Seattle sure loves its pirates! Whether you splashed in the surf with the Seafair Pirates last weekend, or had to miss out because Reasons, here’s a few books to keep you in a swashbuckling state of mind for more summer fun. Don yer eyepatch, grab yer compass and get ready to navigate the stormy waters of these fantastical pirate tales!
Amina thought she’d hung up her pirate’s boots and sword and retired for good in The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by S.A. Chakraborty, but of course a pirate’s work is never done. When she’s offered one last job of retrieving a comrade’s kidnapped child in return for a king-sized booty, adventure calls. But no “one last job” is ever as simple as it appears, and this job is no exception. Yet how can Amina resist the chance to become a legend and secure her family’s fortune for the rest of their lives, even if it means risking her very soul?
Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson is a swashbuckling stand-alone fantasy that is nonetheless part of Sanderson’s fictional Cosmere. Tress lives a simple life on a remote island, hearing of the outside world only through the stories of her seafaring friend Charlie. When disaster strikes Charlie’s ship after his father takes him in search of a bride, Tress must embark on a perilous sea journey to find the Sorceress of the Midnight Sea for help. Fans of the Princess Bride will find much to love here.
First in the Tide Child series, The Bone Ships by R.J. Barker melds dragons with high seas adventures. The people of Hundred Isles have built their ships from the bones of ancient dragons for generations in a battle for supremacy during the never-ending war with rivals from The Gaunt Islands. After word gets out that a new dragon has been born, pacifist Meas Gilbryn takes control of the ramshackle bone ship Tide Child, which is crewed by those condemned to death, in order to pursue the dragon. A saga of the high seas, this fantasy will surely delight fans of the legendary Patrick O’Brian.
P. Djèlí Clark reimagines New Orleans and the American Civil War in The Black God’s Drums. An experienced wall-scaler, Creeper dreams of the skies while stuck in the streets. The chance to make her dreams come true starts when she lands a spot on the airship Midnight Robber. But there is more than meets the eye to Creeper, who hears the voice of Oya, the African orisha of winds and storms and there is more than just war at stake for the crew of the Midnight Robber as they race to stop The Black God’s Drums, a mysterious weapon, from being unleashed on New Orleans.
No pirate post could be complete without mention of at least one retelling of the Captain Hook/Peter Pan saga. In Alias Hook by Lisa Jensen, Disney’s favorite villain gets the tragic hero treatment. Exiled to Neverland for his crimes and forced to play villain to little boys who never grow up, Privateer James Hookbridge, aka Captain Hook, sees no end to his either his punishment or boredom until an adult woman from his own world miraculously washes ashore in Neverland.
Sometimes the journey toward piracy takes multiple books (or …5 movies, ahem). The light-hearted adventures of Kianthe and Reyna that began in Rebecca Thorne’s Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea continue in A Pirate’s Life For Tea (currently on order). And Rory Thorne – now a space pirate – must save the multiverse from an alien biological weapon in How the Multiverse Got Its Revenge, the follow up to K. Eason’s How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse.
~ posted by Veronica H.
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