My review of Dark Water Daughter by H. M. Long

Reviews

Dark Water Daughter was one of my most highly anticipated books of the year and it didn’t let me down! We love to see it. 2023 really is the year of the fantasy books about pirates for me and H. M. Long’s new swashbuckling epic fantasy is a high contender for the top five.

Dark Water Daughter is the first book in a new Epic High Fantasy series that has:

Pirates of the Caribbean / Black sails vibes
pirates and highwaymen
a witch who controls storms by singing
a disgraced naval officer
an undying pirate lord
sentient shipheads
unique worldbuilding and magic system

About the Book

Title: Dark Water Daughter by H. M. Long (The Winter Sea #1)

Edition: Other format

Publication: July 11th by Titan Books

464 pages

Genre: Epic Fantasy, High Fantasy, Nautical Fantasy

Rep: POC-coded characters

The book follows two POVs: Mary Firth, a weather witch who at the beginning of the book, is at the gallows, accused of crimes she didn’t commit, when another criminal saves her from the noose. Said criminal, Charles Grant, ends up selling her to pirates who then use Mary to guide their ships through storms. Mary soon crosses paths with our second POV, Samuel Rosser, a disgraced naval officer and pirate hunter looking to redeem himself. Both of them have connections to the infamous pirate lord Silvanus Lirr. Samuel wants to bring Lirr to justice while Lirr is hunting down Mary for her abilities. To her shock, Mary soon finds out Lirr also has a past with her mother who Mary hasn’t seen in years. At the edge of the Winter Sea, Mary and Samuel will have to choose who to trust and who they truly are.

H. M. Long’s Hall of Smoke series is one of my favourite series of all time and in Dark Water Daughter, she stepped it up a notch. Her writing has a truly addictive quality that made me unable to put the book down until late in the night.

While the book does give Pirates of the Caribbean vibes, the setting is a completely unique secondary world with a wintery sea, monsters, magical forests and sentient shipheads. I loved how detailed and layered the world of Dark Water Daughter was and how many different corners of this world we got to explore. Excellent worldbuilding is something I have come to expect from H. M. Long but this book was special. It was astonishing to me how Long managed to pour so much depth into the worldbuilding and also give us amazing character work and relationships.

Mary and Samuel were both well-rounded, fully-realized characters, each with their own troubled pasts. Mary herself has been deeply wronged by the people around her and Samuel has secrets of his own. I loved how Long gradually revealed the character’s backstories and how deeply we got to know them throughout the story. Long is not afraid to put her characters through the wringer and I felt every injustice they experienced. Mary especially stood out to me as such a strong character. Despite not having full control over her powers yet, she had this incredible bravery and strength to her, as well as a feistiness that I adored. Samuel was honestly a keeper, like a cross between Aragorn and Norrington from PotC.

While we got a hint of a future romance – which I was giggling and kicking my feet over!! – Mary and Sam are both deeply suspicious of each other due to their pasts. Despite that, they do feel a connection and Samuel is immediately captivated by Mary. The way he thought about her was just so heartachingly romantic, it had me swooning. With that being said, the hints of romance never took away from the plot or the character development in any way. It was just an aspect that I went absolutely feral over.

The book also had a lively cast of secondary characters like the pirate captain Demery, Samuel’s fellow pirate hunter Fisher, and highwaymen Charles Grant (derogatory). My toxic trait is that I actually really enjoyed Charles, even though he is a duplicitious shithead. I have a weakness for the Dandy trope and he was that to a T. There were also some strong antagonists, some of which were truly terrifying which kept the suspense at an all-time high whenever they were on the page.

Overall, the book wraps up the story nicely but leaves just enough questions to build anticipation for the sequel. Truly an excellent read and one of my favourite books of the year. I recommend the book to fans of R. J. Barker’s books and the tv show Black Sails. 5/5 stars.

Thanks to Titan books and Netgalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Rating

Plot: 5/5

Worldbuilding: 5/5

Characters: 5/5

Prose: 5/5

Overall Rating: 5/5

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