I was presenting an assembly for kids grades 3-8 while on book tour for the third PRINCESS ACADEMY book.
Me: “So many teachers have told me the same thing. They say, ‘When I told my students we were reading a book called PRINCESS ACADEMY, the girls said—’”
I gesture to the kids and wait. They anticipate what I’m expecting, and in unison, the girls scream, “YAY!”
Me: “’And the boys said—”
I gesture and wait. The boys know just what to do. They always do, no matter their age or the state they live in.
In unison, the boys shout, “BOOOOO!”
Me: “And then the teachers tell me that after reading the book, the boys like it as much or sometimes even more than the girls do.”
Audible gasp. They weren’t expecting that.
Me: “So it’s not the story itself boys don’t like, it’s what?” The kids shout, “The name! The title!”
Me: “And why don’t they like the title?”
As usual, kids call out, “Princess!”
But this time, a smallish 3rd grade boy on the first row, who I find out later is named Logan, shouts at me, “Because it’s GIRLY!”
The way Logan said “girly"…so much hatred from someone so small. So much distain. This is my 200-300th assembly, I’ve asked these same questions dozens of times with the same answers, but the way he says “girly” literally makes me take a step back. I am briefly speechless, chilled by his hostility.
Then I pull it together and continue as I usually do.
“Boys, I have to ask you a question. Why are you so afraid of princesses? Did a princess steal your dog? Did a princess kidnap your parents? Does a princess live under your bed and sneak out at night to try to suck your eyeballs out of your skull?”
The kids laugh and shout “No!” and laugh some more. We talk about how girls get to read any book they want but some people try to tell boys that they can only read half the books. I say that this isn’t fair. I can see that they’re thinking about it in their own way.
But little Logan is skeptical. He’s sure he knows why boys won’t read a book about a princess. Because a princess is a girl—a girl to the extreme. And girls are bad. Shameful. A boy should be embarrassed to read a book about a girl. To care about a girl. To empathize with a girl.
Where did Logan learn that? What does believing that do to him? And how will that belief affect all the girls and women he will deal with for the rest of his life?
At the end of my presentation, I read aloud the first few chapters of THE PRINCESS IN BLACK. After, Logan was the only boy who stayed behind while I signed books. He didn’t have a book for me to sign, he had a question, but he didn’t want to ask me in front of others. He waited till everyone but a couple of adults had left. Then, trembling with nervousness, he whispered in my ear, “Do you have a copy of that black princess book?”
He wanted to know what happened next in her story. But he was ashamed to want to know.
Who did this to him? How will this affect how he feels about himself? How will this affect how he treats fellow humans his entire life?
We already know that misogyny is toxic and damaging to women and girls, but often we assume it doesn’t harm boys or mens a lick. We think we’re asking them to go against their best interest in the name of fairness or love. But that hatred, that animosity, that fear in little Logan, that isn’t in his best interest. The oppressor is always damaged by believing and treating others as less than fully human. Always. Nobody wins. Everybody loses.
We humans have a peculiar tendency to assume either/or scenarios despite all logic. Obviously it’s NOT “either men matter OR women do.” It’s NOT “we can give boys books about boys OR books about girls.” It’s NOT “men are important to this industry OR women are.“
It’s not either/or. It’s AND.
We can celebrate boys AND girls. We can read about boys AND girls. We can listen to women AND men. We can honor and respect women AND men. And And And. I know this seems obvious and simplistic, but how often have you assumed that a boy reader would only read a book about boys? I have. Have you preselected books for a boy and only offered him books about boys? I’ve done that in the past. And if not, I’ve caught myself and others kind of apologizing about it. “I think you’ll enjoy this book EVEN THOUGH it’s about a girl!” They hear that even though. They know what we mean. And they absorb it as truth.
I met little Logan at the same assembly where I noticed that all the 7th and 8th graders were girls. Later, a teacher told me that the administration only invited the middle school girls to my assembly. Because I’m a woman. I asked, and when they’d had a male author, all the kids were invited. Again reinforcing the falsehood that what men say is universally important but what women say only applies to girls.
One 8th grade boy was a big fan of one of my books and had wanted to come, so the teacher had gotten special permission for him to attend, but by then he was too embarrassed. Ashamed to want to hear a woman speak. Ashamed to care about the thoughts of a girl.
A few days later, I tweeted about how the school didn’t invite the middle school boys. And to my surprise, twitter responded. Twitter was outraged. I was blown away. I’ve been talking about these issues for over a decade, and to be honest, after a while you feel like no one cares.
