i had a fun time reading this! was it life changing? no. but i enjoyed the storyline, characters, and plot twists. the pacing felt slow at times but that might have just been me. thank you for the arc netgalley!!

This book had me very interested in what was to come next. I couldn't have guessed where it was headed and was pretty happy with it. I feel like the whole book was leading to the climax and it was over quite quickly and some things were a little bit too conveniently laid out for the main character, but overall it was enjoyable. I also liked the romantic development in this book, and was rooting for them to get together before it happened so that was lovely

While I loved the first half of this swashbuckling adventure, I really didn't like the second half and found it to have a very different vibe. The introduction of vampires so late in the story just felt a bit superfluous and undeveloped compared to the first half which felt so atmospheric and well researched. And while I liked the characters, especially Morgan, I found the deeper connections between characters somewhat lacking.

Wonderful start, but the vampire elements let it down for me.

I enjoyed this book and following morgane’s journey from sea to land and back again. I felt the relationship between morgane and Lisette was very sweet and familiar. I have never thought there’d be a book with pirates, vampires, and werewolves in it all at once. It felt a little distracting to have all three but in a way that made sense and flowed well with the plot.

*I received a free ARC from Netgalley*

Vampires.
Pirates.
Lesbians.
France.
Sounds like the perfect combination. And it is.
But not in this book.

Plot Summary:

Morgane is a pirate on The Vengeance working under her mother, Captain Anna-Marie, a.k.a. The Scourge of the Sea. When Anna-Marie dies after a bloody sea battle, Morgane is left with her confession: That Anna-Marie is actually her aunt and her real mother is landlocked in far-off France, possibly in danger. Concerned for her mother and yearning for a new life, Morgane leaves behind the sea and her crew in favor of finding her mother and exacting revenge against the person who killed Anne-Marie.
But the shadows of France are darker than Morgane could have ever known and a dangerous creature stalks the nobility. Will Morgane discover the truth? Or will she meet the same fate as Anne-Marie?

Plot Review:

I’m honestly so disappointed.
This book had the makings of something great, with the beginning introducing us to the life Morgane has led thus far. I loved the introduction and battle at sea. It was so climatic and instantly drew me in.
But.
This plot petered off so fast.
So much was happening, yet it was all so repetitive. As soon as we left The Vengeance, Morgane is kidnapped, like, three times, by DIFFERENT people. Whom all, presumingly, either want her dead or want to get her “to safety.”
And everyone is lying to her. Constantly.
Yet, even as we are flying through kidnapping after kidnapping, I was bored out of my mind.
A fast plot does not mean it will be interesting. In fact, there was nothing truly gripping about this book.
Not even the promise of vampires, which appear at least 80% of the way into the book, could keep me interested.
For a book shelved as paranormal and a part of a series LITERALLY called “The Vampires of Dumas,” this book suspiciously lacked vampires.
Disappointing, to say the least.

Characters:

Starting with our main character, I had a mild like of her. She was witty, sharp, and didn’t trust people so easily. I loved that about her, but there was a certain point in the book where I got sick of her narrative and wanting to “save her mother” who people were constantly warning her about.
For someone who was so mistrustful of her father, she sure trusted her mother, someone she had never met, rather quickly. It just wasn’t consistent with her character and what we had learned about her so far.
And Lisette was so PAINFULLY vanilla.
Her character is extremely rigid and robotic. There is no flavor to her actions or her life.
And don’t even get me started on Morgane and Lisette’s “romance.” Where was the spice? The lesbian longing? The angst that keeps me hooked on the story?
I would have forgiven the boring plot if the romance had been more intense, but Lisette and Morgane have zero chemistry. If I can’t feel it, how am I supposed to believe that they do?
The villain of this story was also painfully obvious and stereotypical. We all saw it coming. The fact that our characters didn’t is concerning.

Overall Thoughts:

I’m going to need a real palate cleanser after this.

I highly enjoyed this book where Morgane learns that the woman she thought was her mother, isn't really her mother. I really liked Margane as a character. She is charismatic and sassy. If you have the tendency to be a nit impatient, the trip to France (where her family lives) takes a while, but understandably as they are on a ship. I did wish it would pick up a bit in this area. Otherwise, this has the starting of a great series!

This book is definitely YA fantasy, and the promise of the book was great - pirates meet vampires, what’s not to love?
The supernatural elements are alluded to from the time Morgane arrives in France but don’t actually appear until very close to the end of the book. Which means the book subtitle is somewhat misleading.
However, what the book is about is about a young woman finding out who she is and her place in the world.
Things I liked:
The pirate elements and Morganes relationship with Jacques;
The tentative but sweet relationship Morgane has with Lisette

It could have been a GREAT book, but as it was it was just a ok book, however I did find it quite predictable but interesting enough to keep reading.

