Together, they must travel afar, defeat their foes and break the mother of all curses. With all this going on, falling in love would be such a bad idea... All of this and much, much more await, in the swashbuckling sequel to The Assassin's Curse.
The Assassin’s Curse was one of the surprise hits of last year. I loved
it, it was imaginative, full of characters I loved and delightfully
original. I couldn’t wait to get my hands of the follow up, The
Pirate’s Wish. I needed to know if Ananna and Naji managed to break the
curse and was desperate to find out if romance finally bloomed between
the two. Anticipation was high and I was nervous that this would
disappoint. Thankfully it didn’t and I got all the answers I wanted.
The
Pirate’s Wish picks up where The Assassin’s Curse left off. Ananna and
Naji are trapped on an island with three impossible tasks ahead of
them. The tasks will break the curse that was placed upon Naji when
Ananna saved his life when he was sent to kill her.
Within
pages of opening this book I was absorbed and back in the amazing world
Cassandra Rose Clarke has created. I love her writing and world
building and it is easy to get lost in this magical world. It is
vibrant and full of character and charm. There is a ton of action and
some lovely mellow moments as well. This is a well-paced book that
knows when to speed up of slow down.
The Pirate’s Wish takes a
more adult feeling through this and I was surprised how much the romance
was central to the whole story. In the previous book the romance was
just a faint whisper in the background, in this it is central. I knew
it was going to be bigger in this book given the nature of one of the
impossible tasks but I wasn’t expecting it to start so quickly.
The
relationship between Ananna and Naji is a strained one and it has
always been bizarre. They are tied reluctantly together in the
beginning and things get more awkward when Ananna develops feelings that
are not returned. There is pain here and misunderstanding and it
shapes the story as a whole. I think that will disappoint some readers
who enjoyed the lack of romance in the first book but I think it was
inevitable. Ananna and Naji are together in so many aspects and in
order for them to achieve anything they need each other and they always
have. It was fate that bought them together and they will only achieve
the impossible together.
Characters are key in this book.
Ananna was just as awesome as she was in The Assassin’s Curse but I also
think she grew up a lot in this one. What I love about Ananna is her
refusal to be anything she wasn’t. She had her own ideas, her own views
and she stuck to them. She loves Naji but will not let him control her
and she does not let her gender stand in her way at all. I loved her
strength and wish there were more characters like her in YA fiction.
Naji
was just as perfect. There was a
vulnerability to him in this that was not present in the first book. He
was more human and his feelings were a lot more pronounced. He is a
pretty special guy and I loved the respect he had for Ananna. He was
adorable in the romance when it finally got going but despite his
feelings and his own wishes he didn’t even try and hold Ananna back, he
wanted her to be herself and be happy even if that meant she wasn’t with
him. He was the lead in the romance which was a pleasant surprise and
it was easy to see how much he cared for Ananna, even the more sexual
scenes were full of tenderness from him.
I will really
miss these two characters. Cassandra Rose Clarke is a brilliant writer
who has created an amazing world but Ananna and Naji are the heart of it
all. The ending was perfect, a bitter sweet finish to a series that
has never played by the rules of an at times repetitive YA genre. It
was a real treat to read these books and they will be favourites of mine
for the rest of my life.
5 stars
Published
June 18th 2013
by Strange Chemistry. A free copy was provided for review. Image courtesy of Goodreads.
Review by Kate Phillips
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