A Ship of Bones & Teeth (Nightwind)

I was feeling a little nautical and wanted to enjoy a dark little mermaid retelling. Sadly, I was a little disappointed by this read. What I loved: ⛵ All of the pirate lingo…broadside, roundshots, mutiny, quartermaster, cutlass, savvy, avast, spyglass, etc. While I had to rely on context clues to figure out a majority of the lingo, I did enjoy the authenticity the vocabulary added to the story. I felt like I was surrounded by pirates ⛵ The dark aspects of the little mermaid story such as Maren’s tongue being cut out when she made the deal and Prince Aerik being an abusive jerk ⛵ Favorite quote: “’You going to fight me or fuck me?’ I growl at her, pinning her hands above her head and straddling her hips. ‘Let me know so we can have some rules.’” What I wasn’t as much a fan of: ⛵ Why are there vampirates?! It made the world building too complex. I understood the world when it was just pirates, syrens, and sea witches but adding in vampires and vampires in hiding that were hunting them made the world very complicated and I struggled to follow along. Why are the brotherhood and sea witches enemies in the first place? How are they keeping magic and mythical creatures a secret from the humans? ⛵ The whole ordeal around Daphne’s death. When we first met Daphne, it was made clear that while they were the closest person to Maren, Maren couldn’t trust them to protect her from her abusive husband or even with her secret. So when she died, why did Maren keep saying they were like a mother to her? ⛵ The crazy amount of power that Maren got in the end of the story. I understand being able to transition between the two worlds but controlling the Kraken seemed excessive. Maybe if it was more emphasized that the Kraken were just as susceptible to the Syren call as man, it might have made more sense. And how did she get reunited with Nill?! By the end of the story, all the bad guys were dead and the good guys had happy endings (for the most part). It seemed unrealistic for the dark world that Halle developed Star rating: ⭐⭐.5 Spicy rating: 🌶