THE DEVOURER

A teen pirate on a quest for vengeance and vindication captains her own ship.

Adrasteia Dantes has spent the better part of a year chasing Cameron, her half brother, after he brutally assaulted their father and absconded with her birthright: a treasure map for the first pirate king’s grave. Fueled by her anger and need for revenge, Adra pushes her mostly female crew to their limits, restrained only by her soft-hearted quartermaster and best friend, Merrin Petra. But when their pursuit leads them to a string of four ships with the entire crew (save one mysterious, beautiful girl) dead under eerie circumstances—“drowned in dry air”—it becomes clear that the magic that once just trickled into this world from beyond the veil is now pouring in. Adra knows all too well the power of magic; she lost part of her arm in her first run-in with it. Torn between protecting her crew and exacting her revenge, Adra strikes a dangerous deal with the Devourer, the very creature they fear. Ames’ prose has moments of brilliance and her characterization of Adra as a complicated anti-hero is well done. However, the underdeveloped and anticlimactic delivery of the backstory will leave readers with an odd sense that this is the middle of a series rather than a stand-alone title. Most characters read white.

A swashbuckling, Sapphic fantasy on the high seas.