Devil's Bargain by Andi Marquette

Devil's Bargain by Andi Marquette

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


A somewhat odd story about a young woman named Sarah who has undertaken a quest to recover the family gold. And who enlists the help of those she never should have been near - for relatively obvious reasons, since they do what was expected, double-cross her and 'kill' her. That's actually the start of the story - Sarah being stabbed 'to death'.

A short story set in an unnamed period of time, though it is 'obviously' the Age of Sails, so . . . 1700s?, and includes pirates, and the like. It also involves fantasy creatures. Meet, also, at the beginning - when the nearly dead Sarah is confronted by yet another pirate-y looking person, albeit a female one this time. Who offers Sarah a deal - a 'Devil's Bargain'.

Where-upon . . . well, the story is too short to tell too much more. It is an interesting historical/pirate/vampire story. There is a tinge of romance, but it is not a romance story. Certain things hint at lesbianism, but I'm not certain I can even really call it lesbian fiction. For various reasons.

I enjoyed the story, at least.

Rating: 3.89

April 7 2018



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The Sublime and Spirited Voyage of Original Sin by Colette Moody

The Sublime and Spirited Voyage of Original Sin by Colette Moody

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This is the third book by Colette Moody that I’ve reread – and each of Moody’s three books improved on rereading. Like this one here, the pirate one, I found to have a lot more detail in it that I had recalled. I believe I might have initially read this one too quickly – still enjoyed it on first read, but read it too quickly.

Right, so – the action takes place in various locations in or near the Caribbean Sea. Florida (St. Augustine), Cuba, Jamaica (Kingston, Port Royal (which is actually just across a stretch of water from Kingston)), Bahamas, Santo Domingo (in what is now the Dominican Republic). And the Berry Islands (just north of Bahamas). Action took place during a few months in 1702.

And that action? A pirate ship, the Original Sin is attacked by a military ship and the captain is injured. With the doctor killed in the same action, the crew (and daughter Gayle Malvern, who takes over as acting captain) need to find a doctor. A few are tasked with heading to the nearby coast of Florida to find the lucky fella. Instead they find Celia Pierce, who just happened to be visiting her doctor fiancée – that fella was in the backroom but is quite the coward and hid while the pirates were there. Since Celia is a seamstress, and the doctor apparently is in some other town, the pirates ‘make-do’ with the seamstress.

Dark haired Celia and fiery haired Gayle go to work on Captain Mad Malvern, and the rest of the injured crew. Then start sailing around – dropping Captain pops at a particular tavern where the ex-ship doctor is currently residing. Ex-doctor will tend to injured captain, while the ship bounces around the region. First mission: retrieve a captured sister of another doctor – a doctor who had been following her from England and is willing to work aboard the pirate ship if they go get his sister. And then more fun and exciting things occur as Celia and Gayle take a cruise around a very small portion of the Caribbean (months apart in sailing time, but just a tiny bit of the Caribbean Sea).

There’s much humor, action, romance, and graphic depictions of sex to be found within the pages. Quite fun all around. And the humor was not just reserved for the ‘good characters’ – like, for example, a few bits dribbled out of others. Like right in the beginning with the feckless doctor who talks about his attempts to woo women in Spanish Florida when he himself only knows English (‘luckily’ for him, there’s a British fella there who married a Spanish woman and had an offspring – that being Celia, making her half British and half Spanish).

It was astoundingly difficult to woo a lady who thought he was either trying to purchase a chicken or a few tomatoes from her, or ask her for directions.

And while there’s no real romance between Celia and Philip (the doctor), there’s much humor to be found in their interactions. Like when Philip calls Celia his cabbage. And she calls him on it – and he is so dim it takes him a while to understand she’s being sarcastic.

”I find you attractive as well, my cabbage.”

She fought her natural urge to grimace at his unpleasant metaphor. “Cabbage? Might you compare me to a vegetable with a slightly more palatable smell?”

His brow furrowed. “My little . . . mushroom?”

“You would liken me to a fungus?” Celia laughed. “Such wooing, sir. You might make my heart burst within my breast.”

