'For seventeen-year-old Fable, the daughter of the most powerful trader in the Narrows, the sea is the only home she has ever known. It’s been four years since the night she watched her mother drown during an unforgiving storm. The next day her father abandoned her on a legendary island filled with thieves and little food. To survive she must keep to herself, learn to trust no one, and rely on the unique skills her mother taught her. The only thing that keeps her going is the goal of getting off the island, finding her father, and demanding her rightful place beside him and his crew. To do so Fable enlists the help of a young trader named West to get her off the island and across the Narrows to her father.
'But her father’s rivalries and the dangers of his trading enterprise have only multiplied since she last saw him, and Fable soon finds that West isn't who he seems. Together, they will have to survive more than the treacherous storms that haunt the Narrows if they're going to stay alive.'
I've liked Adrienne's work since reading Sky In The Deep when that first came out, and loved the way that she was able to blend fantasy elements with very realistic, grounded worlds, something that she was able to do with her second book, The Girl The Sea Gave Back. When I found out that she was bringing out a new duology, another fantasy series, and that this time it would feature pirates and adventures at sea I was excited to get my hands on the book.
However, I wasn't quite expecting it to be as good as it was, I read the entire thing in a single sitting and was really upset that it ended so soon and I had to wait for the next book; not that the book was short by any means, it's over 350 pages. No, the book just felt too short because it drew me in so much, it made me desperate to find out what happened next and kept reading even when I should have taken a break because the story and the characters were so compelling and engaging that I just couldn't do anything but read it all.
The book follows a young woman named Fable, who has spent the last three years on a remote island, a place home to cutthroats and killers. She was dumped there by her father the day after their ship sank at sea, an event that also caused the death of her mother. She was left with nothing but the clothes she was wearing, a series of cuts her father carved into her arm, and the instructions to survive, to find a way off the island, and to track him down. Since that day Fable has convinced herself that if she can buy her way off the island her father will finally give her the love she desperately craves, and will let her crew on his new ship with him.
Unfortunately, getting off the island is easier said than done. Diving the local reef, Fable has used her strange affinity to gems and precious stones to slowly gather these expensive items, which she's been selling to a trader named West, who visits the island every few weeks. However, her unusual success with her dives, and her mounting pile of coins, has made her a target for some of the islands inhabitants, and when she's forced to fight for her life Fable manages to convince West to take her across the Narrows to her father. But little does she know she's just set out on an even more dangerous journey.
Like I said earlier, this was a book that I had a hard time putting down, and I found myself reading the entire thing in one sitting. Whilst the story was a big part of this, and Young manages to weave a layered and detailed tale across the course of the book, it was the characters that really grabbed me and made me want to keep reading.
Fable herself is probably my favourite of Young's protagonists to date, and I adored how this tough young woman we meet in the first few chapters, a woman who's had to fight every day for years to survive in an environment that would kill most people slowly evolved over the course of the book and showed us that there's more to her than meets the eye. When the story begins Fable is closed off, not trusting anyone, believing that the only person that she can ever rely on is herself. She's unwilling to believe that people would be willing to help others purely out of the kindness of their heart, and that people will always be trying to get something out of you. She's got a pretty cynical outlook, but one that you can understand given the circumstances.
However, after a while we begin to see this hard exterior begin to crack, Fable starts to see that some people actually can care for others, that not everyone is motivated by greed or hatred, and that love and affection can be powerful forces too. West and his crew are a big part of this change in her, and it's brilliant getting to know them as Fable does, seeing this handful of people trying to keep her at arms length to begin with, but watching as they, and her, slowly begin to open up. These interpersonal relationships are one of the highlights of the book, and I adored seeing how these characters got to know each other, and how Fable would come to care for them over time.
It's not all interpersonal relationships, however, we also get regular ships! The book is full of sea action, with big storms, dangerous reefs, dodgy dealings and smugglers, and inter-ship rivalries and vendettas. There's a lot of stuff going on around Fable that the story never feels dull, and you're always waiting to find out what adversity is about to rear its head to get in the way of her plans, whether it's bad weather, or other crews trying to destroy West and his ship.
The one and only criticism of the book is that it's a duology. This isn't really a bad thing, as it means that we're going to get a whole second book with these characters, and there's promise of big and exciting things to come in the second book, but it means that I have to wait to find out what's going to happen next; and that's just not fair.
I adored this book, and can't wait until the next part in the story comes out. Adrienne Young has once again crafted a story that manages to include brilliant fantasy elements, yet feels grounded and believable, like it could have happened in our own world. She's very quickly become a writer whose work I adore, with three books of hers that are some of my favourites, and a fourth that looks set to join them. If you've never read any of her work before this is the perfect jumping on point, though be warned, you'll end up wanting to read everything she's written by the time you're done.
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