Book Description
When her father’s ship is set upon by the infamous pirates of the Black Rose, Ria Lucroy decides to take the matter into her own hands to protect her loved ones. In doing so, she allows herself to be captured by the pirates and comes face-to-face with the heartless king himself. As the story progresses, Ria discovers that there is more to the king than meets the eye. With a 300-year-old curse looming over them and a battle soon approaching, Ria Lucroy must re-evaluate her priorities and determine how far she will go to save the crew she has grown to love and the ship she now calls home.
In this Beauty and the Beast retelling, Sarah Street sweeps us into a world of magic, sea monsters, and, of course, a damning curse that brings the story to life!
Book Review
I am deeply embarrassed to admit that for a period I neglected my love for reading, but no more! I’m proud to say that I’m back, and A Curse of Salt was the blessing in disguise I needed to submerge myself once again into the infinite pool of make-believe where the impossible is possible! The closer I got to the end I became more enthralled as tensions rose and secrets were revealed. I am a complete sucker for fairy tales, which I blame wholeheartedly on my inner child that I have yet to tame and honestly don’t want to, especially when I’m drawn to fantastic retellings like this one.
Sarah Street presents Ria Lucroy as having a deep connection to the sea from the start, almost as though she is bound to its current. This foreshadows her upcoming departure from her humble home into the unknown, making her decision to act as a martyr unsurprising, to say the least. With a curious nature and a desire for adventure, this character would never have been satisfied with the typical quaint life of a village girl that awaited her.
Once she boards the ship, she is filled with reservations and negative preconceptions towards its inhabitants, and rightfully so, as they are ultimately her captors, making it only natural for her and consequently, the reader to view them as the enemy. However, that opinion quickly gets dismantled by the crew’s loyal and jovial displays towards one another. They may be barbaric pirates, but to each other, they are a crew bonded by a deep sense of comradery and care for one another, a family. Because of this, it’s easy to forget that they have blood on their hands.
Through her expressive, emotive writing style, Street cleverly showcases their humane side without negating their bloodthirsty actions. In turn, we are subtly drawn towards their individual stories, no doubt leading us to form a connection with them. Aron, Golde, Mors, and Una are prime examples of this; Ria could not help but fall in love with them, and neither could I. Reading this reminded me a lot of Pirates of the Caribbean and my undying love for my favourite anti-hero, Jack Sparrow. I particularly appreciated the contrast in characters between Aron and Golde. Like Ying and Yang, their differences in personality traits helped balance each other out, successfully conveying a good cop and bad cop duo that worked well together.
The relationship between Ria and Sebastian (the Heartless King) was a slow burner, which made their love more realistic and that much more satisfying at the end. At the start, Sebastian comes across as nothing more than a hooded brute with a penchant for violence, but as the story progresses, he and Ria begin to open up to each other, and in those moments, they blossom into more authentic versions of themselves.
Critique
Unfortunately, the pacing of the story felt off. Pacing is an issue that all writers face and most if not all books exhibit. The major question is how severely it impacts the quality of the story. Some are easy to overlook, and others are simply impossible to ignore. Sadly, this book fell in the latter category for me.
The beginning had a great build-up and then there was a kind of lull in the middle until it picked up abruptly in the last quarter. The ending felt like a sudden influx of information for the sake of quickly bringing it to a close. Too much was being revealed all at once which I thought would have been better handled if it was more carefully spread out. Regardless this book was a great and exciting read that kept me thoroughly entertained.
Final Thoughts
If this wasn’t clear enough, Sarah Street’s debut novel is not one to be missed! Her talent for world-building and creating lovable characters to root for is praiseworthy. This may be a ‘tale as old as time’ but Sarah’s fresh, innovative take makes this story new in more ways than one.
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