Smart Bitches Trashy Books | All of the romance, none of the bullshit.

Candy’s Take

Y’know, I really enjoyed reading this book. Make no mistake, it’s kind of silly. A ship full of gay pirates? Holy mother of god. But I suspended my disbelief, went with the flow and pretty much had a good time.

The biggest problem with the book is one I rarely encounter. Many single-title romance novels (and fantasy books, come to think of it) tend to prolong the conflict artificially; I mean, usually, just when you think the hero and heroine are going to finally talk and sort out their differences, she catches him kissing some lady on the cheek at a masquerade ball and flies into a passion, runs away to Scotland and rends her hair with grief while he’s convinced she finally ran away to be with that no-good limpdick sunken-chested poet whose titties aren’t nearly as beautiful and firm as his, dammit and then she finds out from her sassy lady’s maid that the mysterious lady is actually his long-lost sister but oh no, he’s all pissy now and she needs to beg his forgiveness for her asinine assumption despite the fact that before marrying her he did have a tendency to hump anything that moved.

So no, this book does NOT have that problem. Quite the opposite. I have to say that this is one of the few books I’ve read that would have substantially improved if it had at least 50 pages or so added to it, because damn, for a big-ass chunk of the book Christine and Justin aren’t even together, and before that they spent all of one day together, none of it particularly pleasant. But within days of them being thrown together on Christine’s pirate ship and Justin reading a few stanzas of Andrew Marvell to her, she’s all “C’mere, stud, I love you, rrowr!” and bam, nookie and HEA. The conflict isn’t just resolved, it’s resolved at warp speed.

Another, more minor problem, concerns Christine’s transformation from shy, chubby duckling to svelte, swashbuckling swan. It takes her about a year, and she sheds most of her weight, loses the zits and becomes a skilled fighter and a convincing male impersonator. OK, one can lose a substantial amount of weight in a year, but the whole master fighter thing was a bit hard to swallow because it takes years and years of training for somebody to become truly skilled at fighting. Hey, just watch any kung fu movie—you can be some punk kid with skillz but the crusty old alcoholic monk can still totally kick your ass.

But on the other hand, DUDE. Shipload of buttpirates. I guess if I can suspend my disbelief for that, Christine becoming a master swordsperson in a year isn’t that much of a stretch.

On the whole, though, Marshall’s writing style is enjoyable. It’s breezy, it’s readable, and the characters are enjoyable even though because of the length of the book and the speed at which the story moves along, they come across more as thumbnail sketches rather than fully-fledged entities. If the love story had been more substantial, it could’ve been a B or B+, easy.

Sarah’s Take

I’m in 100% agreement with Candy in her wishes for more. I wish the story had had more “meat” to it - har har - in terms of the real and valid conflicts between Justin and Christine, and more depth to explain the sudden and intensely passionate attraction between the two of them. I mean, were I a dude, and were I a mega-wealthy stud like Justin, and were I drugged on my wedding night only to wake up with a runaway wife, and then find said runaway wife on a ship of asspirates, would I perhaps, perchance think there was something naughty in her Nottingham? Particularly as she is dressed as a man? On a ship? Of swashbuckling butt burglars?

And my other problem, and truly this is nitpicky in the extreme, is the choice of names for the two major male characters in the book. Justin? Julius? If I was reading quickly - and I usually was because this book just flies - I would often get mixed up between them, as even with a quick scan, the names appear similar. Unless this was a deliberate shading on the part of the author, and I don’t think it was since there was hardly any guardian/ward shennanigans between Julius and Christine, it was a slight distraction that forced me to slow down, even though the prose invited me to speed right along. High speed reading, high speed adventure.

However, the part I loved best about this book, and it was literally a laugh out loud experience, was the camp of it. This was truly the first romance novel I’ve read that was this out-and-out campy. Once I got over the jaw dropping realization that I was reading about a ship of asspirates, I had a great time with this book. Unlike many pirate romances, which try to take the slightly goofy stereotypes of pirates and infuse them with political drama, angst, and sturm-und-drang, this book took the idea of pirates, made them GAY pirates, added a cross-dressing heroine, and hell, while we at it, why not a goose? Named Sally? And an actual person who says, “ARRRRGH?”

This book did not take itself too seriously, which is not to say that it wastes the reader’s time in terms of research or story. It didn’t take itself too seriously in the same manner as your favorite friend who is cuttingly funny because she can laugh at her own foibles. This book was a great deal of fun to read, and it must have been fun to write.