A pirate princess and a cursed assassin find their fates intertwined in this gorgeous and thrilling adventure.

Ananna of the Tanarau abandons ship when her parents try to marry her off to an ally pirate clan. She wants to captain her own boat, not serve as second-in-command to a handsome and clueless man. But her escape has dire consequences when she learns that her fiancé’s clan has sent an assassin after her.

And when this assassin, Naji, finally finds her, things get even worse. Ananna inadvertently triggers a nasty curse—with a life-altering result. Now, Ananna and Naji are forced to become uneasy allies as they work to complete three impossible tasks that will cure the curse.

Unfortunately, Naji has enemies from the shadowy world known as the Mists, and Ananna must face the repercussions of betraying her engagement that set her off on her adventures. Together, the two must break the curse, escape their enemies, and come to terms with their growing romantic attraction.

I'd just like to start off this review by saying that using the bind up was a lot easier than using the books in their separate, uh, entities? I guess. Whatever. In any case, I read them separately, in their old editions:

So, now for the review. Beware, there will be spoilers for both books.

I've had The Assassin's Curse on my goodreads TBR for what seemed like eons. It sounded like the perfect fantasy: pirates and assassins and curses. Like, I was sold. It might have taken me approximately 6 years (holy shit?) to get to it, but I did! I got to it. 

And... I'm a bit disappointed, to say the least. 

I won't lie, the books were kind of entertaining. I read both of them in right after the other without stop. So while I did have issues, I can't say they weren't a bit addictive. The plots of both books makes them highly readable!

Part of what I really liked of the series was the slow burn romance. And it definitely is slow burn, and had lots of unwilling pining—meaning, one party is sure they love the other but totally hating that they do so. It's also sort of? Enemies to lovers... but not entirely? In any case: Naji was sent to kill Ananna and, y'know, if someone were trying to kill me, I'd kind of thank them but also think of them as my enemy. Back to the point: I liked all of it! In The Assassin's Curse, the feelings thing happened naturally and over the course of the entire book, so really, there was hardly any romance. In book two, it was full of those little scenes that kind of build up. I looooved those—each scene actually made me have feelings.

Like I said about the plot: high readable. Not entirely fun, per se, but I didn't put them down once after I got started. I felt like I just had to know where Naji and Ananna were going next, and what go wrong. Because, face it, everything always goes wrong. These characters really don't get a break lmao. 

Now... for what I did not like. Part of it was the writing. Since Ananna is a pirate, she also had the dialect of one, and while I give Clarke the credit for writing her accurately like that... it was also so annoying. I really was not a fan of how she spoke and it made me wince at times. I guess I'm just not fond of pirate speak? Which is unfortunate since their stories are so much fun. 


I think it also had to do with Ananna herself... I didn't find myself warming to her often. Yes, she was rash and made ridiculous decisions sometimes, but a lot of those could have been avoided. The first book alone just made her seem like a too rebellious character, doing things without thinking them through entirely. In the second, she was just so petty, and look. I am, like, a queen of petty, so I totally get it, but holy shit, she was way out of line with how she treated Naji sometimes. (Not that he was a saint either, but in this regard, it was unfair. I'll get to it.) 

There was also a whole bit where she was awful to some girl who was pretty—Ananna doesn't trust pretty people—so it created for some girl hate. It did not help matters that the other girl was technically Naji's ex-girlfriend, either, so. I wasn't here for that entire part of book 1.

In addition, there just... felt like there was no emotional tether? To a lot of the things that happened? Like, you'd expect something to be there after running away from your whole life and family, nearly getting killed, and a lot of other things, but... nothing. 

And a lot of the time, I only found Ananna to have the most voice in the entire series. But for a lot of the side characters, especially Naji, I just never... felt? They weren't fully real, or fleshed out to me, and most of their dialogue didn't hold enough voice to make them seem authentic or anything. 

At some point, I thought I would really like The Pirate's Curse. For one, we met a new, not human character who was so much fun. The manticore—whose name is so beyond complicated even you wouldn't be able to say it, much less remember it—had the attitude of an entitled kitten and was actually a man-eating beast. Love it! There was also the addition of another old character, who played more of a role here: Marjani! So yeah, I was hoping it would be better.

BUT THEN. There's all of this drama with Ananna being in love with Naji, who doesn't reciprocate. I get that. Someone you like doesn't like you back, it happens. It hurts, yes, but it happens. The way Ananna reacted to it was not only childish but way out of line? Like she blamed him for not feeling the same way, while also accepting that who could possibly love her kind of thing? It was a mess. Plus, there was a whole Thing as the end of the series which I won't get into, but also lessened my liking of the book.

So! That's all of my thoughts on this book. Would I recommend it... Ehhh, not really? The idea of the book is superb but the execution is less so. Overall, my final rating for the series is 3 stars! 

(And my review for the next bind up will be up soon!)

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