3.5/5 🌟

This book seemed very interesting at first, vampires and pirates? How does that work? Let’s find out.

Overall I enjoyed the premise of this story, even the second half of the book where FMC goes in search of her family. I liked the idea of exploring LGBTQIA+ relationships in this era. Exploring neurodiversity and challenges what it means to be intelligent. Exploring the dynamics of Vampires and Warewolves. But the pacing of the book prevented much exploration of any of these themes, and I felt myself confused by the factions at play, and left unsure if I’d missed something or if it wasn’t there to begin with. I also felt disappointed that Morgane and Lissette went from being kinda sorta friends to lovers in such a short timeframe. I also felt disappointed that the Vampire element too so long to show up, and the battle was over so quickly.

I did like these characters though, and found myself invested in unraveling the mystery of Morgane’s lineage. I found myself invested in the journey. And I very much liked the action in this book.

I would have liked to see the story fleshed out some more though. 3.5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley for allowing me to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

To be quite frank, I struggled to finish this book. Wanted to give up more often than I wanted to keep going.

The pacing is all over the place — extremely slow in the first 40%, then practically rushing through the ending. I didn’t find the character of Morgane likeable, and the multiple times throughout the book when she contradicted something she’d JUST stated irritated me greatly.

This, paired with the stiff dialogue and strange characterisation lowered my enjoyment of the book significantly, which is disappointing as the premise (vampires and pirates, hello?) promised SO much.

I can only hope that the remainder of the series delivers upon these expectations, for readers that are it’s target audience — I most certainly am not.

Atmospheric and well-written, I enjoyed this one.

(I received a free digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review)

Oh my goodness - this was such a fun read! This story gives you vampires and werewolves, the Caribbean, and 18th-century France - what's not to love?! Morgane is setting out to find out who she is, and all she learns along the way. It's truly a swashbuckling tale and not one to be missed!

I really, really wanted to like this book.

Even in hindsight, having finished it, I will admit that though somewhat basic, I actually liked the plot and the premise. The problem arose, for me, in the writing. The characters come off as disappointingly flat, every emotion expressed overwhelmingly basic and every action telegraphed pages in advance. I will admit that I didn't expect for the main couple to be a sapphic one, and that was a very pleasant surprise, but they had so little chemistry it was nearly painful. This book just did not have the writing you'd expect from something within this genre- it read like a middle grade book, complete with the tiresome overuse of exclamation marks. My main takeaway is, unfortunately, just disappointment.

I loved this one. My only real complaint is that the ending could have been less rushed. I would have enjoyed it ending where the main climax happened about her finding her mother and there being a second book and make it a duology. Like there could have been such a more wild sequel involving the supernatural parts of the book that were barely there in this book. Either that or if this book had been longer and added a lot more depth to the time where this took place. A more fleshed out love interest and seeing them maybe change stuff for the better before the end. But I am happy where Emma Newman took us and it really makes me want to read more pirate books.

The Vengeance is a really enjoyable romp, taking us the Caribbean and to 18th century France and throwing vampires and werewolves into the mix. The story follows Morgane, a young woman who's grown up at sea as a pirate, believing herself to be the daughter of Anne Marie, fearsome captain of the Vengeance. Anne Marie has a particular hatred for the French "Four Chains Trading Company", whose vessels she hunts down without mercy - and one day that leads Morgane to surprising knowledge, and danger.

Basically a "fish out of water" story as Morgane is forced to travel to France to discover who she really is, The Vengeance is at its very best showing the young pirate absorbing the ways of the land, discovering love, and trying to learn about her own origins. Her determination and courage are never in doubt, though her wisdom and self-restraint may be, as she stirs up enemies she never dreamed of. (You know, don't you, that when Anne Marie warns Morgane never to try and find her family, that the warning will be ignored, and that there will be Consequences?)

By telling a story from an outsider's viewpoint, Newman is able to show up many injustices and wrongs in her imagined France and the complacency and resignation of those involved. It's not only wrongs and tyrannies we will be familiar with from history, but a whole layer of the supernatural too. This sets up formidable obstacles for Morgane, but they don't overshadow the story, rather at its centre is a complex and tender portrayal of someone who is still a very young protagonist and who has to find her way as an adult in the world. That theme is given room to breathe, with due space too to a comedic subplot where Morgane, as a notorious pirate, thinks herself much more adult, much more experienced and much more capable than she really is. Witnessing this sea dog offered the services of a governess when her father eventually catches up with her is hilarious, but Newman doesn't only play it for laughs, the relationship with Lisette will be important to Morgane in future.