Phillip eyed her with belated suspicion. “Are you mocking me?”

“I? Your devoted mushroom dares not,” Celia replied insincerely. “Were I perhaps a potato or a leek, however, I would be brimming with mockery. They, sir, are victuals of the trickiest sort and are not to be trusted.”

But the humor is not just limited to Phillips and people talking around him (which is good, since he isn’t the main character and is rarely in the book). The humor with Celia by herself, or between Celia and Gayle is also quite good. Like when Celia, after waking up hung-over, asked what happened the night before between herself and Gayle . . .

”Did we…” She jumbled her fingers chaotically together in some sort of peculiar, yet demonstrative hand gesture.

“Milk an animal of some kind?”

Right, so, many more moments of humor – better in context, I’m sure, than randomly strewn about my review here.

As mentioned – this is the third book I’ve reread by Moody – and all three improved with rereading. ‘Parties in Congress’ rose from 4.5 (since bumped to 5) stars to 6 stars (and top tier) on reread; while ‘The Seduction of Moxie’ moved from 4.5 stars up to 4.25 stars. Wait. Mmphs. Okay, so now that I actually look at the ratings, they did not actually all improve on rereading. Mmphs. Probably due to all the vomiting, diarrhea, and nastiness* in Seduction that knocked it down a little (* yes, instead of firing your agent – poison him). This book here, ‘Sublime’, was rated 4.75 on first read and 5+ on second read (which rearranges the order of ‘favorite Moody books’ – had been 1) Sublime, 2) Parties; 3) Seduction; and is now 1) Parties; 2) Sublime; 3) Seduction.

Rating: 5+

January 12 2018



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Shiver His Timbers by Alex Westmore

Shiver His Timbers
by Alex Westmore
Pages: 267
Date: January 11 2016
Publisher: Broad Winged Books
Series: The Plundered Chronicles (2nd in series)

Review
Rating: 3.76 out of 5.0
Read: January 14 to January 15 2016

This second book by Westmore that I have read is closer to a 3.75 to 3.8 book than a 4 star book.

I was excited to read this book. I had finished the first book in the series shortly before the second was going to be released. But there was enough time in between finishing that book, and starting this one to allow me to develop quite a heavy dose of need/desire/want . . . to read this specific book here. So, the book got released, I got it, and promptly . . . read a different book. Well, I was in the middle of a series, so . . .. By the time I actually got back to this one, the book had a rather odd rating on GoodReads. Sure it was based on only a few readers/raters but still. Alarming. No matter, I wasn't going to allow that to influence me. (ETA: I'll note now, since the rating has skyrocketed since I saw it initially, that I had initially seen the rating at 2.50 stars. Which seems impossible, considering that no one has actually rated the book as low as 2 stars. Or 1. Or 3 for that matter).

So, I dove into the book and . . . was kind of bored. There is a kind of an inherent need in series books to have 'stuff' repeated. So that readers who had read the first book long ago, could be brought up to speed, and those who never read any other book in the series might have a chance of understanding what was going on. Which just means that I, who had just finished the first book, was bored.

There were some rather exciting moments in this book. Thrilling moments. But by no means is this book as good as the first in the series. Unfortunately. Oddly enough, or maybe fitting, things didn't really turn interesting until new characters appeared. Namely Evan and the people whose name I can't remember. Gagagaallagasheasgash or something like that. Unfortunately, Evan and the Galloglaighs didn't turn up that quickly in the book.

Unfortunately appears to be my favorite word for this review, I use it once again - unfortunately my brain is leaking from my skull, so I must flee without doing as much with this review as I might have wished to do.

Grace O'Malley and crew wander over to Scotland to try to help a pregnant Mary keep the throne of Scotland from the treacherous Queen Elizabeth of England. Meanwhile, Quinn continues her ways with the women, still stringing along both Becca and Fiona. Though Fiona is the one who supposedly has Quinn's heart. They can't be together, though, because that just isn't done. Also, Fiona is married to an English dude. At roughly the same time Mary is pregnant, Fiona is pregnant. With her second child. First one didn't make it. Fiona and all involved are concerned.

