Jacey Bedford's Journal

This book is all at sea, literally and figuratively. Caledonia Styx made a mistake when she was hardly more than a child. While ashore gathering supplies with her friend, Pisces, she trusted Lir, a 'bullet' - one of Aric Athair's drug-controlled seagoing soldiers, and her family and all the crew of the Ghost paid the price  Her parents died along with the crew, and her brother, and Pisces' brother were taken for Aric's fleet. Caledonia reinvents herself, restors the remains of the ship (now called the Mors Navis) crews it with a sisterhood of girls, and takes the fight to Aric, destroying several of his bale blossom barges (the source of the highly addictive drug, Silt). When Pisces falls into the hands of Aric, she's rescued by Oren, a bullet who wants out even if it means undergoing painful withdrawal from Silt. Caledonia, unsurprisingly, has trust issues, but Oren gives them information that sets them on a different course.

First of all, the cover of this book is lovely. The blurb promises of an all-girl pirate crew (though they are not pirates  in the truest sense), which Ms Parker delivers on, but this isn't as tense and exciting as I had hoped. Though it picks up for the final big battle. That's not the end of the book, however. Caledonia subsequently goes on to do something quite out of character... and then... there's a cliffhanger ending. I've said in previous reviews how much I hate cliffhanger endings. They don't make me want to read on. They make me want to run away because it's likely the next book will also have a cliffhanger ending (and the next?). Don't get me wrong, Caledonia and her crew achieve part of what they set out to do, but leaving the main character in a predicament, is not helpful. I have a few issues with Caledonia. She's all about sisterhood and girl power, but she's inconsistently tough/nasty, and her moments of self-doubt put people in danger. Okay, so she's only eighteen, but most of her crew-girls are younger - except conveniently the woman who does the cooking who is - shock/horror - in her forties. If this is supposed to be a feminist book, can we please drop the ageism, too?

We're deep inside Caledonia's head throughout, so as a result most of the other characters are two-dimensional. They have a defining characteristic, but not much else. The only exception to this is Pisces, whose job it is to reflect Caledonia back at herself.

And then there's the worldbuilding. Though we don't find out immediately, this seems to be a post-apocalyptic world where there's leftover tech that can be scavenged. At first you get the impression that the Mors Navis is a sailing ship, but then you discover she has a metal hull, a solar sail and water-jet propulsion. We only see two land-based settlements, both very different, and we never really learn how Aric terrorises the whole 'world' of the book, because we never see the rest of that world. Are there inland settlements? How far does Aric's power extend inland? If he's terrorisiing coastal villages and towns (taking their children for his soldiers) why don't people move inland, or group together to fortify their ports? Why do people meekly give up their teenagers? Though this was a solid read, it could have been so much more.

Review copy from Netgalley.