Seafire by Natalie C. Parker
Seafire #1
Publisher: Razorbill
Publication Date: August 28th, 2018
Rating: 3 Stars
Source: Goodreads Giveaway
Format: Physical ARC
Pages: 384
Summary (from Goodreads):
After her family is killed by corrupt warlord Aric Athair and his bloodthirsty army of Bullets, Caledonia Styx is left to chart her own course on the dangerous and deadly seas. She captains her ship, the Mors Navis, with a crew of girls and women just like her, whose lives have been turned upside down by Aric and his men. The crew has one misson: stay alive, and take down Aric's armed and armored fleet.
But when Caledonia's best friend and second-in-command just barely survives an attack thanks to help from a Bullet looking to defect, Caledonia finds herself questioning whether or not to let him join their crew. Is this boy the key to taking down Aric Athair once and for all...or will he threaten everything the women of the Mors Navis have worked for?
**I received an advanced copy of this book through a Goodreads giveaway**
Seafire is another YA pirate novel featuring a captain and crew that are all exclusively female. The story follows Caledonia, captain of the Mors Navis, and her crew as they pretty much sail around trying to destroy Aric Athair, leader of the Bullets, who killed Caledonia's family.
I am personally a huge fan of the badass lady pirates trend. However, this one was a bit unremarkable for me. It did have a cast of brave and amazing ladies and there was a lot of action and excitement, but overall, I didn't find this one to be all that memorable.
I will admit it has been a bit since I finished this book, I think I read it in May. But I don't really feel like any of the characters stuck out to me all that much. The only things that I really remember were the things that I found disappointing about this book.
For one, it was hyped up to be a sapphic pirate novel. I never personally saw this officially said anywhere, but when I was looking it up on Goodreads before there were any reviews, all the hype said it was going to be sapphic. However, I didn't find that to be true. I feel like there could be more lesbians in the future of this series, but I think it's misleading to call this a sapphic pirate novel.
There were two small instances in this book that I can remember. There is a minor f/f romance in the book, but I don't feel like it was really talked about all that much. I remember it being talked about a couple times, but the thing I remember the most about it was at the end. It was said that if something were different or something, then the two characters could be together or could be happy together or something along those lines. I don't have the book anymore so I can't look it up exactly.
The other instance that I recall is before a big battle toward the end of the book. It was talking about how the girls were preparing for the battle and it said that some of the girls shut themselves in their rooms to spend their extra energy on each other. Which I personally took to mean that they were loving on each other. Which, I could be wrong, but that's how I read it.
I feel like neither of those super minor instances are enough to say this book is sapphic, but once again, I could be wrong. From what I read, I was expecting a main romance to be f/f, and while there isn't any major romance in this book yet, the main "attraction" (not even really a romance) is m/f.
The other thing that I disliked about this book was the fact that everything was so conveniently resolved. There were two major instances where the crew of the Mors Navis found themselves pretty much caught by different groups of people. But Caledonia managed to EASILY talk their way out of trouble both times.
Perhaps I'm exaggerating a bit, but to me, it was kind of like this:
Other people: Ha! Got you now, you're not getting out of here easily!
Caledonia: Hey, but what if you just let us go because reasons?
Other people: Alrighty then!!
Those two things are really what brought my opinion of this book down. Like, it was a fun read, I was invested in the story, I liked the characters for the most part, there was plenty of action and it was exciting. And I wouldn't NOT recommend this book because of these things, but I found them to be disappointing.
I'm sorry I can't really say more to what I actually DID like about this book, but I can't really remember anything specific beyond that I liked the characters and I found it exciting.
I was rooting for the characters in their mission and I am really interested to see where the story goes next, but in general, this book didn't live up to the hype that I gave it or the hype that I was seeing on Goodreads when I was researching this book.
Overall, I really did enjoy this book. I liked the story and the characters and the excitement, but I found the conflict too conveniently resolved in some parts and I was let down by the lack of any prominent lesbian relationships (however, I could see this being different in the future of this series). If I was making a list of best to worst badass lady pirate books that I've read, Seafire would probably find itself near the bottom of the list.
Have you read Seafire yet? What did you think of it?
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