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Another month has passed where I've read precisely one book, but what a book. It was one of my most anticipated reads of the year, and it delivered on all its expectations!
Dark Water Daughter by H.M. Long intrigued me from the first time I heard the premise--a weather witch and a disgraced naval officer embark on a quest to end a deathless pirate lord. Especially with the wintery seas and Pirates of the Caribbean-inspired vibes and dishevelled Commodore Norrington-esque character of Samuel Rosser. I was all too eager to get my hands on this book with all new creatures and lore, but of course I had to finish my own high-seas book first. Reading it was a little treat for finishing HEIRS 2.
From the start, we're transported into a world on the cusp of winter, where one particularly untrained Stormsinger narrowly escapes the noose by bringing winter down on the port. Fleeing with her would-be noose-mate, Mary Firth (who has been arrested on the presumption that she is a notorious highwaywoman) is thrust into a world where her skills make her a top commodity. Unfortunately, she saves herself from the noose, only to end up being sold to the highest bidder for her Stormsinger magic--the abilities to charm winds and raise storms on the seas. Except there is another player chasing her--pirate lord Silvanus Lirr, who has ulterior motives for wanting Mary aboard his ship.
Our second POV is one Samuel Rosser, disgraced naval officer on a mission to bring Lirr to justice--his reputation and his sanity are on the line. Samuel is a Sooth, someone who has one foot in this world and one in the Other, the Dark Water, a place where ghistings thrive in the wood of trees and monstrous beings threaten to follow him out. Except Samuel struggles with maintaining a grip on reality--he needs a coin to root him in his world, otherwise he'll lose himself to the Other. But when Mary unknowingly steals that talisman, the two are thrown together into a desperate race to capture or end Lirr before he unleashes unknown terrors on the world from beyond the storm wall--a place where not many ships return from unscathed.
There is a small thread of romance between our two leads which will hopefully be explored later in the series, but this was a wonderful start to what will surely be a thrilling saga of adventure and excitement. If you are looking for fast-paced thrills, however, this is not that book. It was much slower in terms of plot and pace, focusing more on building the world and bringing us into the lives of these characters, but I was content with the action we got and the glimpses into the Other (which will surely be expanded on if the title of book two is any indication).
The prose and descriptions of the winter sea are delectable, reminiscent of Long's atmospheric settings in her other series. Each of the characters are crafted well enough to give them individualism, which is a difficult feat with such a large secondary cast--the captains of the ships and their crews and even the tertiary characters are all different enough and yet very much products of their individual places (whether from a different ship or different country or different world entirely).
One small thing to note about this book, is that Mary is very much a passive protagonist. For the most part, she is shuffled around to different hands, used for the ulterior motives of many different people until she is finally able to break free of the bonds that kept her passive and take control of the situation--when she wakes the ghisting inside of her. This is very deliberate, though. Mary's actions are single-mindedly focused on rescuing her mother from Lirr--everything she does is with that goal in mind. And even though she doesn't recognize the immediately danger to herself for most of the book, she never feels helpless. She pretends to be a notorious highwaywoman because she was accidentally mistaken for the woman, even though she is a far cry from a criminal. She throws herself overboard when confronted with Lirr for the first time. She takes up a knife and learns how to defend herself. So while most of the plot moves around her, she is very much shaping her world in the ways she can control.
Overall, Dark Water Daughter was a comfort--a refreshing new world, with original lore and creatures, with characters solidly finding their way in their world when everything turns upside down. The budding romance between Mary and Samuel was subtle and sweet, as they decide to take on the world and learn about their abilities together. I'm excited for the next in the saga, Dark Tide Son, and anything else a fellow Canadian puts out into the world.