Tempest

The Lyrian Sea #1

by Victoria Aveyard

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Victoria Aveyard comes an epic adventure of love and betrayal, amid a brutal war for the high seas.

May the sea always sing for you

Cat Rose knows what it is to live in two worlds, in two times. Before—as Lady Catrine Rose of the Meridian Empire, chained to a loathsome lord with a dwindling fortune. And after—as the Widow Rose, queen of a pirate tavern in the Lyrian Sea, determined to be the master of her own fate.

But tides turn and winds change. The Meridian Empire looms on the horizon, the full weight of her navy falling on the Lyrian, bent on reclaiming the wealthy colonies and crushing the pirate republic once and for all. Ship after ship is captured, save for one, captained by a pirate who continually evades both noose and blade: the legendary Valerian Kane.

With his fearsome ship and uncanny connection to the song of the sea, Valerian is the only man who might rally the pirates who remain. The only man who threatens the Empire. And the only man Cat has ever loved, blazing in and out of her life like a star.

Desperate for victory, the Empire offers Cat a devastating choice: bring them Valerian or hang. In truth, no choice at all.

But Cat Rose is nothing if not a survivor.

A storm is rising on the Lyrian Sea—the question is, what will it leave in its wake?

Genres: Fantasy, Romantasy, Romance, Pirates, Adult, Fiction, Fantasy Romance

458 pages, Paperback

First published September 8, 2026

About the author

I'm an author/screenwriter who likes books and lists. This site is the nexus of my universe.

I wrote the #1 NYT bestselling series RED QUEEN the #1 NYT bestselling REALM BREAKER trilogy. Next up, my adult fantasy debut, TEMPEST, coming 2026.

Reviews

[Clace]

Hahah soft dnfd- I finally got free and out of my slump but idt it's the right book to read rn
___
Reading a Victoria Aveyard book after 5 years is insane 😭 I stopped cuz I wasn't feeling it with Realmbreaker but I loveeeed her Red Queen series, it was also one of the first series I read. Hopefully, this is good!!

Buddy reading with my cousin who will infuriate me throughout the book 😒

[Katherine]

ALEXA, PLAY THE PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN SOUNDTRACK

[Sophie]

I’m calling it. Time of death: 50%

I had this on 2x speed and 8 hours left, EIGHT, yet I still couldn’t force myself to finish it.

There’s a great story in here. If only it wasn’t buried in heavy descriptions, so much repetition, and a painfully slow pace. If that sounds like your kind of book, I’m sure you’ll have a lovely time with it. I just couldn’t do it anymore. Cut it down by half and it would have been a solid read… and a standalone as it was first intended to be.

And I’m so confused by the audiobook. It’s meant to be a dual narration by Fiona Hardingham and Shane East, so why the hell did I only hear Fiona?? Is Shane even in the room with us??? I have to say I’m so annoyed about that.

Also, there’s way too much focus on Cat’s first marriage to that disgusting old man. How dare you not kill him off ASAP??

If I had paid for this, I’d want my money back. Just saying.

─ ✦ ────

✎ᝰ.┊ pre-read: OMG I GOT THE ALC, MY WEEKEND IS BOOKED

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the alc!

[vyn targaryen ‎♡‧₊˚]

give it to me right now victoria hope lauren doesnt plagiarize this one too

[Liana Gold]

4.5! Yes, it's slow and descriptive, so you have to allow the story to mature! Yes it will not be for everyone. But it was for me! Quickly, and I will expand on my thoughts later too: this was phenomenal. It started off very slow for me as there is a lot of things you need to swim through like political intrigue, understanding the dynamics between the pirates/piracy world and The Crown, and people you come across but after a good 40% I could not put this down. The alternating chapters between 'before' and 'after' were headed towards a smooth convergence as the story neared the end.. but they never finish off leaving a lot of room for further development..which I'm sure we are going to see follow through in the next book. The strong, morally gray characters were a delight to get to know.. we have a noblewoman and a pirate, two opposite ends of the social ladder yet very much the same in the grand scheme of things. She hides behind her wits and circumstances while wanting so much more than the world has to offer her... and he just sees her for who she truly is yet there is a strong sense that they understand each other better than almost everyone else. There is a strong attraction, tension and yearning. Their relationship dynamic is very complicated--a lot of unresolved feelings, secrets and betrayal..but seeing them slowly fall in love without admitting these feelings was the slowest burn ever..

Tempest is not a spicy book! It's somewhat low in action but high in political intrigue and the author takes time to build the world and characters. Its layer upon layer and I just know that it will be explosive later.. So if you're looking for a very well built story and are OK with a slower pace, less spice and more romantic tension.. you're going to devour this book, just like me.

I highly recommend the immersive read.
I'M GOING TO EXPAND ON THIS! I promise!
I cannot wait for Tyrant!

A little summary
The book follows a young noblewoman 'Cat' Rose who is known as the Widow Rose, a powerful figure in pirate world of the Lyrian Sea. We follow her through two timelines, one when she was a younger Cat trapped in a bad marriage and is at the start of her transformation into the pirate world and the after Cat, who is much older, solidified figure in the pirate world. We have a legendary pirate captain, Valerian Kane, who becomes the center of Cats emotional life.

[Stephanie]

Another day, another YA fantasy book masquerading as an adult fantasy romance.

From the beginning I had issues with the writing style in this. It was so profoundly juvenile and was both over and under edited. The repetitive words were without a doubt the worst, but her lack of skill in descriptive writing was almost just as bad.

I’m also 90% sure Aveyard has aphantasia—and I don’t mean that to be rude, but it does affect how descriptions are written. Lots of similes and metaphors are used for individual objects or landscapes, but you never actually get a full idea of where the characters are.

I noticed this in Alex Aster’s writing too (who has openly admitted to having aphantasia) and so I can only assume it’s the same case here. Scenes would be written almost as one snapshot rather than an action—like an old fashioned flip book.

I don’t want to harp on that point too much because obviously authors can’t help it if they have aphantasia, but it did lead to this book having a very clunky, disjointed style.

Victoria Aveyard also can not write 3rd person. It’s very clear she’s more comfortable in 1st, but maybe assumed an “adult” fantasy book would be taken more seriously in 3rd?

I’ve said this before, but I think a big reason people feel disconnected by 3rd person is when bad 3rd person authors write like this: “cat did this, cat said this, cat wanted this.”

It’s the mark of an unconfident, first-time 3rd person writer who feels like they need to over explain what is a character is feeling, saying, or doing in a scene because they don’t trust the reader to interpret on their own.

But arguably the worst offender was her overuse of phrases and the repetition. My god. It was atrocious. And aphantasia can’t be blamed for that.

