Edward "Teach" Drummond, son of one of Bristol's richest merchants, has just returned from a year-long journey on the high seas to find his life in shambles. Betrothed to a girl he doesn’t love and sick of the high society he was born into, Teach dreams only of returning to the vast ocean he’d begun to call home. There's just one problem: convincing his father to let him leave and never come back.
Following her parents' deaths, Anne Barrett is left penniless and soon to be homeless. Though she’s barely worked a day in her life, Anne is forced to take a job as a maid in the home of Master Drummond. Lonely days stretch into weeks, and Anne longs for escape. How will she ever realize her dream of sailing to Curaçao—where her mother was born—when she's stuck in England?
From the moment Teach and Anne meet, they set the world ablaze. Drawn to each other, they’re trapped by society and their own circumstances. Faced with an impossible choice, they must decide to chase their dreams and go, or follow their hearts and stay.
I like pirates and Blackbeard has always intrigued me. It also helps that I've been on a historical fiction bender as of late. And I like action-packed books with interesting characters, especially historical ones, of whom there is little actual knowledge and a lot of hearsay. I traditionally really like pirate stories.
While there was a bit of setup for Teach becoming Blackbeard, it was mostly a historical romance novel with the romance occurring between Teach and Anne. Overall, this book is the epitome of being just OK. It was a very quick read, and I was able to get through both this book, and its sequel Blacksouls in the course of a day. The writing style is very simplistic and easy to follow. The plot moved quickly, making it easy to read this book and the second one both in one day. I like how each chapter followed either Anne or Teach, alternating between the two. That being said ...
I didn't really have an emotional connection to any of the characters. The only character I had a real connection with was a side character by the name of John. There was no real depth to their characterization and while they do have motivations for what they want to do, they are not portrayed in the most realistic ways. While the romance is not insta-love, it does not take long for the two leads to start making doe-eyes and declarations. The more minor characters and the "villain" characters are not really that exciting either. They're kind of stereotypical, and once they story is done with them, that's it. You don't hear or see from some of the characters ever again once they get their "comeuppance", which is kind of annoying.
What this book does do well is set up a sort of plausible backstory for Blackbeard. It's kind of odd to have Blackbeard be a young man (I kept picturing Aiden Turner of Poldark) as opposed to a war-hardened pirate with a black heart (oh, hey, I get the title now) and no soul. Whenever someone mentions Blackbeard, my mind instantly goes to the Ian McShane Blackbeard from Pirates of the Caribbean or the Blackbeard on Once Upon a Time that shows up every once in a while to be an occasional foil for Hook (and is also so much fun, I wish he was on the show more often. But I digress). While a lot is known about Blackbeard's piracy years, not much is known about his pre-piracy days, so it was cool to see Castroman's take on it.
Overall, this book is OK, the very definition of OK. Castroman provides an interesting take on a young version of Blackbeard, who is the more compelling of the two romantic leads. I found this book really easy to get through, and there were some really great scenes and a lot of excitement that I believe is building up to something. It was a quickly moving plot. This book was in no means bad, but it could have been improved upon in some ways, but it is a good debut, and fans of Y/A historical romance will enjoy it. I'm going to give Blackhearts a 3/5
No comments:
Post a Comment