Rather too detailed and drawn out for my enjoyment but a good tale of adventure and otherworldliness. ( )

Featuring magic, pirates, betrayal, and redemption Dark Water Daughter is the first book in H.M. Long’s The Winter Sea Trilogy.

Mary Firth is a Stormsinger, a woman who can quiet the wildest of storms, or whip them into a hurricane, with just the power of her voice. Like her mother before her, Mary’s fate is to be lashed to the mast of a ship, commanded to assure the crew’s safety while at sea, but Mary refuses to be anything but the centre of the tempest.

From the very first pages, Dark Water Daughter heralds action and adventure with Mary, in search of her mother, narrowly escaping the gallows only to be sold to a brutal pirate lord. On the high seas among pirate ships and naval armada, battles rage and monsters lurk in the deep, while on land, deals are made, and broken. Mary escapes one pirate only to make a deal with another, and the drama continues to unfold through intrigues and treasure hunts, betrayals and vengeance. It’s a well crafted, exciting plot that moves at a fast pace.

As for Long’s magic system, it’s creative and interesting, though often quite dark. Epigraphs between chapters taken from fictional tome’s provide definitions or explanations that help to build and give substance to the world. The Dark Water, also known as the Other, is an ethereal place, beautiful but deadly. There are mage and magni, sooth’s and ghistings, who are spirits that dwell in trees in Wold’s, harvested usually unwillingly, to inhabit the figureheads of ships.

Mary quickly realises her choice is to sink or swim as she’s introduced to life on the high seas. I thought the growth of her character was well handled. She’s a little naive, having lived a largely sheltered existence, but she learns quickly. She’s determined to do whatever it takes to save her mother, whether that be sing or fight. She proves to be smart, resourceful and brave.

Samuel Rosser, a disgraced Navy Officer and seer with an uncontrolled ability to trespass on the Dark Water, provides a second point of view in the narrative. Unfortunately I didn’t particularly warm to him though I can’t exactly articulate why. His tragic background, including his twisted relationship with his twin brother, should elicit sympathy, but I found it wearying. I personally prefer my leading men to have a bit more vigor.

Of the similarly themed pirate fantasy books I’ve read recently, Dark Water Daughter is the more atmospheric and dynamic. I’d certainly like to read the next book in the series. ( )

I listened to 50% of this and my god it was so slow and repetitive. The characters thoughts just went in circles and nothing really happened.

Mary Firth is a Stormsinger: a woman whose voice can still hurricanes and shatter armadas. Faced with servitude to pirate lord Silvanus Lirr, Mary offers her skills to his arch-rival in exchange for protection - and, more importantly, his help sending Lirr to a watery grave. But her new ally has a vendetta of his own, and Mary's dreams are dark and full of ghistings, spectral creatures who inhabit the ancient forests of her homeland and the figureheads of ships.

Samuel Rosser is a disgraced naval officer serving aboard The Hart, an infamous privateer commissioned to bring Lirr to justice. He will stop at nothing to capture Lirr, restore his good name and reclaim the only thing that stands between himself and madness: a talisman stolen by Mary.

Finally, driven into the eternal ice at the limits of their world, Mary and Samuel must choose their loyalties and battle forces older and more powerful than the pirates who would make them slaves.