-“Cat thought” or “she thought” was collectively used nearly 200 times. At that point, just write in 1st. You clearly want to because you’re wanting to interject 1st person inner monologue into a 3rd person pov.
-“Tempest” was used 30 times, which seems so few for how many times I felt like it came up. If I had to read “tempest eyes” one more time…
-“his namesake” was used like twice in a chapter to denote the character’s husband.

These are just three examples. There are so many more.

Descriptions for characters were slim, but repeated over and over and over again. We harp on eye color SO MUCH and get little-to-no actual depth beyond the unoriginal, YA-leaning tropey description used in every romantasy book written post-2018.

You know, “muscle feathered in his jaw,” “she felt it in her core,” “muscle made of iron that flexed beneath tanned skin.”

Same old same old.

Aveyard also does the annoying (very Lauren Roberts style I might add) of adding an italicized sentence underneath paragraphs where she wants to reader to know what the character was really thinking. This isn’t an actual quote, but it would be something like:

He looked at Cat and questioned her motives.
As he should, I’m a great liar, she thought.

Sorry, why do we need that in an adult book? Can an adult reader not pick up on subtext? Or what we (should have) established from our character’s actions previously?

Beyond the writing, story itself started good, although you can pinpoint scenes or characters taken from Pirates of the Caribbean, which did admittedly take me out of the book at times.

Another offender was the before and after chapter choice.

I loved the before chapters and wish the story was written in a linear way. I understand why she chose to do it before and after, but I was getting so annoyed at enjoying a before scene and then switching to after just to leave tension.

If you just write a good story, you don’t need to add in these cheap tension endings to a chapter in order to get the reader to stay and wait for the inevitable next “before” chapter.

All of this combined with the classic, ye old ending written in the mmc’s point of view just made me roll my eyes. This needs more editing—preferably by someone who will be honest and tell Aveyard what’s actually poorly done. They can start with these:

“Blinding rage filled Cat's body, despite her predicament.” (Despite her predicament? That means in contrast to, which doesn’t make sense here because she’s angry that someone is manhandling her, as she should be.)

“She loosed her teeth.” (The fuck does that mean?)

“‘Don't,’ she heard herself whisper.” (Just say “she whispered.” What are we doing)

“Swallowed” being used 46 times. Cut it out.


That was long-winded, sorry!

Anyways, thank you Edelweiss for a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Emily (Books with Emily Fox on Youtube)]

So many anticipated releases in 2026!!

[Laura]

6 ⭐️

RTC when I’m not sleep deprived from prying my eyeballs open to finish reading.

[ekaterina]

will read this before rauren loberts decides to write defenseless based on this series 👀

[Lauren]

Thank you to Harper Voyager for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. (I am writing this review a near 6 months before publication, so there is time to alter it). Oof… It hurts to be writing this, but I need to be truthful. I went into this expecting adventure, high stakes, and tension. Above all of that, though, I expected it to be ADULT. The only thing that seemed adult about it, was the expansive world building… But even YA books can have that. The overly-descriptive writing and repetitive language made me want to hit my head on the wall. I wanted so badly to be immersed, but I wasn’t. The pacing is bad… Like really bad. It was so boring until about 80% in, and by then, I had just read so many words, but none of them were saying anything. The main characters’ relationship didn’t give me any feelings because the bond wasn’t shown to the reader until too far in. Therefore, I didn’t really care when the action finally happened. I think with some editing, it could be good. But now? I didn’t like it.

[Cassie (Star-Crossed Book Blog)]

PIRATES! ADULT DUOLOGY! ROMANTIC FANTASY! LOVE TRIANGLE?!?!

WE ARE SO BACK.

[Nilufer Ozmekik]

If Victoria Aveyard writes something, I’m already in line to read it. No questions asked. And when I heard she was diving headfirst into pirate romantasy with Tempest, my excitement level skyrocketed. Pirates, dangerous seas, complicated love, political chaos, betrayal, survival… yes please, give me all of it.

This story drops us into a world where the ocean is both refuge and battlefield. At the center of it all stands Cat Rose, a woman who has lived two completely different lives. Once she was Lady Catrine Rose of the Meridian Empire, trapped in a suffocating marriage and a life she never truly controlled. Now she is the Widow Rose, the sharp-minded owner of a pirate tavern in the Lyrian Sea, determined never to be powerless again.

I absolutely love heroines like Cat. She isn’t soft, saintly, or designed to be easily liked. She’s calculating, guarded, sometimes messy, and fiercely determined to survive in a brutal world. She’s the kind of character who makes questionable choices, keeps dangerous secrets, and refuses to apologize for the lengths she’ll go to protect herself. Honestly? I respect that energy. Women in morally gray territory will always win my heart.

And then there is Valerian Kane… the infamous pirate captain who slips through the Empire’s grasp again and again like a ghost carried by the tide. The Empire wants him captured at any cost, and unfortunately for Cat, they believe she is the key to finding him. Their ultimatum is brutal: deliver Valerian to them, or face the gallows herself.

But of course things are never that simple—especially when the man they want her to betray is the one who still burns through her memories like wildfire.

The dynamic between Cat and Valerian is complicated in the best possible way. Their connection feels tangled in history, longing, resentment, and unfinished emotions. It’s not a tidy romance; it’s messy, layered, and charged with tension. The kind of relationship where love and betrayal seem to exist in the same breath.

What really impressed me throughout the book was the sheer scale of the world. The islands, the ships, the politics between the Empire and the pirate republic, the constant feeling that war is brewing just beyond the horizon—it all creates this sweeping maritime atmosphere that makes you feel like you’re standing on the deck of a ship with salt in the air.

The story moves between Cat’s past and present, slowly revealing the events that shaped her transformation from an imperial lady into the hardened survivor she is now. I actually enjoyed piecing together those fragments of her life. Watching how the girl she used to be slowly hardened into the woman she became gave the story an emotional depth that kept me invested.

The pacing leans more toward a slow burn than a nonstop action ride, but that worked for me because it allowed the characters and the world to breathe. Instead of rushing through battles and twists, the book focuses on building tension—political tension, romantic tension, and the constant sense that something explosive is waiting just beneath the surface.

And when the story finally hits its stride near the end? That’s when everything clicks into place. The stakes rise, loyalties start shifting, and suddenly you realize the calm waters were only the beginning of a much larger storm.

By the time I reached the final pages, I was fully invested in Cat’s fate, deeply curious about where this story is sailing next, and already impatient for the next installment.

Overall, this is a rich, atmospheric start to what promises to be a sweeping pirate romantasy adventure. It’s full of sharp edges, emotional tension, and a heroine who refuses to sink no matter how violent the storm becomes.

