The Huntress: Sea by Sarah Driver
| The Huntress: Sea by Sarah Driver | |
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| Category: Confident Readers | |
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Reviewer: Linda Lawlor
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| Summary: Menace and adventure on the high seas in a world where prehistoric beasts still roam and magic can be used for both good and evil. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 336 | Date: April 2017 |
| Publisher: Egmont | |
| External links: Author's website | |
| ISBN: 9781405284677 | |
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Feisty heroines who refuse to accept the limitations set on them by men abound in literature at the moment – which is all to the good – and thirteen-year-old Mouse is no exception. She lives a precarious but happy life on the Huntress with her one-eyed grandma, who is the ship's captain, and her little brother Sparrow. Their tribe worships the whales as gods, protecting and working together with them to defeat the vicious and bloodthirsty terrodyls, and despite her young age Mouse is already a gifted diver for the pearls which they trade for food.
There's already enough here for a rollicking adventure tale, but we soon meet a ruthless and ambitious villain who is determined to destroy the fragile peace between the various tribes who live on the sea and the land, so he can rule over them all. Mouse, busy on a quest of her own, is hard-pressed to oppose him, and she comes close to a horrible end more than once. The story is hard-hitting, and not for the faint-hearted (young readers may wish to take that as a challenge!) and be warned - not all the main characters, even those we have quickly come to know and love, survive till the end of the book. The fighting between members of the crew and the evil-doers is cruel and bloody, and there are serious threats too from all manner of beasts, both on land and under the sea.
The language of the book, as spoken by Mouse, is simple and unsophisticated, while her descriptions of animals and weather, and the music her brother sings to the whales, is at times vivid and poetic. She tells us how the notes issuing from Sparrow's mouth shiver and glow bright blue against the dark rigging of the ship, while the wrecks that litter the seabed are haunted by blind, scaly merwraiths. Her heart skip-skitters when she's in danger but she keeps her spine arrow-straight and she is not afraid to face down a land-lurker with iron-hard eyes. Such an interesting combination of styles lifts the story out of the ordinary, and means readers will look forward to the next book in the trilogy.
There are some excellent stories out there which are set in a world like our own but with a few significant differences. Another nautical tale is The Map to Everywhere by Carrie Ryan and John Parke Davis and its sequel The Map to Everywhere: City of Thirst, and you'll find thrills, danger and fun in equal measures in Darkmouth by Shane Hegarty followed by Darkmouth: Worlds Explode and Darkmouth:Chaos Descends. Those titles tell it all, don't they?
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You can read more book reviews or buy The Huntress: Sea by Sarah Driver at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy The Huntress: Sea by Sarah Driver at Amazon.com.
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