I LOVE the premise of this book. When I studied Early Modern English history in university, I was always the most intrigued by the category of “social crimes” — smuggling, wrecking, poaching, etc. When I saw that wrecking was the subject of this fantasy book, I was so so excited. While I enjoyed that aspect (approximately the first 15% of the book), the truly ridiculous characters, random plot, and clumsy “romance” meant that this book went downhill fast and was overall very disappointing. 

While the main character, Mira’s, goal is extremely clear and understandable: to save her father and Bryn from execution, the way that she sets out to accomplish this is extremely confusing. All of Mira’s decisions are based on her super special secret sixth sense, described in the nebulous language of “feelings.” This is lazy writing because the author never needs to provide any justification or reasoning for Mira’s decisions since Mira can just have a “feeling” to do something.

Even worse, her “feelings” frequently lead her astray with no reflection done on her part afterward about maybe using common sense instead.

To save her father and Bryn, she decides to travel to the coordinates written down by her mother, who died a few years ago, in a secret notebook. Mira “feels” that her mother must have left something at those coordinates that will be able to save her father. What could possibly be left in the middle of the ocean that would save them? Who knows since Mira never even thinks that far out in her half-baked plan.

This gets even worse when Seth, the main “love” interest, is introduced. It’s totally instalove and the reader is never given a real reason to like Seth.

Consequently, I was not shocked when Seth ended up being totally awful. The “backstabbing” and “betrayal” might have been believable the first time but the second time that it happens from the SAME character, it’s so obvious. There is no tension but rather second-hand embarrassment from Mira being too blinded by lust to notice how clearly shady Seth is.

Mira acts in ways that are ridiculous and frankly stupid. It’s difficult for me to reconcile the idea that this is a strong female protagonist, as we are constantly shown in scenes of her being badass when she is so easily swayed by cute boys. Rather than connecting with Mira and being invested in her story, I felt like I was watching a train wreck in slow motion since every “plot twist” was so clearly telegraphed, and yet, Mira is still unable to act with even half a brain.

The writing was also overly flowery with metaphors and analogies being used every other sentence. The dialogue between characters was awkward and completely unrealistic, especially since Seth’s dialogue is all weird foreshadowing, Whenever Mira talks with Seth or Elijah, there always has to be “banter” even when it doesn’t fit the mood. This leads to scenes where they begin talking about a serious topic and then the tone randomly switches to have a few lines of light-hearted “banter” before switching back to the serious topic at hand. It feels so forced.

Thank you to NetGalley and Inkyard Press for providing me with a digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.