I’m giving this one four adventurous, storm-tossed stars, and I cannot wait to see where the next tide carries these characters.

A very huge thanks to NetGalley and Avon and Harper Voyager | Harper Voyager for sharing one of the most anticipated romantasies of the year with me in exchange for my honest feedback. 🌊📚⚓

medium.com
instagram
facebook
twitter

[ageless]

If you want to pick up this book because it was sold to you as a Pirates of the Caribbean style adventure with a thrilling ten-year situation-ship between a fallen lady and a dashing pirate captain: DO NOT FUCKING BOTHER.

If you want a story about bland, unpleasant people playing cards and drinking while visiting copy-paste islands where they play more cards and drinking more alcohol than this might just be the book for you!

This book is genuinely one of the worst pieces of English literature that has ever been published.
Not only is it poorly written, badly edited, horribly paced, filled to the brim with forgettable characters, and lacking any sense of adventure, but this book is BORING.
It is DULL.
I would compare its intrigue to that of watching paint dry, but I genuinely feel that would be an insult to drying paint. Nearly 95% of this book is completely useless to the purpose of telling an engaging story. This duology ought to have been a single book as originally intended, and frankly, I’m not sure why it wasn’t. All the important information in this book could have EASILY been edited down to about three scenes worth of information, and I really do think I’ve been generous with my estimation.
This book should’ve been an email—worse actually, it should’ve been a fucking text.

This book is allegedly a romantic fantasy (or romantasy for those who find such inane genre definitions annoying), but I fear I must ask a rather pressing question, how many fantastical elements does a book require to qualify as fantasy? Does a book that has only a singular hint at having (entirely unexplained) magic in the last three percent of a book count? Does having a singular magical amulet in the final twenty pages of a 468 page book make it a fantasy? I’d say no.
But wait! Now, consider this: What if a book had practically no real romance or romantic tension and only one single kiss in the whole of it? What if all the romance happened in the ten year gap that we don’t get to see? What if the extent of the romance is our main character repeating the same description of the male main character ad nauseam in order to convince you that this ugly ass blonde man is actually hot?
Now I don’t know about you, but if I’m sold a book that is pretending to be a ROMANTIC FANTASY I would expect some goddamn ROMANCE and some fucking FANTASY, but let me know if I’m off base.

But I must give credit where credit is due. Victoria Aveyard is bold. I think it incredibly bold to sell people a $34 book that has not a single thing that the book is advertised as having.

But obviously, a book can be different than described and still be a great book. Unfortunately, Tempest is not that.

Tempest is, on a prose level alone: abysmal. The amount of descriptions that are not only uninspired to begin with, they are repeated, again and again and again. Valerian is HUGE and GOLDEN and has TEMPEST EYES, Jasper has silver eyes, the Lyrian Sea is BLUE and DEEP (and did I mention the sea is BLUE?), Cat has amber eyes that are BRIGHT. Each of these descriptions are repeated at a minimum of five times and many of them are repeated upwards of TWENTY.
And I don’t know if Victoria has some kind of synesthesia or something but she’s convinced that just naming colors is profound description. Everything is blue or green or purple or pink or orange or gray or golden or some combination of the above. What does anything look like? Who fucking knows, but it’s certainly colors!!
And the same things are described with the exact same combination of colors every single time. The sunrise is purple and pink and orange, the sunset is orange and blood red and ALWAYS ends with a flash of green (as if that isn’t a very rare phenomenon).
Someone needs to grab Aveyard by the shoulders and shake her vigorously, or at the very least tell her this is so much more to writing good description than fucking colors. If I should never see the word golden again, it will not be long enough.

But that’s not even where the prose woes end. Aveyard has developed a peculiar and distracting OBSESSION with sentence fragments. She will end sentences. And then carry them on as if she didn’t just place a period. It creates a thousand fragments that don’t function as complete thoughts. I cannot for the life of me figure out why she’s doing it. I have to guess she’s trying to force rhythm and tone, but the result is not a good tone and rhythm it’s a remarkably worse one.
She also has the strangest way with wording very simple actions. For example: there are several instances where Cat (the main character) will “turn into” the sun or the wind. Turn into? Like sure I understand that she means is turning to face or look at those things, but it sounds like she is shape shifting into the sun or the wind. It’s awkward phrasing like this that’s used multiple times per chapter. At one point, Valerian (the main love interest) steps over the back of a chair and then sits down on it? What the fuck am I supposed to be imagining? Is the chair two feet tall? I know he’s large but he has to be ridiculously composed of the longest legs of all time to make such an action work. Is he a cellar spider? I am frightened and horrified.

And god, oh god, the REPETITION. I think you’d be hard pressed to find a single sentence or notion that isn’t REPEATED multiple times. This book certainly believes you to be the stupidest amoeba upon the surface of the earth. You need not exert any brain power to read this book for if you forget a single thing (though how would you when everything is told to you seven times already?) the book will simply tell you seven times more!
This book repeats descriptions and information and straight up sentences so often I think I came away from the book stupider than I entered. I swear I could feel my brain atrophy as I read. I can only imagine what brain damage Aveyard sustained writing it.

Not to mention the writing is just childish. It’s writing style seems to have been created as though it was made to appeal to the stupidest third grader on the planet, and yet it’s got uncomfortable references to sexual topics that are the only justification for its billing as an adult book.

Now this may come as a surprise as I’ve tried very hard to impress upon you how very boring this book is, but this book actually features two timelines. One titled “After” and another titled “Before”, both are equally useless and not in the slightest are they engaging, but the real turd upon the dookie cake is that the book flops between each timeline every chapter.
And these chapters are LONG, and each progresses the either timeline forward one singular step (if even that, for many don’t actually progress the plot forward at all), and I found that by the time I finished one chapter and was thrust back into the other timeline I would be unable to even remember what was happening last time I read in this timeline. This wasn’t for lack of trying, but so forgettable is 95% of this book that trying to remember whatever inane occurrences Aveyard wrote about two chapters ago, that I really struggled. It is such a confusing and idiotic structure, I can’t even imagine what Aveyard thought she was accomplishing with her choice of it.

But enough of prose and structure, I think my brain shall melt out of my head if I ponder it any further. Let’s talk about characters, since the book has no plot, no magic, no world building, no romance, surely the characters must be entrancing, right?

Well, no. There are remarkably few of them, and only three (four, if I’m being INCREDIBLY kind) that are consistently on page and have any character traits to speak of.