But for whatever reason, this time people were ready. I wrote a post explaining what happened, and tens of thousands of people read it. National media outlets interviewed me. People who hadn’t thought about gendered reading before were talking, comparing notes, questioning what had seemed normal. Finally, finally, finally.
And that’s the other thing that stood out to me about Logan—he was so ready to change. Eager for it. So open that he’d started the hour expressing disgust at all things “girly” and ended it by whispering an anxious hope to be a part of that story after all.
The girls are ready. Boy howdy, we’ve been ready for a painful long time. But the boys, they’re ready too. Are you?
I’ve spoken with many groups about gendered reading in the last few years. Here are some things that I hear:
A librarian, introducing me before my presentation: “Girls, you’re in for a real treat. You’re going to love Shannon Hale’s books. Boys, I expect you to behave anyway.”
A book festival committee member: “Last week we met to choose a keynote speaker for next year. I suggested you, but another member said, ‘What about the boys?’ so we chose a male author instead.”
A parent: “My son read your book and he ACTUALLY liked it!”
A teacher: “I never noticed before, but for read aloud I tend to choose books about boys because I assume those are the only books the boys will like.”
A mom: “My son asked me to read him The Princess in Black, and I said, ‘No, that’s for your sister,’ without even thinking about it.”
A bookseller: “I’ve stopped asking people if they’re shopping for a boy or a girl and instead asking them what kind of story the child likes.”
Like the bookseller, when I do signings, I frequently ask each kid, “What kind of books do you like?” I hear what you’d expect: funny books, adventure stories, fantasy, graphic novels. I’ve never, ever, EVER had a kid say, “I only like books about boys.” Adults are the ones with the weird bias. We’re the ones with the hangups, because we were raised to believe thinking that way is normal. And we pass it along to the kids in sometimes overt (“Put that back! That’s a girl book!”) but usually in subtle ways we barely notice ourselves.
But we are ready now. We’re ready to notice and to analyze. We’re ready to be thoughtful. We’re ready for change. The girls are ready, the boys are ready, the non-binary kids are ready. The parents, librarians, booksellers, authors, readers are ready. Time’s up. Let’s make a change.
It’s 7:50 in the morning and I just had to read the words “he climaxed like a hurricane, wet and wild” with my own two eyeballs, and now so do you. Happy Friday 😂
The thing is she knows, she knows her descriptions make me lose my shit laughing and she’s okay with this. She just asks me to help her fix it because she doesnt know how to get over the embrasssment of being vulgar. Which frankly, my time to shine lmao
“Sharron we’ve talked about this.”
“I know, I know, it just seems so crude.”
“…you can type the words “his proud manspire flowed freely like a Grecian fountain” but “cock” is beyond you?“
“You’re putting this on your blog, aren’t you?”
“Consider it recompense for making me read the word "manspire” without warning before 9am in the year of our Lord 2k18.“
I’ll never not be amused by the fact that I can drop the words “crucifix nail nipples” into a conversation and some of you who have been with me since the livejournal days will join me in the flashbacks, screaming and crying all the way.
I require context. Because this is a very interesting start of a story, and now I need the rest of it. Could I get a link, or a summary, or something? Pretty please?
All right buckle the fuck up kids, it’s the year 2012 and I’ve just been handed what should be an easy editing gig by my senior editor. It’s a vampire erotica story because one of the final Twilight movies is about to come out, and everything is vampires. Everything. I haven’t edited a single thing in months which isn’t about vampires. I am ready, I can do this. So I open the file and notice there’s a typo in the title, which really should have been my first inkling that something horrendous was about to go down, but you see I’m not quite dead inside yet so I carry on, bushy tailed and bright eyed with my faith in humanity intact. It’ll be dead by page 24, but I don’t know that yet. I’m just editing one more vampire boner fest.
The MC is a girl who we’ll call Sue. Sue is a Good Girl™, Sue is Not Like Other Girls™, she is pale and awkward and a virgin and has somehow managed to find herself a Bad Boy™ for a boyfriend. We’ll call him Dickhead.
