*This review contains spoilers for Fable and mild spoilers for Namesake.

The Pirate Fairy made me fall in love with a new branch of fantasy: a life crashing along treacherous waves. 

Sure, it was a Tinkerbell movie, but not all introductions can be formal.

I spent a long time of my life afterward with no idea of where to turn to quench my thirst for books or movies about sea-faring pirates. I’m sure there were many options in general, but I was a kid that definitely should not be exposed to the consideration of some. So there I was, for about seven years: curled up in various corners reading various books that weren’t about pirates.

Late last year, a tall glass of water appeared—flavored water, mind you; normal water bores me. 

I was introduced to the world of Adrienne Young’s Fable. This introduction was much less childish than my previous exposure to The Pirate Fairy. 

Fable was the start of a pirate girl’s long adventure from a previously unknown world to one that she once knew quite well. I finished Fable shortly before the end of last semester and yearned to get my hands on my next tall glass of water. Luckily for me, Fable’s sequel, Namesake, had come out a couple of months prior.

This may be the one time I was ever excited to be late to a book.

Namesake picked up right where Fable left off. There was no skip in time after the cliffhanger I had been anxiously grabbing ahold of. Fable—the female pirate main character from the previous book—was trapped on rival merchant Zola’s ship after being kidnapped. Fable expected the kidnapping to have been because of Zola’s feud with her (secret) lover and helmsman, West.

However, soon enough, his intentions became clearer. He wanted Fable to lead a dredging mission for gemstones. Zola wanted to bring the gemstones to the trade council in Bastien—which had a different trade council and deciding council than Ceros where Zola already was able to trade—as a way to earn a license there. Fable fumbled her way through plot twists, surprises, and many fights throughout the book. And yes, as the name suggests, the namesake for Fable’s name is revealed.

I’m not lying when I say I couldn’t put this book down. I started reading it one night with a plan of reading a possible two chapters, but by the next time I closed the book, I was halfway through it. I stayed up to an unreasonable hour of the night the next day to finish it.

My first praise for the book is for the cover. The cover design matched up with the cover of the first book to make Fable’s full face. My favorite thing about a series of books is when the covers are cohesive or line up on the spines or front cover.

My next praise would be for the plot. I can say with full honesty that I haven’t read anything like it. Some parts were predictable, but that’s frequent with any book I read. A good plot always needs a strong world to back it, and that’s exactly what Namesake had. The world-building that Adrienne Young carried out was unimaginable. Is falling in love with a fictional realm possible? According to my feelings for Namesake, yes.

By the first letter on the first page, Namesake dragged me right back to the world of pirates that had been absent from my life for a month and reminded me of how much a little Kiera would have appreciated my reading now.