Our main character is Catrine (nicknamed Latrine—I mean Cat) Rose. To put it bluntly: she’s an entitled little cunt. She’s self-centered, self-obsessed, cruel, classist, hypocritical, and one of the stupidest women I’ve ever had to read about. And listen, I love unlikable women, but usually they have some quality, some personality trait that makes them fun to root for, but Cat is a bitch and also stupid. Being stuck in her head for the entire book is comparable only to taking fifty-seven gunshots to the skull.

The main love interest, Valerian, is simply not on page for like 80% of the book. The other 20% of the book is spent describing how big and golden and muscled and how he never wears shirts. I think his descriptions sound ugly and every time he opens his mouth, he says stupid shit that made me want to shove my head in an oven. He doesn’t really have a discernible personality outside of being a stereotypical pirate and finding Cat hot.

Jasper is also here, and he’s the most interesting character in the book. He has much more chemistry with Cat than Valerian does, but he’s also clearly not the love interest and I don’t really understand why he likes Cat at all. She’s incredibly weird and classist towards him. He works for the Empire and he’s supposed to be evil, but he has more of a moral backbone than both Valerian and Cat combined.

The whole trio is immature and stupid. They have the combined brain power of a fried egg, and are constantly making juvenile jabs and attempting to convey the most basic observations as mastermind level deductions. It’s wholly quite baffling to read.

Every other character is either not fleshed out or an archetype or just evil in a ridiculous comic book way that doesn’t feel real in any sense of the word. Also there are like two other named women, but not a single one is given any time or development. This book doesn’t give a shit about any woman other than Cat.

Finally, I want to talk about the way the book attempts to interact with anti-colonialism. This book would like you to think that it’s anti-imperialist and against the colonization of the Caribbean—I mean the Lyrian. But not only is this book lazy in its exploration of such themes, it’s also propping up Cat (a white blonde person from the colonizing Meridian Empire) and Valerian (another white blonde person from the colonizing Meridian Empire) as the saviors of the non-white island peoples of the Lyrian.
And as if white savior-ism wasn’t enough, Cat also describes Valerian as “A predator. A conqueror.” and as “the Lion of the Meridian. Deadly, powerful, golden, filled with the calm knowledge of his superiority. King of the jungle.”
Like I’m sorry? Excuse me, what? And by the way, these are DIRECT quotes from the books. How are you going to pretend to be anti-imperialist and then use that exact same language to prop up your ugly ass love interest?
And not to mention, there like two named PoC in this book, neither of which have anything to contribute to the plot.

Altogether, I’m not sure why this book exists save to cash in on Aveyard’s flagging popularity after releasing Red Queen ten years ago. It’s an unpleasant experience. It’s poorly written, horribly paced. It’s not interesting. It’s not engaging. The characters are juvenile (they’re all like 30-35 in the “after” timeline btw).

The kindest thing I can say about this book is that it’s a masterclass in what not to do when writing a book.

I truly am not being hyperbolic when I say that this book is the worst I have ever read and finished, somehow dethroning even Yarros’ Fourth Wing series.

There’s a lot more I could say, but I wish to wash my hands of this book and never think about it again, so I shall end this over-long review here. I may return to add some other thoughts if I think of anything, but for now, if you made it through, thank you for reading my review!

I beg you to not inflict this slog of a book upon yourself and to instead just go watch Pirates of the Caribbean. It’s much better and is actually interesting. Or, if you really want a sea-faring adventure book with magic, pirates, dragons, and politics try Robin Hobb’s Liveship Traders! It’s one of my favorite series with much better writing and far more fleshed-out plot and characters (and a bit of romance too).

[amandathebookworm]

4.5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨ I THOROUGHLY enjoyed this & cannot wait for book 2. & thank you to HarperCollins for supplying me with an ARC!


PLOT
Cat is a former lady with a past trying to simply escape the war headed to the islands she lives on when she’s summoned & jailed, ready to be hanged. She’s given an opportunity to escape death — & this place — only if she goes with the man who turned on her in the first place, to find the leader of the pirates. Who just so happens to be the only man she ever loved.
- SLOW. BURN. Let her cook.
- No spice (yet, tbd)
- Pirates & island setting — very Pirates of the Caribbean-coded
- themes of colonialism & imperialism
- dual timeline & 3rd person POV
- love triangle-ish, kinda sorta not really but a little?


PROS
- I LOVE how this is told in dual timeline & tells the story 10 years apart. Huge sucker for that & it is done sooooo well here.
- I can see every little detail of this world. The writing is descriptive but doesn’t lose itself to the world at all for me. It was so rich, so colorful; like a movie in my mind.
- This really is a love letter to Pirates of the Caribbean without being the same story at all IMO. Don’t read this & think “omg it’s copy paste because it’s islands & there’s pirates & an imperialist navy” because this goes in such a different direction.
- The dynamics between Cat & Fell & then Cat & Kane are INTERESTING.
- Cat is a FASCINATING FMC. She’s complex, you root for her but she’s also doing/done shady shit with serious consequence, but you get why does it. Even if you don’t love it. She’s suuuper smart & perceptive. She is a VERY interesting FMC to follow & I quite like her.
- Do yourself a favor & imagine Kane as Alexander Skarsgård. You’re welcome. But also it’s just hard not to like him. It’s the pirate’s life for me, or whatever they say. He’s hot & interesting & layered.
- & then Fell was also a super dynamic 3rd MC & I am really interested in where he goes.
- The romantic tension is outta control tbh. The dual timeline really plays into it too & I eat it up with a SHOVEL.
- I love Ana.
- I also love the religion/potential gods? at play here. It’s really interesting & I want to know more.


MIDS
- For me this is not a con but it could be for others so noting here. The beginning ~25 - 30% was a little slower. Significant world building & political establishment occurring. I don’t mind this, but people might. But holy shit once we got to around 1/3 through I was off & running.


CONS
- There was a bit of repetition in descriptions throughout we could have maybe trimmed back on. The physical descriptions of the men — especially their eyes — is an example. Not in like, a gross way. But in a like “okay yes we get it his eyes are X color” & it after awhile it didn’t feel like it was adding to it. Ya know what, as I type this I could be wrong; it could be very relevant (I actually think it just might be tbh). But even let’s take that example out, there was some repetition to certain descriptions that didn’t seem necessary.


I will eat up book 2! Hell yeah!

[Booksblabbering || Cait❣️]

If you love Pirates of the Caribbean, you’ll LOVE this. Particularly if you adored Elizabeth Swan.  

Cat Rose is a noblewoman-turned-pirate who is forced by the Meridian Empire to hunt down Valerian Kane - the legendary pirate and also the captain who first kidnapped her, then made her fall in love - or face execution.