Now Dickhead as previously stated is a bit of dick, he tries to pressure Sue into sex because he knows she is The One™ but he loves her really so it’s okay. Except it’s not okay because Sue is a Good Girl™ and holding out till marriage which he’s fine with except he’s got such a bad case of blue balls that one night walking home an attractive stranger lures him into an alley with the words “hey stud” and he follows, dick out before she’s even finished her sentence. Well turns out that was a mistake for Dickhead because she’s a vampire, but not just any vampire, a Dick Biting Vampire. So what started out as a skeevy blow job behind a club that he’ll feel bad about in the morning, turns into him being bitten on the dick and drained of his life essence and left for dead. Except DBV fucked up and now he’s a vampire. Are you still with me? Good, cause it’s about to get weirder.
Realizing he is now an abomination, Dickhead flees, becoming a creature of the night and feeding on animals rather than humans to repent for being such an asshole in life. Sue meanwhile is heartbroken, but carries on valiantly with her life and goes to bed each night crying for the loss of her One True Love™ who she would do anything to bring back. Well guess what Sue, Dickhead never really left you! He’s been “instinctively protecting her from rapists” by hiding out on her roof and fighting hobos who try to get to her open window via the fire escape for months now. Because that’s not fucking terrifying at all.
Upon learning of his predicament and how it happened, Sue can do nothing but blame herself. Oh if only she’d let him touch her secret places, then perhaps all of this could be avoided! Meanwhile Dickhead is having another dilemma of his own, realizing too late that his vampire powers have given him super senses and now he can smell her blood and he can’t decide whether he wants to get with her or eat her. And I don’t mean in the French sense. But he is strong! And over comes his base manly vampire instincts and neither rapes not kills her. Hurrah! And this is so romantic that Sue gives it up, but not before she launches into a theory about how in all fairy tales, True Love saves the day, so maybe her magical pure vagina that has never been touched by anyone, not even her, can bring him back to life. So Dickhead being a dickhead agrees and rips her clothes off, but not before he takes one last moment to marvel at the beauty of her purity, because he will never again look on her again and know she is Pure.
If you’ve only vomited once by now, I applaud your resolve.
So they hop on the good foot and do the nasty, except she is literally so pure in spirit, her flesh burns his. And I quote you from memory because these words are burned into my soul: “her breasts bit into his hands, like crucifix nail nipples tearing at
his flesh, but he did not care because he loved her so and couldn’t
stop”
This phrase haunts me. I dread that it will be the last thing I think about on my death bed and my last words will literally be “god fucking dammit” as I die, carrying that mental image with me into the afterlife. My own solace is in knowing that I inflicted it on other people too, like @ahzuri who is somehow still with me after all these years.
When the magical burning sex fails to heal him and leaves her bruised, battered and broken with “a dainty blue bells of bruises around her secret flower” (I am genuinely quoting this, I could never make something as horrendous as this up without being on acid) Dickhead leaves. Yeah. Off he fucks, leaving her to the mercy of the hobos at her window, and into the night to be the true monster he really is. But wait, there’s more. Remember the dick biting vampire? Well turns out she has figured out she made him into a vampire and has also been stalking HIM and is totally jealous of Sue, so tries to kill her. But again Sues Purity saves her, because sex before marriage which was done out of True Love is not a sin, so she is still a spiritual virgin and I’ll be honest, I started drinking heavily at this point and it’s all a bit of a blur.
A fight ensues some pages later after Dickhead returns, realizing the mistake he has made. And he rescues Sue from the Dick Biter, but not before he assaults Dick Biter, and calls her a slut for luring innocent men into alleys cuts her heart out by cutting her breasts off, at which point i screamed “THAT’S NOT HOW YOU REACH THE HEART” and my brain short circuited completely and I have no idea how it ends because I realized there was 30 pages left and my soul couldn’t take it. I emailed the chief editor like ?????!!!!!!????!!!!!! and the book was immediately pulled from the work line and the author dismissed from the publishing house. Turns out she was a friend of a friend and that was how she got the manuscript past our entry levels for requirement.
And that’s the story of how an author sent me death threats for over a month because I stopped her shitty vampire porn from ever seeing the light of day. You’re all fucking WELCOME.
Sorry to bring this searing back into your lives fam, but I feel it’s worth noting that people are tagging this as an “ancient relic” of tumblr text posts and how they’re so happy they see this every year and like guys, I hate to tell you this, but uh, this post is only six months old. I posted in on March 3rd 2016.
It only seems like years because every time you see it you age five years.
John Oliver wrote a children’s book about Mike Pence’s bunny rabbit Marlon Bundo falling in love with another boy bunny just to spite that racist homophobic piece of shit VP and the dumb children’s book that he’s planning to release. John’s book is literally already a #1 best seller on Amazon.