(Indeed it will I think be a strained relationship in some ways - Morgane, as a pirate born and bred, is clearly relaxed with the idea of a life driven by theft and murder. While this is something Newman perhaps chooses not to emphasise, Lisette is alive to it and will not, I think, tolerate it for long. I expect sparks to fly...)

Introducing and setting up many threads that will I'm sure be important in future stories, The Vengeance is a fun read with the sense of moral and psychological complexity I always expect from this author and I expect it to be a highlight of 2025's reading for many.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read and review an advanced copy of this novel. I highly enjoyed it and will be recommending it to others.

The Vengeance is a book with teeth, dripping with dare and filled with twists that keep you perpetually on your toes. It sets sail in the high seas, where Morgane discovers that her mother, captain of the ship, is in fact not her mother at all. Thus begins Morgane's turbulent journey or running around France in search for answers-- who really is her mother, and more importantly, can Morgane trust her?

I went into this bohttps://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6908269708ok with so much excitement because it's my first time reading a pirate fantasy, and a supernatural one at that. I loved how intricate the world building was, detailing the period down to the clothing, food, and customs. Morgane is a charming protagonist, and I enjoyed discovering France right along with her.

The Vengeance has all the potential to become one of my favorite books, but unfortunately, I think it's let down by the pacing. Since this is the first book in a series, it feels as though it focuses too much on contextualizing backstories and characters, so I never got as immersed in the story as I would have hoped.

Overall, the book is a gem for historical fiction lovers, but I was left wanting more than I got.

This is going to be a rant review, I see it coming. So before I begin, I want to clear up two things:
1. I DNF this book at 50% aprox. then skipped to the end.
2. I had read some reviews before starting, so I knew the vampire aspect of the story would come near the end. And I thought, I don´t mind that as long the story is good.

Well... The story is not good.

There are pacing issues. It begins promising with Morgane´s mother dying (and all the chaos that provokes), but then it drags, and keeps dragging, and when I noticed, we were barely arriving in France when supposedly (according to the summary) we were going to see this great plot of vengeance for which the protagonist gets to Europe in order to find her true family and get her revenge for her aunt´s murder.
And it´s okay, I can put up with a slow narration. But my biggest problem on this one book was the protagonist, Morgane.
Morgane is supposed to be a 20 year old woman who was raised in a pirate ship... Yet, during the entire novel she behaves as an ignorant 12 year old with dreamy ideas, too naive for a pirate (I´ll put an example to this: Someone gets paid to kill her aunt and take her to France. What does Morgan do? Easy, get angry with her dead aunt for lying to her and then accept to go alone to France with the same people who murderer her aunt. She excuses before the crew she does it for vengeance, but we can see she is actually thinking in finding her true family and live happy).
I think someone described Morgane as a feral child, and I believe that is the most accurate description for her. She´s a kid with knives, and is so bad characterized that it´s as if you put a character on a ship and never let her speak with anyone nor learn anything on her own during those 20 years before the novel starts. During the entire book, the story drags because she makes all the stupid questions. And sorry, but I can´t buy the "it´s because she never lived a normal life at shore". Because even if you´re a person used to live on a ship, you still can talk to other people and visit some countries.
So yes, bad characterization.
This book is supposed to be sapphic... But we don´t get to know the love interest until past the 45% mark, a point where I was already so tired of Morgane´s behaviour that I truly couldn´t care less about who she romanced. No mention of vampires on the point I DNF either. So, in summary, don´t waste your time on this one. It´s not worth it.
(Unless you like unrealistic childish woman pirates and conveniently driven plots. Then go for it).

Thank you, Netgalley, for providing me with a free eARC.

I loved the pirate plot because it was well thought out, researched, and fun to read. I would have liked the paranormal parts of the book to have been hinted at with some elements because it felt like it was hitting me in the face when the werewolves and vampires were introduced. The romance that bloomed between the two girls was so sweet and wholesome that I almost forgot what they were supposed to be doing. I give this book 3.5 stars out of 5 stars.

Thanks for the ARC!
This one was much more Pirate than Vampire, so it wasn't exactly what I expected going in but I did enjoy it.
Morgane leaves her pirate life in search of her mother in France, only to be hunted and passed around as soon as she makes port.
Though she's constantly lied to by everyone in her life, she finds a trustworthy friend who helps her stay out of harms way and ironically helps her into harms way by finding her mother.
Sweet little YA romance happening, but very much in the background.
3.5*

Also, Goodreads has this as the first in a series... the story seemed pretty finished to me, so not sure how that would work.

I really enjoyed this book!! The plot was so interesting and full of adventure that I was never bored. The author did a great job with character development because I was full invested in there stories. I will be recommending this book to all of my friends and family.