"Don’t pretend we’re even, Captain Fell. I don’t care what class you were born to. You are still a man in this world. And I still have a noose around my neck."

Told in Before and After, you see an innocent, slightly skittish noblewoman tied to a husband she despises. She runs into (shot at/kidnapped by/rescued by) Val and you see her strength and fiery stubbornness come out.

Then you jump forward to the decline of the age of pirates. You know something big and bad happened and somehow, Cat is at the centre of it. She’s older, disillusioned, out for herself, and alone.

"Strange. I’m the pirate, but I’m the only one here who hasn’t betrayed anyone," he muttered, shaking his head. Then he laughed, surprised. "I’ve never held the moral high ground before. I’m not sure I like it."

This was addictive, tense, and tantalising. I would categorise this as fantasy romance in the first instalment rather than romantasy. It’s predictable where this will end up, but the push and pull of Cat and Val mirror the tide. 

I will say: the word ‘tempest’ was used too often. I don’t need to be reminded every other chapter that Val has tempest eyes. 

The ending revelations felt rushed. This makes more sense knowing that this was initially intended as a standalone, but its length transformed it into a duology. 

This is a 4.25 stars, but I have had a deficit of 5 stars this year, so I’m bumping it up. It was definitely one of the most fun reading experiences I’ve had (Alexa, play the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack and Pirate by Everglow).⭐️

Arc gifted by Gollancz.

Bookstagram
Tiktok

[christinac_reads]

exhausting repetitive naval gazy prose that didn’t go anywhere. sadly there’s only a single tension hook that this book revolves around (and it’s literally LAND politics) which completely paralyzes all the characters in this book. so as the reader you’re stuck in this narrative loop that keeps just going around and around and around and dragging you down cause nothing changes. when i thought we were finally moving forward, the same stuff was recycled and we went through the same circle of thought over and over again.

this book tried so hard to sound pretty and smart at the expense of pacing and substance. it tried to be lush and atmospheric and yet i was hammered over the head with overused analogies like salt this, wind that, endless tides there, timber here, it sharpened blah blah blah. if i never hear “his tempest eyes” & “the song of the sea” for the rest of my life i literally will be so happy.

i was so bored and so many times i really wish i DNFd it and really i should’ve. the dual timeline, while initially fascinating, definitely did not help this book at all. so much of this was tell vs show. you’re telling us in one timeline of what we should know and imagine about these characters yet nothing was showed in either timelines. seriously didnt care about anyone except maybe ana who is very cool.

im so disappointed cause i really wanted to like this.

[Andie]

I am a pirate history fanatic, which means I am predisposed to love anything piracy-adjacent and critical of its execution. I hadn't touched a VA book with a ten foot pole since opening Red Queen in high school and promptly reshelving it, but hey. It'd been a decade or so. She'd written several more books. Maybe she got better at it. (Also, this one had pirates.)

So I was shocked (shocked, I tell you) that this book was so poorly written, it managed to distract me from the pirates.



Take it from anyone who's accidentally broached the subject with me over dinner: it is very, very hard to distract me from my all-consuming love of pirates.



But fear not. I also hated the parts about pirates.



If I listed all the ways I was personally offended by this book's syntax, research, and word choice, we'd be here forever, so I'll limit myself to a few representative standouts:

She did not bother to knock on her own door, climbing the stone steps to push her way inside. Her arrival caught Derry unawares, the young maid scurrying out of the kitchen and into the small but well-appointed entrance hall. Cat waved off her apologies. [I have one word for VA's scene staging and it is Disorienting. First, Cat isn't knocking (ergo is at the door), then she's still climbing the front steps (rewind), then she's pushing inside (fast forward). Then we're introduced to a new character, but we learn her name and her feelings before her relationship to Cat (interpersonally as well as spatially. VA can't decide if she wants to write close 3rd person limited or a more distant 3rd (or 1st disguised as 3rd), so just writes 3rd limited poorly, with awkward deviations.).]

Thankfully the torches still burned on the wall. At least I will not rot in darkness, she thought... [Related to the above, nearly every descriptive paragraph is followed by an italicized thought, as if VA cannot bear to truly depart from 1st person and insists on re-straining everything through Cat. In 3rd, you do this through free indirect discourse, not juvenile italics.]

After a long moment of staring, too many thoughts swirling in her mind, Cat did the same.... Her mind raced, a jumble of too many things that just would not align. [...and even with descriptive passages constantly re-narrated as thoughts, we're subjected to almost-as-frequent lines like these, where we're told that Cat's thoughts are too numerous to capture. I'm sure this is meant to characterize Cat as intelligent but, lacking any real evidence on that score, she just seems perpetually confused.]

Cat hardened, her body tense. [In addition to being redundant (just say she tensed), this reminded me of the iconic Pitch Perfect line:



Ahem.]

Cat did not stop, clambering up on deck for a gasp of fresh air before she choked on the pirate. [One of many sentences that self-abridges, leaving the verb affixed to the wrong subject. She wasn't choking on the pirate (another Pitch Perfect moment here), but on the pirate's scent. (That, or something else happened belowdeck in the space between one sentence and another.)]

Cat’s grip tightened until the reins began to cut off the circulation in her fingers... [Not a syntax issue but a research one: you can't cut off your circulation with reins. You don't wrap them around your fingers.]

Blinding rage filled Cat’s body, despite her predicament. ["Despite" suggests a contradiction, but here, it is her predicament that is causing her to feel blinding rage.]

Cat realized she was biting down on her lip, near enough to draw blood again. She loosed her teeth... [Loosed her teeth? Um, no. Loosed her lip from between her teeth, maybe (though still dubious phrasing). I want to be loosed from this book smfh.]

Cat had to bite her lip to keep from giggling, the pair of them forming the lethal ends of a wide, disparate spectrum. [The number of times this woman giggles/barely restrains herself from giggling when it makes absolutely no sense for the scene or her character is absurd. Oh, you've just been reunited with a former lover with whom you had a falling out? Time to giggle. He might kill a naval officer with whom you also have a murky past? Guess we're giggling now, too. (Also: "disparate spectrum"? That's redundant to the point of being contradictory, like saying they're on different ends of different things.)]

I'd also like to offer a moment of silence for the imagery in this story, because ?????



Why is everything a bone? And not in a cool, atmospheric way. A mountainous island looks like bones. (Generic, but fine I guess.) A city looks like a jungle sprouting bones. (This is increasingly trite.) A fort looks like a bone. (A bone? Singular? Forts are sprawling or squat. What kind of bone does this fort look like?) And good grief, Cat can't look at Valerian without commenting on his "tempest" eyes. Someone with a digital copy: please do a word count check and let me know what the tally comes to, it's got to be mind boggling.