All proceeds are going to the Trevor Project for suicide prevention of LGBTQ+ youth and AIDS United to end the AIDS epidemic in the US.
Also there’s an audiobook narrated by Jim Parsons, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Jeff Garlin, Ellie Kemper, John Lithgow, Jack McBrayer, and RuPaul.
If someone from 2017 traveled back to 1997 and wrote a novel about 2017 without people knowing he was a time traveler, it would be categorized as dystopian fiction.
Not only that, but hamfisted, overwrought YA dystopian fiction
Right, so the cold war is back on but this time it’s between the US and North Korea and the american president is a serial rapist billionaire with ties to the Russian government who shits in a gold toilet, fucks off to play golf every weekend, and legislates to prevent religious minorities from entering the country while simultaneously pushing to allow ivory into the country so his henchman sons can kill elephants to their hearts’ content. most cities in the US don’t have clean drinking water especially in minority areas, the wealth disparity and corruption is among the worst in the world, infrastructure hasn’t been updated in about 40 years, innocent people – men, women, children, and other – are murdered en masse by the state, Native American tribes are drowning in the oil they knew was going to spill all over their sovereign land, and overall everything’s basically exactly the same as it was in the 1950s except now there’s the internet and the country is run by a literal fucking toddler.
meanwhile the rest of the world is pretty much as bad as it’s ever been, but seems to be slowly getting better over time. or it would be, if the US weren’t still a global hegemon intent on starting racial wars at every given opportunity and melting the ice caps practically by design. and then turning away people forced to seek refuge from those same wars and the effects of those melting ice caps
….yeah if I read a book like that in the ‘90s even as a literal fucking child I would’ve said it lacked subtlety.
You know what’s really hard to find in good quality?
Pirate romance.
So, here is my list of pirate romance and love stories that actually do justice to pirates, ladies, and don’t involve any (God bless it) cringe-y Treasure Island “pirate speak.”
Frenchman’s Creek – Daphne DuMaurier
Jaded by the numbing politeness of Restoration London, Lady Dona St. Columb revolts against high society. She rides into the countryside, guided only by her restlessness and her longing to escape.
But when chance leads her to meet a French pirate, hidden within Cornwall’s shadowy forests, Dona discovers that her passions and thirst for adventure have never been more aroused. Together, they embark upon a quest rife with danger and glory, one which bestows upon Dona the ultimate choice: sacrifice her lover to certain death or risk her own life to save him.
DuMaurier is often credited with the early stirrings of the modern day romance novel, but Frenchman’s Creek is without a doubt a love story, not a romance novel. If you’re looking for a HEA, this is not going to be your cup of tea.
Her prose is moody and ethereal – a perfect match to the windswept isolated countryside setting. It’s a story about an unhappy woman’s personal and sexual awakening in the arms of the ultimate gentleman pirate. Almost everything happens off-page, but DuMaurier does manage to make the removal of a single earring painfully erotic.
Dona is complicated and often unlikable in her decisions, but she never backs down from who she is and when it matters, she makes the right choices. Jean Aubrey is fun, interesting, and thoughtful without needing to be in the finest clothes or the smartest man in the room. He has a tic for drawing birds, which softens him from being a scary pirate without turning him into a teddy bear.
Siren – Cheryl Sawyer
Jean Laffite is a pirate with a brutal reputation.
A black-eyed sea gypsy, he is legendary for his plundering of ships and seduction of women.
Léonore Roncival, a pirate’s daughter, is mistress of the Caribbean island of San Stefan. Léonore, too, inspires whispered innuendo. Her island is rumoured to be awash in treasure. Her beauty is said to lure men to the peaks of ecstasy–and to their doom. Even the ruthless Jean Laffite can’t ignore her call …
Determined to eliminate this rival on the high seas, Laffite comes to raid her home. There he faces a battle of wits that he never foresaw, and risks his heart.
As the aftershocks of Napoleonic war reach America, the passionate conflict between Jean and Léonore drives them between two nations, into the Battle of New Orleans …
I loved this. Sawyer is thorough in her historical details and seamlessly weaves the absolutely true story of American pirate Lafitte with the fictional Roncival and her story. They are both pirates, though Roncival commands an island instead of a ship, and they have independent stories. Siren is a solid study in two independent people choosing to support each other, which is so satisfying.
Sawyer doesn’t hold back on one of the ugliest parts of piracy: the role of pirates in the slave trade. Lafitte is no hero, but he does evolve and grow with the narrative.
