Tracy’s Rating: 3.5/4 of 5 stars
Series: Salt & Sorcery, #1
Release Date: August 26, 2025
In a small coastal Massachusetts village, men with magical powers are revered and trained in the magical arts as mages, but female witches are hunted and hanged. Widow Alys Tanner is a witch and has been careful not to be caught as her sister was hanged as a witch, but after her husband dies, she too is hunted. She manages to escape along with a handful of women, some witches and some not, from her village. They steal a ship and the witches among them use their powers to call the wind and escape. A year later, she is a pirate and is still captain of the ship which they renamed the Sea Witch, and she has amassed a large crew of women, both magical and not and they sail the Caribbean. When she attends the funeral of the pirate Little George Partridge, she learns that Little George had been working with the Navy and their mages to control mystical sea creatures, which the Navy has been using to fight pirates. But in true pirate fashion, Little George was double-crossing the Navy and created a way to break the spell the Navy is using to enslave the sea creatures, and he left a clue to the location of his “fail-safe”. But as she is reading the clue, the Navy attacks and she is chased by a sailor, narrowly escaping his clutches – or so she thinks. Once on board her ship, she discovers the man followed her and is now on her ship, but the tide has turned and now he is her prisoner.
Benjamin “Ben” Priestley, Sailing Master for the HMS Jupiter, the navy’s flagship, is on a quest to find the pirates that killed his father. When he sees Alys and realizes she has found the clue to the fail-safe, he pursues her. But when he boards her ship, he is taken prisoner. It isn’t long before he realizes that there is no way Alys could have been responsible for his father’s death, but she could lead him to the fail-safe, which he plans to destroy to prevent them from using it. But the more time spent with Alys, the more he likes her. When they form a bond through “dream walking”, Ben discovers things about himself and soon he will do whatever he can to help Alys find and destroy the fail-safe.
I was super excited for this book, I have read and loved Eva Leigh’s historical romances, so I had high expectations for her debut into Romantasy. For the most part I enjoyed the book, it had very strong “Pirates of Caribbean” vibe, with wonderful characters and a lot more magic. But I felt that the “world building” was not quite as thorough as I expected, the fact that this book is set in the early 1700s, barely 25 years after the Salem Witch trials, makes it hard to believe that magic of any sort would be accepted, so the whole “mage” thing was a big pill to swallow, then there is the magic itself, honestly, I am still not sure I understand it. The first half of the book dragged a bit and during that time, I wasn’t loving Alys’ character, I had a hard time believing that in ONE year, she not only masters sailing a large ship, but becomes a pirate that can hold her own with the brethren of the coast and has taught herself enough magic to battle with trained mages. Then there is her treatment of Ben, I understood her anger for the way she had been treated, but she came off as a bit of a hypocrite and a misandrist. Thankfully, her character does evolve and by the end of the book, I loved her. And speaking of endings, I was not expecting a cliffhanger, but there it was and now I am counting the days until the next book comes out! Overall, it was a well written, action-packed story with a bit of spice, lots of magic and pirates galore, and well worth the read!
*I am voluntarily leaving a review for an eARC that I requested and was provided to me by the publisher/author. All opinions in this review are my own. *
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