And then there are the pirates.

Sigh.

Certain aspects of Tempest are not so much inspired by as grafted from the "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "Black Sails" franchises (the opening scene of pirates hanging from a stone arch, for instance), but all the underdog sympathies that made PotC and BS such cultural phenomenons (and which make the true histories of the Golden Age of Piracy so enduring) are flipped on their head, such that imperial sympathizers hog Tempest's limelight. VA doesn't succeed in making these characters sympathetic in their own right, and if she hoped to craft a morally grey protagonist, she failed miserably: the MC is the villain, and not even an interesting one. Her character is grafted almost entirely from Eleanor Guthrie of "Black Sails" fame (BS spoilers incoming) who is a tavern owner, secret purveyor, and legitimate front for the pirate republic during its golden years, before her capture by the royal navy compels her to betray her former friends and colleagues, condemning the republic. (This is, beat for beat, the character arc of Cat Rose.) However, where Eleanor was a fully realized, cunning character who made bad choices for good reasons (usually) and good choices for smart reasons, Cat is a caricature of Elizabeth Swann (replete with smirks and gasps and giggles) who we are meant to believe has lived the life of Eleanor Guthrie. Like Eleanor, who was in love with renowned captain, Charles Vane, but who betrays and is betrayed by him, Cat is in love with Valerian Kane and betrays him. Both Vane and Kane (my, how similar those sound!) remain reluctantly devoted to Eleanor/Cat, to the consternation of their First Mates. When Eleanor defects to help the pirate hunter, Woodes Rogers, she falls in love with him, and a similar triangle is implied in Tempest. Lieutenant Fell of this novel is a composite of Rogers (in that he is a pirate hunter) and James Norrington (in that he is a buffoon), and of both in the sense that they are the third wheel to the main romance (though Rogers and Eleanor do marry).

Blatant grafting aside, the pirates are Hollywood-ified to the point of ridiculousness, neither compelling nor frightening.



It is truly bewildering to me that someone could purportedly read Republic of Pirates and other pirate histories and then ... write an uninspired novel from the perspective of the people who sold them out. Admittedly, in capable hands, that could have been quite a story (and WAS, in "Black Sails"), but in VA's hands, it reeks of juvenile craftsmanship and confused both-sides-ism, leaving us with a dull protagonist and derivative story. Also, despite the many 5th grade reading level references to "imperialism = bad" and "pirates = democratic" (which suggests VA at least skimmed the pirate histories), none of this positioning is exhibited in the text, which is overwhelmingly sympathetic to the British - sorry, Meridian - Empire. The protagonist only kinda-sorta decides to help the pirates at the end when she realizes they have ~magic~ on their side (this is not a spoiler folks, you saw where this was going), and not because of any philosophical differences distinguishing the imperial from the anti-imperial armadas. She's supposed to be pragmatic to a fault, so I guess this is consistent with her character (or would be, if she'd demonstrated any pragmatism prior to the epilogue), but there is a missed opportunity to elucidate what these two sides truly care about, and therefore to inspire any interest on the part of the reader.



I would have DNF'ed this book on page two (repetition, poor writing, grafting, etc.) if I didn't so badly want to read a pirate fantasy, but I can't recommend this in good conscience. It's just terrible. This is the worst of bad YA masquerading as adult fiction.

[lost in epilogue | ཐི༏ཋྀ​​݁ ₊ ݁ .]

"You're worse than a pirate, you're a traitor."

ok so i was VERY interested to pick this up! i enjoyed red queen (low key still recovering from book 1, but the rest of the series didn't quite live up to it) and i was really curious to see how aveyard's writing has changed since then.

i'm happy to report that she has definitely improved her writing. i received an ALC (my first audio arc) and the narrator did an amazing job. i also appreciate the research and world building aveyard has done for this story. i love the dynamic she's created as well between cat, jasper, and valerian. very different representations of loyalty (or lack thereof) and, in my heart, doomed throuple 😂 (i know she loves a love triangle too so i don't think i'm that far off 🤭). the three of them def give a POTC-inspired vibe a la elizabeth x norrington x jack sparrow (if jack sparrow was like, actually hot and competent imo sorryyyyy !).

my main critique is that knowing this was originally supposed to be one book, i think it should've stayed that way and been edited down more. it is admittedly a very slow pace in both timelines. i didn't mind so much bc i do expect that pacing from aveyard (red queen), but things didn't get really juicy until the last 20% and i wanted more!!

that being said, i did listen to it over a longer amount of time than i typically do for books so that definitely added to me feeling like i needed the pacing to step up by the end. overall tho, i did enjoy this and i'm really hoping book 2 delivers even more!

"May the sea always sing for you."

an honest arc review <3

[Lauren McGraw]

VICTORIA. WHEN I CATCH YOU, VICTORIA. Also, making me root for a BLONDE MAN is DIABOLICAL.

[Whitney Atkinson]

thank you to harper voyager for the finished copy for review! all opinions are my own.

ms aveyard...... when i said i would follow you blindly, i didn't expect you to lead me to a cliff

i think victoria aveyard is the ONLY author that i'm caught up on and picking up her books on release day because i really respect her thorough worldbuilding and her complex characters. but somewhere in the transition between YA and adult, those elements became so convoluted. i'm very confused what i just read.

although this book felt mostly like world building, i'm still so puzzled about so many things. the maps in this don't capture any of the mainlands these characters are from, so from the very start, i felt left behind on the context of this world. even 10 pages from the end when aveyard starts dropping info on completely new shit that'll be the focus of book two, i'm left feeling even further in the dust. you can only hold my curiosity for so long, and i definitely would have DNF'ed this book if i didn't trust in victoria aveyard's writing.

for a book that takes place across 10 years, i feel like i learned startlingly little about these characters and their motivations. do NOT go into this expecting it to have romance elements like i did, despite what the synopsis says, because this book explores hatred and distrust a lot more than it does a romantic throughline.

the one thing that kept me interested in this was the setting and the aura of mystery around cat and her intentions, but still being in the dark by the end of this just left me frustrated. the fun scenes of drinking and playing cards with sailors on board a creaking ship were deeply overshadowed by a nonsensical jumping between past and present. and it never even explained by the end of the book what happened for there to be a before and after. am i supposed to go back and reread the first 100 pages of this book when i wasn't understanding anything to see if more clues are hidden there? or wait a year for book two to come out and clarify the basic foundations of this story?

if you're looking for a pirate story, you're much better off just watching the pirates of the caribbean movies that this was allegedly based on.

