Review: The Ship of Shadows

The Ship of Shadows
Rating: 4/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy! 
Source: Bought it myself as soon as my hot little hands could get hold of it! 

Aleja whiles away her days in her family's dusty tavern in Seville, dreaming of distant lands and believing in the kind of magic that she's only ever read about in books. After all, she's always being told that girls can't be explorers.

But her life is changed forever when adventure comes for her in the form of a fabled vessel called the Ship of Shadows. Crewed by a band of ruthless women, with cabin walls dripping with secrets, the ship has sailed right out of a legend. And it wants Aleja.

Once on board its shadowy deck, she begins to realize that the sea holds more secrets than she ever could have imagined. The crew are desperately seeking something, and their path will take them through treacherous waters and force them to confront nightmare creatures and pitch-dark magic. It will take all of Aleja's strength and courage to gain the trust of her fellow pirates - and discover what they are risking everything to find. 

It's a truth universally acknowledged that if a book has pirates in it...I'm going to read it. Not only does The Ship of Shadows have pirates...it has badass female pirates, what more could you want? 

I've followed Maria on Instagram for forever, so I've seen every single post she's made about writing this book and I've been so excited to get my hands on it! When I saw it on the trolley to be put out at work I snatched it so fast it's probably a world record! Unfortunately, I had to wait until I was done with first year exams to finally settle down to read this but...it was worth the wait! 

As soon as I started reading I was instantly enveloped in the world of the book, I could picture everything as clearly as if I was there. There's so much detail throw in to the world building and the characters, with slick writing so that the narrative isn't too bogged down. I instantly settled down and easily read over 100 pages in one sitting...then the next day read the entirety of the rest of the book! I just instantly fell in love with the setting, the frankly awesome kinda Tardis-esque magical ship and our strong female lead. 

I loved Aleja, she was relatable and easy to root for and every single time she mentioned going home I was sitting there like, oh no sweetie. You're not going home, you CAN'T! How could she leave not only the ship and adventure, but the crew that I came to love as much as Aleja did?! Speaking of the crew, they were such an interesting bunch who'd all come together to create their own family and there wasn't a single one of them that I didn't like. I was curious about all of them and how they'd come to be on the ship, and each of them had a different set of skills to contribute. 

I need to talk about the magic of the book quickly as well! I was intrigued as to what it would be after seeing other readers comment on it, and honestly? It was so cool! The ship has shadow magic to it so all these rooms appear randomly, or you'll be minding your own business exploring one of the ship's passages and BOOM, there's a waterfall out of nowhere! It was so inventive and imaginative and I had a lot of fun reading about it and thinking over the possibilities! 

The Ship of Shadows is fast-paced and utterly riveting. There's so much packed in to it and we smoothly sail from point to point in the story! This isn't just a pirate adventure about sailing the high seas. Yes we have krakens to face and treasure to steal, but we also have a heist and a quest into the desert in search of a treasure map with some riddles and puzzles to solve along the way! If you like your piracy with a side of puzzle-solving, questing and adventure, then this is the book for you!