4.25/5 Stars Fortune of Emerald and Salt by Munroe Wildrose
Narrated by Ali Dane
Run Time: 8 hrs and 34 min
Summary:
Georgette Baine and her twin brother, Elias, captain their own pirate ship, but they’ve made a deal with the devil (the king) to run errands for him from time to time. He asks them to fetch something precious that got stolen. They’re surprised to find it’s a pissed off princess named Mercy, who has been kidnapped on her way to wed the old king. Thus begins an odd friendship and an odder adventure.
Additional Comments:
· Some might take my complaints as compliments.
· 4/5 Stars Performance – Well handled. It took me a little time to distinguish between the voice used for Mercy and the voice used for Georgette’s passages. I would certainly listen to the narrator again.
· 4.5/5 Stars Plot and Conflict – The adventure proceeds. The friendships grow. Character conflicts are realistic-ish.
· 4/5 Plot Twists – First twist isn’t much of one, even though I hadn’t read the back cover copy, anybody could see the first twist coming a few dozen miles off. (Mercy = cargo) That’s not much of a spoiler given it’s on the back cover copy. The next two did pop up as surprising. I shall not name these for possible spoilers.
· 5/5 Stars Characters – Georgette and Elias Baine are the picture-perfect, swashbuckling pirates. Mercy goes through the greatest character arc. Absalom’s friendship with the pirates is sweet.
· 3.5/5 Stars Political mumbo jumbo – It took a long time to sort Southern Relis (forgive spelling, I heard the audio), Northern Relis, and wherever Absalom’s from. Who’s which king, who wants what, etc. I think that stuff will be more important in the next story, but it just sort of marred this one.
· 2/5 Stars Title Tie-in – I’m sure this makes sense at some point. Probably book 2. But right now, it’s like we need a vague, intriguing title that has nothing to do with the story, at all.
· 2/5 Stars Sense of Closure – There’s some effort to wrap up the current arcs, but it might has well end with a big, fat To Be Continued. That’s disappointing. It’s a good marketing ploy, but it also feels incomplete. Several character decisions don’t make much sense as is. (It’s vaguely deux ex machina.)
· 5/5 Stars Descriptions, Imaginations, World-building – Fantastic and fun.
Conclusion:
Yeah, my math doesn’t make sense. The I guess I’m lowering the weight of the things that bothered me because they won’t bother many people.
For ¾ of the book, I’d considered 5 stars until the disappointments at the end. That rarely happens. It’s not exactly a thing I pride myself on, it’s just I read a lot of stories.
It’s still a fun story that I would recommend to anybody who enjoys YA and pirate stories.
*I was given a free copy of the audiobook. I freely chose to review it. All thoughts are my own.