A great start to the series! And I can't wait to read more. The characters were awesome and as was the story and the idea. Reminds me, kind of, of a sea shanty/pirate thing and I love it!

"If you like Northern Lights, The Lie Tree, The Last Wild and Rooftoppers, you'll love Sea by Sarah Driver."

Yes, I did like Northern Lights, and I do tend to like books set in colder climes. This looked intriguing. The cover is stunningly gorgeous. The writing is different, and has its own lyrical quality, but I strongly advice potential buyers to read a sample.

I started out tackling the narrative with some enjoyment, although the continual use of 'ent' for ain't started to irritate, and at first all the animal/bird names given to the different characters confused me. Some appeared to be human, and some were animals that Mouse can speak to, but others can't, because Mouse has *the gift*. The Huntress is a wooden icebreaker ship, and the world has magic provided by whales, opposed by merwraiths, and that's just a snippet of the magical creatures, because I got a bit lost. It's a very complex world, with different parts of the land that we travel to, and a lot of voyaging that is not much fun at all.

In a nutshell it's a quest. I thought the style was a little like David Eddings, but the author does not pick up the usual quest trope of weak and vulnerable youngster finding something and gathering with the rich and powerful to set out to do something with it. In Sea, Mouse has to do it all on her own, with only a few magical animals to persuade to help her - plus someone who starts as a sworn enemy. Since she seems to acquire sworn enemies easily, that's not a spoiler!

I couldn't decide whether the inventive writing style helped or hindered my comprehension and involvement. It became easy to flick through a lot of violence; fights at sea and on the ship are well described, but I found the relentless cruelty of the new captain distasteful. I did read through to the end, though, and found the latter third enjoyable. I hadn't missed anything important to the plot, although this isn't a complete story. It is part of a trilogy, and not even part of the quest ends in this book. So this is not a world-saving adventure. She manages to find, lose and find something again. Maybe two things, although there is a third thing.... Is this a complete story in itself with the quest continuing? Moot point. It's not a real cliffhanger--she is not just about to fall from a great height to certain death--but I don't have any inclination to pick up the next part.

So I was disappointed. The writing is extremely descriptive and unusual, the world-building is extensive. The plot is okay. Sea by Sarah Driver is a strange book. Maybe it's genius and I just don't recognise it. Come to think of it, that's roughly how I felt about Northern Lights.

I received a free copy of this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.
This first book in The Huntress Trilogy is a wonderful, magical story of a young girl, Mouse, part of a sea-dwelling tribe, and her younger brother, Sparrow. Their grandmother is captain of the merchant ship The Huntress, which sales seas filled with whales they worship as gods, merwraiths and giant squid. But the winter has come colder than before, the terrodyls stalk the skies attacking passing ships and a terrifying threat from those who would do away with the way of life of the sea tribes is coming.
Mouse is a strong-willed girl, convinced of her destiny to captain the Huntress after her grandmother. As one by one everyone she loves and everything she values comes under threat Mouse must go on a quest to save her people and her world.
This is a world where moonlight turns into moonsprites when captured and spilled; whales bring protection when sung to; and Mouse has the gift of beast chatter, allowing her to converse with all creatures. Mouse is a tough, fierce heroine, unwilling to be cowed by those physically stronger than her. There are hints of Philip Pullman about this story. Great fun and packed with action, I can hardly wait for the follow up novel.

A seafaring, adventure fantasy, fast paced and exciting with mythical beasts and good old fashioned, rip roaring yarn! This has just about everything in it! Very descriptive, feels like you're right there in the midst of the adventure.

Although the heroine is 13, the reader age is advertised as age 9+ but the language is perhaps a little bit of a stretch for average age 9 readers and you need quite a bit of concentration in some parts otherwise you read a part and wonder how that happened and have to flip back a few pages and re-read.

Love the heroine of the tale. Love/hate the villain! Very unisex appeal (nice to have a 13yr old heroine as this will hook more girls in and not just boys). Whilst reading it, I was picturing it as a new Hollywood movie trilogy. We've had enough young adult dystopian books and movies so it's nice to have one that isn't an animation but exciting and appealing enough to pre-teens. It takes me right back to buccaneering high seas adventures combined with Sinbad type beasts. I'd definitely have in my children's library and be pleased to recommend and start a trend with it! I can see ahead that, once I've had a few children read it, word of mouth reviews will generate more requests for it and I'll have to buy a few more copies to keep up with demand. And the bonus of knowing there are another two volumes yet to come gives us all something to look forward to.

