This is an amazing book. I adored Fable. She is brave and yet vulnerable. She is strong and fierce and but weak. She has survived things that most couldn’t imagine and kept her focus of what she was surviving for through it all. This is a brutal story that I feel in love with. When Fable talks about her parents it feels so really the emotion she has for them. The crew of the Marigold are fantastic. I enjoyed each one. They reminded me of the Characters in Six of Crows. I highly recommend this.

Fable is an absolute gem. Don't skip out on this one. I love Adrienne Young's stories.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the E-arc copy of this novel.
Highly Recommend

Fable is a dredger; she sinks to the bottom of the ocean to uncover gems she must barter in order to live. Her father dumped her on a god-for-saken island then turned his back on her years back after her mother died, drowned. Fable is left orphaned, alone, searching for her place and family. Dark, grim, and yet compellingly lovely and engaging. I must read the sequel... this one's a cliff hanger!

As Adrienne Young is the author, it should come as no surprise that this was as amazing as it was. This book was well written, well thought out with a plot that was P E R F E C T! The characters...every single character was likable. Fable is a stubborn female dredger that was left to survive on her own when she was younger. Times have changed and now she is taking control of her own destiny. This book follows growth of Fable and takes you on a journey involving crews on ships, friendships, romance and family drama.

In other words, this book has it all. LOVE this and can't wait to put in the hands of my patrons!

Adrienne Young outdid herself again! I adore her previous books and couldn’t wait to read this!

All I can say is that I’m ready for the next installment. I know these things take time, but I need it, now.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this ARC.

A story that pulls you in from page one, Fable is a story of a girl at sea. Readers must know this is book 1 of a duology, and I couldn't be happier! Adrienne Young is a gifted author that has yet to write a book that doesn't pull in the reader and left with wanting more!

Fable is a girl on an island trying to find passage on the ship Marigold. Filled with action, sea diving, lost treasure, lost love and a possible redemption, Fable has lived on the rules her Father taught her long before he abandoned her. Determined to find him again, she sails on a ship with a crew who she has to prove her worth to. Filled with twists and turns, this book is a breath of fresh air. Incredible world building, and great characters, while the book ends with a cliffhanger, the reader will not have a hard time overlooking it due to the vast amount of action and story telling. So thankful to read a great adventure! I'm excited for the next installment!

Reading Sky in the Deep, I fell in love with Adrienne’s storytelling, and Fable did not disappoint. The way she paints the setting with her words is indescribable. Chapter by chapter, I feel as though I am there — I can smell the smells, picture the surroundings and hear the sounds she has described on the pages. I don’t think I’ve felt IN a story as much as I do in hers. When her characters feel something, it’s as if they’re reaching out of the pages making me feel it too. These stories are not over complicated, but still have so much depth to them. Fable is strong, but flawed, reminding me much of Eelyn, but with pirates instead of Vikings. And this cover is 😍. I really don’t have a bad thing to say, other than I CANT WAIT FOR NAMESAKE! 😩♥️

Fans of Sky in the Deep will not be disappointed with Young's latest. Fable is a fierce heroine, determined to find her own way in a dangerous world of sea traders. It was hard to put down and I can't wait for the sequel!

Loved this book!!! The characters, the world, and the action are fantastic!!! I can't wait for the next one because the ending left me breathless! Can it come out already so I can read it again?

Once again I find myself frustrated. Young always comes up with great ideas in her books but never seems to deliver them for me. Some of this is personal opinion – I find her style hasty and a little toothless, and I prefer more richly evoked worlds and deeper characters. But some of it is that she just doesn’t take the time to lay ground work and foreshadow important events – eg her romances always come out of nowhere with no build up and rarely make sense. However, I liked this better than Sky in the Deep for example. This is a good story, the execution just didn’t quite sell it for me.

3.75/4 stars--fluctuates on my mood.

I'm straight up saying this: my rating is 100% because of my own personal feelings toward the book. As a whole, I felt like this story was very well-constructed. Adrienne Young has a unique way with words that causes the atmosphere an world around her characters to come to life in a way I very, VERY rarely ever see in YA. It's why Sky in the Deep is one of my favorite YA books of all time, and why I love her world of the Aska tribe so much.

My main complaint with this story was, unlike SitD, I didn't connect to the characters as much. I found them a lot more generic and copy-paste than I expected. Fable, while compelling, became redundant throughout the story, and all of her big twists didn't feel unexpected in the slightest. I also didn't feel like she or really any of the crew of the <i>Marigold</i> had major character development. <spoiler>We are told repeatedly throughout the story the "big rule" of the world is to never trust others and never let them know what is important to you, yet Fable and her new friends immediately throw caution to the wind and trust one another way too quickly in my opinion. It was to neat and tidy for it to be truly believable, and I feel like the crew should have had a lot more reservation than they did about Fable. As it was, as soon as she offers to basically free them from slavery, they sell their souls to her which, honestly, I probably would too if someone came up and said they could solve all my problems, but it also felt super out of place in this world where every single character is cutthroat and cruel.</spoiler>

I also found the romance ridiculous. Again, it plays into how I find so much of the character development lacking and unbelievable in how quickly people trusted one another in this despite it being an "every man for himself" world. I wasn't a fan of the pairing revealed <spoiler>West and Fable</spoiler> nor was I a fan of how quickly they coupled up in general.

Do I recommend this? Definitely. Despite my complaints, I devoured this book. The only reason it took me as long as it did to finish it (and I say that and it was like 3 days) was because I was so exhausted I couldn't keep my eyes open. I did not want to put this story down. It's fast-paced and exudes <i>Pirates of the Caribbean</i> ambiance. If I listened to music while reading, those films would be the desired soundtrack. This has all the feel of wide, open oceans with magical kelp and coral worlds beneath the waves, salty sea-decks on ships with the rigging slapping the mast and canvas sails snapping in the wind. You can taste the saltwater breeze and fishy smells. It's beautifully written, and I'm really excited for the second book. I just wish the characters had more depth and complexity than what we were given.

This was a vibrant seafaring adventure.

Usually, I'm not the biggest fan of seafaring, but it wasn't a problem for me here. Fable is a stranded diver with past full of secrets, and when she hitches a ride on a ship crewed by what seems to be a found family of teenagers, the tangled web only tightens. I read this mostly in one sitting, and didn't want to stop until I'd finished it.

What I like most about this book is the strength of the family ties that bind everyone. Fable and her father's strange, fraught relationship was very powerful. Also Willa and West's relationship, and how the whole crew became each other's family. The world and the cutthroat rules governing everyone's life in it were compelling and, frankly, knowing that this was the first in a duology, I'm SHOCKED that they made out as well as they did.

Sure, it ended on a cliffhanger, but it's one that I can easily forgive. Can't wait for the second book.

I absolutely loved this book! It has everything I like in a book such as a super active plot and interesting characters. I love this author because of her world-building and this book did not disappoint me. I will be purchasing this book for my library's YA collection.