[Angelica]

Two things I know for certain.
1) Valerian Kane has “tempest eyes”
2) he’s blond

Rtc.


—-
I got an ARC of this book. No one talk to me!

[Anabel]

NEW V.A. BOOK 🚨🚨

saw this on tiktok just now and i read the synopsis and oh my god!!! PIRATES??? YES PLEASE 😋😋

[Kaven Hirning]

Get me back to gods country (victoria aveyards books)

[Bailey Chadwick]

If you like a politically-driven pirate book, this is the one for you. I was VERY excited to start this series after having a good time reading the "Red Queen" series last year. And I'm happy to say this one was even better for me.

This story is told in dual timelines and I really like how she laid it out. We see Cat at the beginning of her adulthood: married to an idiot, beat down, not a lot of hope for her life. And we see Cat in the present: In her 30's, by herself, world weary and looking out for only herself. Somewhere between that, she meets and has an insane (maybe toxic) love affair with pirate captain Kane. As the book unfolds, we start to bring the past into the future and see how Cat became the woman she is today. But the era of the pirates might be over. So what does she do next?

I loved all the characters. Loved the side characters. Loved the overall story. Loved that there are no real "good guys" in this story.

Some people will say this book is slow. For me, it was perfect. This is a character-driven book and does not have TONS of plot if that's something you need. I cannot wait to read book 2.

[ohna]

my disappointment is immense, my days ahead have been ruined.

tempest is the first victoria aveyard book i have ever read and it will be the last. i have seen her other books floating around the internet for years now but for some reasons i was never drawn to them. they just did not appeal to me and if tempest is anything to go by then i will not like them.


let me start by the cover,

the US edition is so ugly. the title and the author’s name is so weirdly spaced. why is the title at the very top? at first glance it seems like the book’s name is victoria. the uk editon is much better, at least the title is in the middle.


moving on, i truly believe tempest should have and could have been a standalone. it cannot hold its own. maybe a year from now when the sequel comes out and people read them back to back it would make the experience better but why do i have to wait a year and purchase another book when the story could have been contained within one volume? specially in this economy, where hardcovers cost the same as days worth of groceries. publishers are just greedy parasites and will do anything to fill their pockets.


i have followed victoria aveyard on tiktok for about a year now and have seen her hype this book up from the beginning. to say i was excited would be an understatement. i was foaming at the mouth when it came out. it also didn’t help that around the time of the release my fyp was full of little mermaid and peter-pan edits but all these excitement culminated to nothing.

let me begin with the plot, the story does back and forth between past and the present. we see how they met and formed an alliance. at present they are no longer together because of reasons. throughout out the entire book we are told rather than shown everything, from the development of their relationship to the world building and politics. besides the first book does not have any fantastical elements. it was alluded that there is magic at the very end of the book but i am not reading the next one so i will never know. there were atleast five instances where they just sat down and played cards. it was supposed to show the tension simmering between the two main characters but it did the opposite. i got bored.surely there were others ways to build a connection between them.

*there is going to some minors spoilers ahead* for some reason i thought they had been estranged for a few years but when i found out they had only been “broken up” for six months! yeah i had to close the book and pace around my room. wdym i had to slog through 350 or so pages for them to meet in the present day only to find out they haven’t seen each other for only half a year. bffr *end of spoilers*


so much of the plot could have been edited out and so much more could have been added.make it into a 700 page book and be done with.


i would have still read the sequel but the one thing that prevents me is the writing. the writing is godawful. this is a ya book with a little bit of smut. nothing about this reads adult. half the book is from the pov of a twenty year old Cat. also can i just mention her name is cat rose. why would name her that? it is not a good name. and if she is such a badass why does she still have her slimy husband’s name?

back to the writing,
it is repetitive, the same descriptors are used again and again for example reddened cheeks for jasper or sunburnt skin for literally every person on board the ship. i get it they are in the sun and their skins are getting burnt. need i be reminded of that fact time and time again?. and every time the author mentions the main guy’s chest chair it just feels like he has a swath of hair in the middle of his chest. she also mentions the colour of random body parts like ‘brown cheeks’ ‘ tawny skin’ ‘black eyebrows’. there were times where the writing would be like and this is not a direct quote ‘cat touched her long chestnut brown hair’ huh? never have i read an third person epic fantasy book written like a first person contemporary romance novel. what is happening? victoria, say sike rn. with the way the author talks on her tiktoks i was expecting some erin morgenstern, alix.e.harrow or even v.e schwab level of writing but this is some juvenile bs. there are fanfics better written than this.

another thing, victoria aveyard cannot write two things at the same time. there was a part at the beginning where two characters were talking while they were in a long boat in the middle of sea after their ship was attacked by pirates. you wouldn’t be able to tell they were in a panic or had water sloshing around with the way it was written. it was bizarre. it was almost like watching reality shows where they interview the contestants afterwards and add the clips in the middle of whatever is going on.

i can tell victoria aveyard loves writing and storytelling but this book wasn’t born out of her love for those things. i think it was her desperate attempt to recreate the success of red queen and to cater to a wider audience of romantasy readers.


anyway,
i have taken a sabbatical from the word tempest

[Cat Rose]

Since Victoria openly admits to reading and monitoring Goodreads reviews, I genuinely want to know: how is Tempest any different from a Black Sails x Pirates of the Caribbean fanfiction? After reading the book from beginning to end, the similarities felt impossible to ignore. Cat reads strikingly similar to Eleanor Guthrie, and Valerian Kane feels heavily reminiscent of Charles Vane — Kane, Vane? at least try to hide it. Their relationship dynamic is almost exactly the same that it reads like black sails fan fic with the serial numebers filed off, as victoria would say herself.

I say this as someone who actually enjoyed Victoria’s previous work. I liked both the Red Queen series and the Realm Breaker books, and I read those massive installments cover to cover. But what makes this frustrating is the hypocrisy surrounding the conversation.

Victoria has publicly criticized authors like SenLinYu and Lauren Roberts over tropes, inspirations, and works that she viewed as derivative — despite the fact that YA as a genre constantly reuses familiar frameworks, archetypes, and dynamics. Tropes are not crimes. Nearly every successful YA fantasy pulls inspiration from earlier media in some form.

That is why the outrage feels selective. Especially when Red Queen itself clearly shares recognizable DNA with works like Red Rising, The Selection, X-Men, Shadow and Bone, The Hunger Games, and Divergent. That does not make Red Queen plagiarism — it makes it part of a genre ecosystem built on iteration and influence.

Which is exactly why it feels unfair to see Victoria publicly attack or belittle other authors over similar things, particularly newer and smaller writers who receive disproportionate backlash as a result. Criticizing trope usage while benefiting from the same tradition yourself comes across as vindictive and spiteful of those authors' success.

