I wasn’t actually EVER going to read this book. I’m not a massive fan of pirates, and I genuinely thought that it was a middle-grade novel. It is DEFINITELY NOT a middle-grade novel, and this novel takes the tropes of a pirate and flips them on their head.

Sent on a mission to retrieve an ancient hidden map—the key to a legendary treasure trove—seventeen-year-old pirate captain Alosa deliberately allows herself to be captured by her enemies, giving her the perfect opportunity to search their ship.

More than a match for the ruthless pirate crew, Alosa has only one thing standing between her and the map: her captor, the unexpectedly clever and unfairly attractive first mate, Riden. But not to worry, for Alosa has a few tricks up her sleeve, and no lone pirate can stop the Daughter of the Pirate King.

I actually listened to the audiobook for Daughter of the Pirate King, and Marisa Calin narrated it SO WELL! I was completely engrossed in the story, and Calin just bought the characters to life.

As for the actual storyline, the storyline is quite simple: pirates want to get all the pieces of the map so that they can get to the island where there is loads of buried treasure. But the way that Levenseller executed the plot was on point. She wrote it so that you wanted to dive deeper and deeper into the world and just surround yourself with the politics. I also love that the book was about a FEMALE pirate and a FEMALE pirate crew. I mean, what is there about that that’s not to like? We don’t get to see as much of Alosa’s crew as I wanted to, but they still get a lot of page-time, and I really liked reading about their relationships with each other and their captain. HINT: we do see a lot more of them in the second book!

“If you’re sorry, that means you want forgiveness. Is that what you’re asking for? If you want forgiveness, that means you want to make things right. And if you want to make things right, that means that you don’t intend to put me in harm’s way again. So, if you are saying you’re sorry, I don’t think you understand what that entails.”

― Tricia Levenseller, Daughter of the Pirate King

Another thing that I loved about this book was that we didn’t know that much about Alosa. Her past was very much hidden and was revealed very slowly over the course of the book, and we also learnt secrets about her and her family throughout as well. It made the book so intriguing.

Ok, so can we talk about how refreshing it is to have a female character that WASN’T AFRAID TO KILL SOMEONE?!! In most YA fantasy, if there are assassins, they are always so apprehensive to hurt people and will do anything but kill people. Excuse me? You’re an assassin, the whole point of your job is to kill. But with Alosa, it was COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. She would just kill people left, right and centre, and be like… ‘ok, well that’s THAT job done!” It was awesome. Absolutely awesome. And the rest of her crew had the exact same attitude. They knew it was survival of the fittest, and if they didn’t kill, then THEY would be killed.

There IS a massive secret surrounding Alosa though, she has a power, and that’s all I’m going to say because it’s so bloody awesome.

“Imagine that you traveled all over the world, looking for happiness, looking for thrills to pass the time. Imagine seeing everything there is to see and still not finding happiness. Well, that would give you a very bleak outlook on life, would it not?”

― Tricia Levenseller, Daughter of the Pirate King

Now… onto the ship. IT’S SUCH A GOOD, FLIRTATIOUS, BANTERY THING AND I LOVE IT SO MUCH. Riden isn’t some type of love-sick male that we normally see in YA. HE IS SO LOYAL, and honestly? He’s a perfect match for Alosa. I don’t care what anyone else says, they are my OTP. And what’s brilliant about Alosa and Riden is that they’re stuck on a ship together for so long, so they have to find a way to get along with one another, which means that we get so many good one-liners from both of them. They never back down, so neither one of them give in when they’re in an argument.

The villains in Daughter of the Pirate King are ruthless. They are just the type of evil pirates that you would want to see in a pirate book. You will WANT to see them be killed because of how nasty they are, and they are also exactly how villains should be written.

Overall, this book was just brilliant. The beginning was a bit slow but other than that, I think that this book has opened up a completely new genre to me… Well, not a genre, but a topic: pirates. I didn’t think that they were for me, but maybe, JUST MAYBE, this book has made me want to read more about them.