It’s been two weeks since I read this book, but I keep putting off writing this review because I don’t want to admit it but… this book was so disappointing.
Vengeance of the Pirate Queen is a standalone spin-off of the Daughter of the Pirate King Duology. It follows Sorinda, the assassin of Alosa, the newly minted pirate king when she is sent to explore new waters on a rescue mission to save lost pirates.
DotPK is one of my roman empire series. I’ve read it three times. I think about it often. I love it—and I loved Sorinda in that series. Not to mention the fact that the love interest in this book is Kearan, who was my all time favorite side character in the original series! I had such high expectations for this book, and it fell flat on every count.
Every aspect of this book felt underdeveloped to me. I enjoyed learning Sorinda’s back story, but her personality felt underdeveloped. She lacked a depth that made her feel like a real person. I enjoyed Kearan more and he felt more rounded, but the two of them together lacked chemistry. They had some fun lines of banter, but there was no romantic spark. They read to me like friends, and I wasn’t convinced that there was or could be anything more to them.
Similarly, the plot felt haphazard. It was unique, but it was rushed, and a few plot points were brought up once and then abandoned and never mentioned again.
An invincible man who can control the dead? There is so much potential there! Unfortunately, the execution was not where it needed to be. We get only the most preliminary depiction of the magic—leaving me unsatisfied and with far too many questions—and the book focuses more on the King of the Undersea himself. Levenseller makes an attempt at displaying a villain who is a villain because he is a corrupt, selfish, and manipulative man who wants to control everyone—especially Sorinda, a woman. Again, there is potential here. But the depiction ends up too on the nose and too shallow. If you’re going to write a character study of a manipulative man who became corrupted due to an obsession with power and control, you need to commit to that, and you need to explore it deeply. There was no resonance in this depiction, because we are told more than shown his manipulations. We are constantly told, point blank, He is a manipulator who wants control and power and submission from me. It’s so unsubtle that it’s just annoying. The true insidiousness of these kind of men is their ability to hide in plain sight and to manipulate—but his actions were just outright obvious manipulations, and Sorinda is well aware of that fact at every turn (which she should be, because it’s obvious) that it all rings hollow.
And that’s not to mention the fact that, at the end, his entire manipulitous nature is assigned to the magical object itself, thus causing any real exploration that was attempted to be essentially null and void either way. If you’re trying to make a statement on corrupt men in our world and society (and the way this read very much felt like someone trying to Make A Statement) you cannot then blame that thing on a magical object that corrupts its user. That negates the whole point. And that aspect of the magic didn’t even make sense in the context of the object itself or the world as a whole.
However, there were redeeming qualities. The book was fast paced and easy to read, and I truly loved some of the side characters, both new and returning. Especially Kearan. He has my whole heart and I loved seeing more of him and getting to know his character more deeply. Similarly, I thought the premise was unique, if not executed especially well.
I will continue to read more of Tricia Levenseller’s work, but unfortunately this one has left me disappointed.