I do not think it is fair that Victoria throws these tantrums online that has caused Lauren so much distress when Victoria's books also share tropes with other content or "plagiarized" over content. How is this not a Black Sails fanfic? If you are going to shit on other Fan fic writers for publishing books inspired by other IP, a portion of your proceeds should go to Disney and Black Sails. And a portion of Red Queen's proceeds should go to Red Rising, The Selection, X Men, Shadow and Bone, The Hunger Games, and Divergent

At the end of the day, inspiration exists in all fiction. But if someone is going to publicly condemn other writers for being “too inspired” by existing IPs, then readers are naturally going to examine your own work under the same lens. If sharing similarities is "plagiarism" then Victoria you are a generational plagiarizer.

This is what I thought the whole time I read the book. The book itself is not much better. She said this is the first half of a book, and it shows. I think a lot of the middle parts could have been cut. I almost dnf'd this book so many times and only finished it out of spite--I finished all three realm breaker books no one come for me I am familiar with big books and slow pacing. This book is just a whole other beast and really should have been cut down to 150 pages at best.

[Karly Rose]

(4.25/5) Ohhh my fellow Pirates of the Caribbean girlies are going to eat this one up because I absolutely did.

🗓️ ARC Review. Pub Date: September 9, 2026 🗓️
🎁 ARC gifted to me by Harper Voyager

🏴‍☠️ Romantic fantasy
🏴‍☠️ 3rd person POV
🏴‍☠️ Dual timeline
🏴‍☠️ Pirates & Pirate Republic

Spice rating: 🫑

This is my first Victoria Aveyard book, so I went in with no expectations and relatively blind. I'm really happy I did because Tempest was a total adventure.

I haven't read many dual timeline fantasy and romantasy books, but it's definitely something I'm going to start looking for from now on. When it's executed well, it adds this layer of mystery that I can't help but gobble up. There's a "before" and "after" timeline, but, as the reader, we don't know what that the moment of time is that separated these two timelines / where they converge.

THAT being said, the beginning of Tempest was a little rough for me to get into because it kept jumping from before/after so quickly (it switches every chapter). It made it hard for me to situate myself in this world and with these characters. I would've appreciated the first few chapters being kept within the before or after before switching off to every other chapter the rest of the story. (This is where ultimately why I didn't rate this the full 5 stars).

Once I was settled in, I was LOCKED IN THIS STORY and didn't want to put it down. I think it took me about 2 days to get 60ish pages into the book and then I binged the rest within an evening. I stayed up until midnight to finish this (and that says a lot because I have a toddler who already steals my beauty rest).

The political intrigue is executed well and made me really think as a reader. I always think of pirates as ruthless, but the present monarchy (sorry I may be misspeaking right here) that overthrew the pirate republic is actually the more ruthless. It creates an interesting juxtaposition where you're not sure who is the "good" vs "bad" guy and what side our FMC should be on. Or if there's even a side to be on.

Okay, now a MOMENT for the romance. Is this is a romance heavy story? Absolutely not. But did I eat up every single morsel of a crumb we received? ABSOLUTELY. The way the mystery surrounding them had me on the edge of my SEAT. I need book 2 RIGHT. NOW.

[Gabi Koz]

Unfortunately, this was not for me 😭 it was incredibly slow, descriptive in a very repetitive way, and I just felt bored.

I thought Jasper Fell was the most compelling character & he’s supposed to be a side character. I did like how Cat is a morally gray FMC & thought she had so much potential, but I found her story hard to connect with because of the alternating timelines and major gaps within the story.

I see why people like this, but I personally will not be reading book 2 of this duology :(

[Ida]

You all who made my expectations about anything by Victoria Aveyard so high have me so confused because I STRUGGLED with this one. I really wanted to get to at least 20% before deciding to DNF or not, but I could not keep going. And as someone who grew up by the sea and loves pirates, I didn't want my favourite settings to become tainted.

It was too much tell versus show, especially in the prologue, which felt like going on a walk but stopping after each step to describe exactly everything you're seeing. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if the writing was not so repetitive? Certain phrases or words would be repeated across the same page or within 1-2 of each other. Same goes for the introduction of Valerian Kane because I feel like I've read the description of his looks twice (or more) in the chapter he's been introduced to us.

TLDR; AMAZING potential, spoiled by writing.

Nevertheless, thank you to Edelweiss and Victoria Aveyard for providing me with the eARC!

05/07/2026: DNF @11%. RTC.

Pre-read (18/03/2026): Guess who got the ARC!!!

[amashofbooks]

Okay, so. This was my first VA book, I have never read anything by her but from my understanding she mostly writes YA. This was her first book in the adult fantasy / romance fantasy space, and unfortunately it shows.

The writing here at best, is 2.5 stars. So many similes, oh my god, that first chapter, FILLED WITH THEM. So much repetition, and descriptions of eyes: tempest eyes (at least 20x), storm painted eyes, ocean swirling eyes, you get the point. I am surprised at how little (or poorly) this book was edited. There were grammar mistakes, weird sentences structures, and generally some things that just did not make sense. The writing was more YA, and although YA is by no means a bad genre or less than, but this is supposed to be an adult novel, and I expect the writing and structure to reflect that. It's written in third person but it doesn't seem she was confident in writing in that pov, which I think attributed to feeling a bit more YA.


This follows a a dual timeline, before and after. I actually really enjoyed this structure but it took a lot of time to pick up and become invested in the story (around the 50-60% mark). I feel like the beginning should have either been condensed, or changed, because it took a lot of time to finally care about our FMC, Cat. I'm assuming book 2 will roughly be the same length, and with what's going on and just getting to the meat of the story, definitely worries me a tiny bit (at least for what was promised).

As for the characters of the story, I enjoyed most of them. I really liked Cat, which is rare for me to say in a romance forward book, I think she was well crafted and interesting and I enjoyed figuring out her ambitions and motivations.

At the 50/60 percent mark, I did become more invested in the story and was genuinely intrigued by what has happened/ the relationships in the story. This is where the dual timeline both worked for me, and I think really draws in the reader. The ending got to me, and I want to know what happens.

Why I'm continuing: it's a simple enough story, both reading and writing wise, I didn't expect some crazy world building or exceptional prose, so I'm fine with having more of a "fun" time. I think the ending set up for an interesting book 2. I'm actually shocked that I didn't dnf by the 50% mark, but hey, I love pirates.

PSA: temper your expectations, do not expect pirates of the Caribbean. I think some of the marketing hurt this book.