivation to read faster is good books waiting in my TBR. As I should have expected, I did end up with more than one. The first of which is The Merrow’s Wrath by Mallory Wanless. It’s a second chance romantasy featuring a noblewoman turned pirate captain who just so happens to have some magical powers.

The Merrow’s Wrath publishes on June 30th and is currently available for preorder. It will be available everywhere books are sold, including on Bookshop.org

Summary:

Once upon a time, Captain Sid was Cressida, the granddaughter of the duke. Her nobility did not grant her an easy upbringing, however. Her grandfather was a cruel man and her grandmother wasn’t better. As a punishment in her teenage years, the duke pledges her hand in marriage to an ancient friend of his instead of the man she loves. It’s finally too much and Cressida has to escape, forming her new identity in the process.

In the fifteen intervening years, Captain Sid has become a powerful force and earned herself a reputation. Still, she can’t help but occasionally think back to Tristan, the man she left behind. No one has ever captured her heart the same way since. When her crew captures one of her grandfather’s merchant ships, she’s surprised to find Tristan aboard. This time, she has no intention of letting him go. Then again, she’s not sure she’s ready to let him in again either. Tristan knows more about her than everyone else, but she still has secrets she hasn’t shared. Secrets about her past and what she really is could be enough to extinguish the torch he’s carried for her all this time.

My Thoughts:

This book advertised itself with a lot of elements I really enjoy in novels. It has a lot of tropes I reach for: magic, a pirate woman running from a high-society past, a second chance romance, and found family. Unfortunately, it ended up falling short for me. The primary focus of the narrative is the romance, and the rest feels like set dressing or an afterthought. Very little takes place on a ship, and even less of it on the one Sid captains. When the characters are at sea, the author fails to demonstrate familiarity with what that life looks like.

The inaccuracies and inconsistencies were present off the ship as well. For example, the physics of the magic at play don’t make much sense within its own rules, though it only sees use a couple of times. The passage of time was not well demonstrated. Character details seemed to fluctuate too. (This included a moment when Tristan grabbed a handful of Sid’s hair, describing it as short curls a chapter after she got cornrows.) It may have become difficult to track because we have far more characters than are needed to tell the story. Several of them end up blending together. There’s obvious effort to build up the found family aspect of the story. Unfortunately, that effort does not pay off because the majority of family’s members are one-dimensional. Additionally, the treatment of Sid’s chosen versus given names was rather uncomfortable.

Most of these issues would be easy to overlook with a strong enough plot. That redemption was not available. The only plot line that extends through the length of the book is the romance. The closest any scene comes to a climactic moment of action in book one is roughly halfway through. There are plenty of hints toward more sprinkled throughout. For most of the book, I saw a plot slowly building behind all of the side quests and miscommunications. Very few of these diversions added anything to the book except length. In the last few chapters, those hints began to solidify at last. Then, the resolution doesn’t happen. It turns out to be only a teaser for the next book of the series instead. As a reader, I no longer trust that book two will get there either.

Overall, this did not feel like a completed novel. It felt like an exploratory draft created without an outline or perhaps a series of short stories. This author does not lack in ideas. I did finish the book hoping all the way through that it would deliver on its promises. Unfortunately, The execution was not there. I really wanted to like this one. In the end, it disappointed me. I do not intend to continue with this series.

Content Warnings: Sex Work, Human Trafficking, Slavery, Sexual Assault, Torture, Child Abuse, Alcohol, Graphic Depictions of Violence & Injury, Kidnapping, Grief, Abandonment, Betrayal, Graphic Depictions of Sex, Suicide

After I Finished The Merrow’s Wrath

The next book I’ll be covering was a last-minute addition to my reading list. Truthfully, I’m not sure whether I left myself enough time to complete it and finish my review before release day, but we’ll find out. It’ll certainly be close, but I couldn’t resist applying for it when its blurb came through in an email from The Nerd Fam. Therefore, I need to give a big thank you to them for the eARC. It’s an apocalyptic enemies-to-lovers romantasy and biblical horror. Although it’s much longer than I typically choose for the timeframe available, that description sold me completely.

My next review will be for The Huntress and the Four Horsemen by Darby Briar.