Siren had twists and turns that I did not see coming, and kept me turning the pages.
The Blue Diamond – P.S. Bartlett
Ivory Shepard didn’t want to be a pirate when she grew up but she didn’t plan on being orphaned and alone at thirteen with her three cousins either.
After a Spanish raid in Charles Towne left them with nothing, Ivory held her cousins together, trained them to fight for their lives and led them to a life of quiet refuge on the banks of the Ashley River. Out of reach of the hands of unscrupulous men, they found life on the farm a tolerable substitute for the traditional alternatives life would force onto them—until the night the pirates showed up.
Setting foot on that first pirate ship was nothing compared to the life of freedom and adventure awaiting them, once Ivory and the girls were through playing nice. Only one man believes he can stop her and he won’t need a ship full of guns to do it.
Not a perfect novel, but a fun story that features a quad of badass ladies leading the way. There is a strong balance of action (that good high seas pirate stuff I love), female friendships, and romance without ever veering too long in any one area. I like action *with* romance, and this book delivered.
Maddox is sort of the stereotypical romance novel pirate – something of an overdressed fop, which is a trend that I understand but don’t really care for. BUT the relationship between Ivory and Maddox is entertaining. It waivers on clunky at times, but when it’s natural, it’s so natural it almost gives me flutters.
TW: implied rape in flashbacks
Cinnamon and Gunpowder – Eli Brown
The year is 1819, and the renowned chef Owen Wedgwood has been kidnapped by the ruthless pirate Mad Hannah Mabbot. He will be spared, she tells him, as long as he puts exquisite food in front of her every Sunday without fail. To appease the red-haired captain, Wedgwood gets cracking with the meager supplies on board. His first triumph at sea is actual bread, made from a sourdough starter that he leavens in a tin under his shirt throughout a roaring battle, as men are cutlassed all around him. Soon he’s making tea-smoked eel and brewing pineapple-banana cider. But Mabbot—who exerts a curious draw on the chef—is under siege. Hunted by a deadly privateer and plagued by a saboteur hidden on her ship, she pushes her crew past exhaustion in her search for the notorious Brass Fox. As Wedgwood begins to sense a method to Mabbot’s madness, he must rely on the bizarre crewmembers he once feared: Mr. Apples, the fearsome giant who loves to knit; Feng and Bai, martial arts masters sworn to defend their captain; and Joshua, the deaf cabin boy who becomes the son Wedgwood never had.
I got this on a recommendation and what a recommendation. Like Frenchman’s Creek, Cinnamon and Gunpowder is not a romance novel. It is however a beautiful love story that left me ugly crying.
One of the best parts of a good pirate novel is the squad of diverse malcontents and misfits that is the crew, and boy oh boy does this novel deliver. I fell in love with each member of Mabbot’s crew and they’ve all left an impression on me.
Written in the first person as a journal, the style was a bit hard for me to dig into, but the writing is so strong it didn’t take long for me to become fully invested. If you like food and sailing, this novel will hit all your happy places. The story is exciting and emotionally compelling from start to finish, complete with well developed, messy, sympathetic characters.
For the record: middle aged-to-older eccentric lady pirate captain? Who is also allowed to be in a romantic relationship? Sign me the frak up.
The Rebel Pirate – Donna Thorland
1775, Boston Harbor. James Sparhawk, Master and Commander in the British Navy, knows trouble when he sees it. The ship he’s boarded is carrying ammunition and gold…into a country on the knife’s edge of war. Sparhawk’s duty is clear: confiscate the cargo, impound the vessel and seize the crew. But when one of the ship’s boys turns out to be a lovely girl, with a loaded pistol and dead-shot aim, Sparhawk finds himself held hostage aboard a Rebel privateer.
Sarah Ward never set out to break the law. Before Boston became a powder keg, she was poised to escape the stigma of being a notorious pirate’s daughter by wedding Micah Wild, one of Salem’s most successful merchants. Then a Patriot mob destroyed her fortune and Wild played her false by marrying her best friend and smuggling a chest of Rebel gold aboard her family’s ship.
Now branded a pirate herself, Sarah will do what she must to secure her family’s safety and her own future. Even if that means taking part in the cat and mouse game unfolding in Boston Harbor, the desperate naval fight between British and Rebel forces for the materiel of war—and pitting herself against James Sparhawk, the one man she cannot resist.