The pregnancies are relatively quickly handled one way or another and Grace and crew are back in Ireland. To pick up some Galloglaighs, 'foriegn warriors', and to take them back to Scotland to help defend the Queen. Grace splits her forces onto three ships. Her own, and two . . . um, galley? Galleons? I forget which. Quinn gets the captain seat for one, Innis gets the other. They load up their ships with the Galloglaighs, and in the process Quinn meets Evan. One thing leads to another, and Quinn is questioning whether or not she actually has developed feelings for a dude.

Clan battles in Ireland, with the help of English interference, a certain unstable in-fighting is occurring in Scotland between the Queen of Scotland and her English husband (shesh, all these people are marrying Englishmen). Death, destruction, plundering, sex, risk, danger, war sweep across this kind of short book.

Was interesting.

January 15 2016

The Pirate's Booty by Alex Westmore

The Pirate's Booty
by Alex Westmore
Pages: 301
Date: October 19 2015
Publisher: Broad Winged Books
Series: The Plundered Chronicles (first in the series)

Review
Rating: 4.6 out of 5.0
Read: January 7 to January 8 2016

A fun exciting pirate story set mostly in the Irish seas and the Atlantic off the coast of Scotland, Portugal, and Morocco.

Quinn witnessed her friend being kidnapped and taken aboard a ship. Based on a childhood promise made between them, and a third child, Quinn immediately gets passage on the next ship to arrive at the port to try to track down the kidnapped friend named Shea.

For various reasons Patrick joins Quinn on the quest, Patrick being a brother. Maybe the only brother, I'm not sure if the cast of siblings was gone over in the book. Patrick and Quinn were trained since childhood to protect themselves with swords, and to speak several languages (French, Scots Gaelic, Irish Gaelic, English, and Latin). Patrick, or Paddy, is more geared for the soft life and not that good with tongue or sword. Quinn, though, seemed born to be a dashing pirate, bouncing around and having manly adventures on the high seas. Plundering, attacking, fighting, and bedding many a woman.

The women are quite taken with the boyishly handsome Quinn. There's probably more to it than this, but a large portion of the women’s happiness at seeing and being with Quinn is how much more interested Quinn is in them, and in pleasing them. The other rough dirty pirates are more likely to grab at them or make crude comments.

And bed them Quinn does. More than one woman is quite pleased by the experience, as Quinn is quite good at giving pleasure. Licking or teasing to pleasure.

While I got distracted there, Quinn doesn’t get distracted from the mission of trying to find Shea. The ship Paddy and Quinn joined is captained by one of the few female pirate captains on the seas, a Grace O’Malley – based on a real life woman. Grace and crew bounce around the seas, attacking English ships, taxing them or killing them, as fortune prefers. One of the people they bounce into is one Francis Drake, another figure from the history books. Drake and Grace seemed tied together – in that one or the other always seems to be attempting to ‘run down’ the other and destroy them.

So, the book unfolds with Quinn learning what can be learned from the position of a pirate. Learned about finding Shea, I mean, though learning to be freed from the constraints tightly binding them from their prior situation in live is also learnt. Which leads directly to something probably already known by someone reading this review, but which I’ve been purposely avoiding as best (or poorly) as I could. Namely the nature of Quinn’s gender.

For Quinn is an Irish noblewoman living in the sixteenth century. Her place in society is tightly restricted. And, frankly, boring. She must ask permission, basically, to do anything. From a father, or, assumptions lead, from a husband if one were forced upon her. For that is likely what would happen – a marriage of some convenience or another, to strengthen the family fortunes, as opposed to a marriage of love or the like. She finds the act of pretending to be a man, a pirate, to be quite liberating and freeing.

If I recall correctly, I believe this is the second female pirate book I’ve read. This one felt like it had a deeper connection to history, while the other had humor. There were a few funny moments here or there, but this wasn’t intended to be a humor book.

Solid cast of characters and story. Quite enjoyable.

January 8 2016