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| Steel by Carrie Vaughn |
"It was a slender length of rusted steel, tapered to a point at one end and jagged at the other, as if it had broken. A thousand people would step over it and think it trash, but not her.
This was the tip of a rapier.
Sixteen-year-old Jill has fought in dozens of fencing tournaments, but she has never held a sharpened blade. When she finds a corroded sword piece on a Caribbean beach, she is instantly intrigued and pockets it as her own personal treasure.
The broken tip holds secrets, though, and it transports Jill through time to the deck of a pirate ship. Stranded in the past and surrounded by strangers, she is forced to sign on as crew. But a pirate's life is bloody and brief, and as Jill learns about the dark magic that brought her there, she forms a desperate scheme to get home—one that risks everything in a duel to the death with a villainous pirate captain.
Time travel, swordplay, and romance combine in an original high-seas adventure from New York Times bestseller Carrie Vaughn."
Rating:
I’m a frustrated fencer. I wanted to try out in fencing when I was in college. I even had a friend train me for about 2 sessions. Unfortunately, time was a hindrance and I couldn’t get myself to train again, so that’s about all my fencing experience! Ha! Ha! I didn’t even get to hold a sword! Bummer!
Anyway, I felt like I was in a class taking up Piracy 101 because while reading through this, I’ve learned a lot about the lives of pirates, their life at sea, the ships, and whatnots. I enjoyed seeing myself suddenly going, “Ohhhh! So that’s what it’s for…” The facts this book has provided was very informative so I really liked it.
One of the things I also liked about this book was the show of women empowerment; there are pirate queens that I wasn’t actually aware of. Girl power as we say. I always like that factor when it comes to books.
I also enjoyed the action scenes; Jill battling out on the fencing competitions and getting tangled up with the pirate life where she used her fencing skills to fight for her life, and the history behind the feud between Marjory Cooper, the captain of the Diana, and Edmund Blane, the captain of the Heart’s Revenge.
However, I will admit that this book is a bit slow and more informative than groundbreaking. I also feel that the love interest between Jill and Henry was a bit shallow and rushed. I would’ve loved to see more romance between them.
Still, I appreciated this and it was a good break from all the books that I’ve been reading for the past few months. It was like a breath of fresh air.