Pirates and spies and family drama, oh my. This is a fun read that featured action on ship and on land during the American Revolution.
Thorland put in work researching the time and setting (on and off land) and it shows. The subplots and supporting characters are well developed and interesting without overpowering the plot. Thorland does an excellent job fleshing these stories out and using them to further the primary story rather than distract from it. It even features a secondary LGBTQ character with a complete storyline, which is an important part of history – ESPECIALLY naval history – that is often overlooked, ignored, or glossed over.
Fic recs:
I would be remiss to not include these two stories, especially since the first one is also the read that got me scrambling to find more pirate-themed romance once I knew what I was missing.
These are both Black Sails fanfiction and both about the ship that was never to sail, Billy Bones/Abigail Ashe. You don’t have to be a fan of the show however to appreciate the high quality romance on display here. These stories are so well-written, they honestly put 90% of the pirate romance genre to shame. I consider them better than most of the published novels on this list.
I would, however, seriously recommend googling Tom Hopper as Billy Bones in Black Sails. This is not the weird smelly old guy you’re picturing if you’ve only seen Treasure Island.
As I said above, pirate romance has a tendency to write heroes who are overdressed and effeminate. While I understand that that’s appealing to a large portion of readers, it isn’t *to me*. I live for the rough, overdue for a bath and a shave, dressed for function and calloused to match heroes. The Black Sails corner of fanfiction is rife with that.
“My point being, unless my crew decides that they don’t want to give me up for dead, and if what you say is true and no one will come looking for you, then we are very much stranded on this island.”
Abigail Ashe awakens to find herself shipwrecked on an island. However, she is not alone.
Shipwrecked! is easily one of my favorite tropes, and the author gets all the details you’ve ever wanted about surviving that scenario without crossing into a grim survivalist story. The relationship develops naturally and is so pure™ it could scrub a deck. It’s watching two people I really, really like get something they both deserve, and it’s infinitely satisfying.
Pretty independent lady who sacrificed her standing in society to do the right thing shipwrecked alongside her long-ago crush, a handsome, honorable, pirate with a code of morals that puts Arthurian knights to shame (let’s pretend that fourth season didn’t happen, k)? Just kill me. Bury me in the sand.
This is, tragically, on hiatus, however she did put the writing on pause at a natural break in the story. There’s no happy ending (yet!) but the leave off feels natural and their time on the island is resolved.
I’d never demand an update, but I am patiently holding out hope that one day she’ll pick this up again. It’s seriously one of my favorites and I find myself re-opening this story and re-reading it when I really, really want a good happy pirate love story.
When word reaches Nassau that Captain Derrick of the Nemo has kidnapped Abigail Ashe, daughter of the Lord Governor of the Carolinas, and intends to sell her to the pirate crew offering the highest bid, Captain Flint and his crew take matters into their own hands and mount a rescue.
Though she is no longer a prisoner, Abigail’s journey is far from over.
This story is a break from Black Sails, and dear God it’s a good break. Prim and well-bread Abigail Ashe ends up a prisoner on a pirate ship, then rescued by the only pirates scarier than her current captors. In order to protect themselves, they take her back to Nassau until they can arrange to return her to her father. Living with these men her father called monsters first on their ship – where she learns the ins and outs of sailing! – then in their homes forever alters Abigail’s view of the world. She cannot return to her old life knowing that everything her father has fought for is wrong. Her inevitable return is made all the more complicated by her growing feelings for a certain tall boatswain assigned to watch after her on the ship and on land.
This writing team knows their stuff about sailing. All the details are there without it being an overwhelming infodump. It’s all worked seamlessly into the story. They have stayed simultaneously true to the show and true to the mores of the time period, which has lent itself to being the ultimate slow burn. It’s so well written and the Romeo and Juliet angst of a pirate falling in love with a territorial governor’s daughter is poignant. There is no need to reach for reasons to keep these characters apart, so the conflict never feels forced or contrived.
The conclusion is still to come in the third part, Setting the Stormsails, and I cannot wait to read it.
So, did I forget anything? Leave off a novel or story you think is a classic? Reblog and let me know! I live for good recommendations!
Very honoured that we’ve made this list! And also crying over the price of ebooks because I want to read a couple of these now but I just… can’t afford. I really want authors to be paid fairly but I also don’t want to spend €12-13 on a digital file I guess that’s why I mostly read fanfic…
I guess that’s why I mostly read fanfic…
Steel Phoenix Studios 