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A review by chloejadereads
The Navigator's Touch by Julia Ember
2.0
Occasionally, there’s a book or series that seems like it has everything you could want, but sadly, you just never really jive with it. That’s what happened with me reading The Seafarer’s Kiss. It was marketed as an f/f retelling of The Little Mermaid with Norse Mythology elements. This had so many things I was supposed to enjoy. And I liked it well enough, but I never really got invested in this story.
Let’s start with the things I did enjoy. The characters are the strength of this novel. Our protagonist, Ragna, is a stone-cold badass driven by one thing: revenge. One tragic night, raiders murder her family and kidnap her for her special abilities. In the first novel, Ragna’s initial escape from her captures left her starving and lost on an ice shelf. Her saving grace came in the form of a mermaid named Ersel. Now, all she wants is to return to reclaim her home. This won’t be easy though. She and her crew have no reason to trust each other. And her ship can barely handle the punishing storms of the Northern Sea.
It was a nice change to follow a female protagonist so driven by vengeance that she’s willing to step on people to get it. She narrators this story in first-person and it becomes apparent that she be an unreliable narrator and a cruel captain. She believes that she must lead by fear. And she’s frankly terrible to Ersel throughout that book.
Other positives include the side characters. We have Aslaug who is a sweetheart and canonically non-binary. The trickster god Loki appears in this novel as well. In this series, Loki is portrayed accurately as genderfluid with singular "they" pronouns. Also, this book has a glossary! We get a couple of pages defining Norse terms and names. So helpful.
Now onto the negatives. As a romance, this novel was quite lacking. The emotional depth just isn’t there. I’m all for unlikeable characters, but I generally don’t enjoy them in romantic relationships. Ragna’s not in a position to be a good partner for Ersel. She treats people as a means to an end. She apologizes but keeps mistreating her. And Ersel is more mature and in a vulnerable state, having left her home and being out of her element (literally) for the first time. Ragna’s continued mistreatment of her made it difficult for me to get behind their relationship. When I think back to the first book, it becomes clear that Ersel feels more for Ragna than vice versa. That imbalance doesn’t help things.
The other major negative for me had to be pacing. We spend a lot of time building up for very little pay-off in the end. The novel isn’t long by any means (only 238 pages), but the pacing made it feel much longer than it was. This book follows Ragna during the time Ersel was away dealing with her plot in the first book. And it continues from when they join forces at the end. We also flashback to Ragna’s childhood and kidnapping. As a result, the timeline of the feels quite disjointed.
This book can be read as a standalone if you don’t mind spoiling the ending of The Seafarer’s Kiss.
I truly wanted to enjoy this series but was left disappointed. If there’s another novel after this, I think I will pass on it.
Let’s start with the things I did enjoy. The characters are the strength of this novel. Our protagonist, Ragna, is a stone-cold badass driven by one thing: revenge. One tragic night, raiders murder her family and kidnap her for her special abilities. In the first novel, Ragna’s initial escape from her captures left her starving and lost on an ice shelf. Her saving grace came in the form of a mermaid named Ersel. Now, all she wants is to return to reclaim her home. This won’t be easy though. She and her crew have no reason to trust each other. And her ship can barely handle the punishing storms of the Northern Sea.
It was a nice change to follow a female protagonist so driven by vengeance that she’s willing to step on people to get it. She narrators this story in first-person and it becomes apparent that she be an unreliable narrator and a cruel captain. She believes that she must lead by fear. And she’s frankly terrible to Ersel throughout that book.
Other positives include the side characters. We have Aslaug who is a sweetheart and canonically non-binary. The trickster god Loki appears in this novel as well. In this series, Loki is portrayed accurately as genderfluid with singular "they" pronouns. Also, this book has a glossary! We get a couple of pages defining Norse terms and names. So helpful.
Now onto the negatives. As a romance, this novel was quite lacking. The emotional depth just isn’t there. I’m all for unlikeable characters, but I generally don’t enjoy them in romantic relationships. Ragna’s not in a position to be a good partner for Ersel. She treats people as a means to an end. She apologizes but keeps mistreating her. And Ersel is more mature and in a vulnerable state, having left her home and being out of her element (literally) for the first time. Ragna’s continued mistreatment of her made it difficult for me to get behind their relationship. When I think back to the first book, it becomes clear that Ersel feels more for Ragna than vice versa. That imbalance doesn’t help things.
The other major negative for me had to be pacing. We spend a lot of time building up for very little pay-off in the end. The novel isn’t long by any means (only 238 pages), but the pacing made it feel much longer than it was. This book follows Ragna during the time Ersel was away dealing with her plot in the first book. And it continues from when they join forces at the end. We also flashback to Ragna’s childhood and kidnapping. As a result, the timeline of the feels quite disjointed.
This book can be read as a standalone if you don’t mind spoiling the ending of The Seafarer’s Kiss.
I truly wanted to enjoy this series but was left disappointed. If there’s another novel after this, I think I will pass on it.