The Pirate Bride is NOT a romance book but an adventure story for 12 years and older (review)

It is 1725. A young 11-year old girl travels with her father to his new posting in the Spanish colonies. She is completely fascinated by her book full of pirate stories. So when their ship is attacked by a French privateer she sees it as a big adventure. Privateers by the way were privately outfitted ships that where officially allowed to attack the country a country was at war with. That enabled a king to enlarge his power at sea without having to pay a dime. No he would get a share of the spoils.

Maribel wants to join the crew and turn privateer. Lucky for her the men are nice people who would not lift a finger towards a nice looking girl. No raping or hitting. She ends up with quite a crush for the dashing captain.

This part of the story is endearing and funny. You can imagine how a teenager would see a big adventure but the moments the canons blast death and destruction almost pees herself.

That and also the fact that it is a clean story without sexscenes makes it a story also readable for the younger readers.

The first like 70 percent of the story I liked very much. However when Maribel grows up the writer adds elements to the story I did not like that much. The plot was too artificial and too fast paced there.

For instance when someone drowns near an ship in an empty see and the captain sees that person drown: blub...blub,... sinks under the waves, that guy would not end up getting a ride from a magic submarine on the bottom of the ocean. And even when he would swim to the other side of the ship by diving under it then he would not have a change to survive by swimming in an empty sea.
She also give the captain a kind of saintly heroism.
The title also gives away the end of the story.

So the first half would be a real 5 star but the last part brings it down to 3.


This was one of my ARC reviews for Netgalley.

*** 3 stars out of 5