I am excited to see how the characters and the plot develops as the series continues. A new author to me and one I'll keep an eye out for.

Thank you Netgalley.

Started to read twice now, and finding it hard to get into. So not for me I am afraid. Too literary and stylised in the way it is written. I prefer a book to have a nice active pace, and allow me to form "film" pictures behind my eyes. This is for a reader who likes a more measured style, and will savour each word for its flavour..

"What am I, without my ship? I hunch over the spiny bump and grip Sparrow's hand. Shooting stars sizzle through the night sky. The sky-gods must be warring with fire and iron spears."

* * *
3 / 5

Reading Sea felt a little bit like reading The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness, with respect to the tribes and the amount of research put into the context and little details, books which I loved (and still do) as a child. Though Sea didn't quite have the scope and originality of those books, it was still a solid, fun read. I was also getting a bit of a How To Train Your Dragon vibe (the books, not the films) which is a very favourable comparison in my book!

"We rove!" "We rove to trade, to meet, for the restlessness in our bones; we rove at one with the sea!"

In the world of The Huntress there are land, sea, and sky tribes. Mouse, our young protagonist belongs to a sea tribe that lives aboard the trading ship The Huntress, under the captaincy of her grandmother, Captain Wren. Mouse also has a younger brother, Sparrow, whom she loves deeply but also finds a touch irritating. Life aboard The Huntress is going as normal until Wren lets aboard an old tribesmember, Stag, who has less than savoury motives towards the ship and the crew.

I particularly liked that Mouse's closest relative was her grandmother, a badass older woman with one eye who captained her ship with an iron resolve. Not only was she super cool, it was lovely to see a slightly different kind of familial relationship captured on paper. Mouse herself is tough, tenacious, and bit stupid, which can be forgiven in a thirteen year old girl!

"Stray whale-song from last night is snagged in the sails, noisy and glowing. Thaw-Wielder swoops at it, chortling when it gets caught in her feathers"

There's lots of nicely utilised fantasy book staples - the missing father, the animal companion, Mouse being able to talk to animals with "beast-chatter". All of these, whilst not particularly original, are fun little additions. There's also my favourite character Crow, who has a couple of little magical secrets up his sleeves, who comes in about two thirds the way through. I'm also curious as to whether all the characters are named after animals, as everyone bar some guy called Hammer is, and whether this leads to lots of people having the same name! Unfortunately, this is never addressed.

"There are ancient songs in the air, waiting to be hooked, like fish," Da tells him. "Shall we sing?"

The universe was intriguing. As I mentioned previously, a solid half of the book takes place on a boat. It felt like Driver had clearly done her research here (at least to me, the non-nautical expert), which helped massively in immersing me in Sparrow's world. The other key themes of this book are whales - there's lots of gorgeous whale-themed illustrations - and music. It's not very well described, but it seems like songs can drift through the air in physical forms, and you can catch them. The idea is quite cool and magical but rather sparse on the details. The same is true of the magic system - Mouse can do some kind of dream-dance and there's kinds of blood magic. Sparrow's magical abilities also aren't particularly well articulated - I'm not quite sure what he can do and why other people would want this ability.

Unfortunately, it felt like Driver was attempting to stretch one book's worth of plot into a trilogy, which ultimately left me feeling a touch dissatisfied. The main arc of the plot revolves around saving her brother, Sparrow, and the collection of three orbs. I presume that in each book Mouse will find an orb and this will be written into a trilogy (although I could be wrong). Personally, I prefer my children's books to be self-contained, multiple standalones set within a single universe, but this is simply a preference. The result of this is a lot of loose ends trailing around - what happens to the crew of The Huntress, for example?

Overall, The Huntress is a good book for children (the target audience!). It's got some pretty cool elements to the universe, the characters are likeable, and the plot is decent if nothing particularly original.

Reading this felt like a delightful step back in time to when I was twelve and would read anything whatsoever that had a main character who was a girl and who did exciting brave things, and saved people, and faced up to challenges. To when I was absorbed in any story which had mythical creatures and magic and glimpses of a different mythology and world view. Slightly more cynical 31 year old me could find things to nitpick about because she’s had more practice. But this is a book aimed at 12 year old me and she would have loved it.

Thirteen year old Mouse and her younger brother, Sparrow, live aboard the Huntress with their grandmother, who is the captain. They worship whales as gods, try and evade terrodyls, and dive for pearls. But their life aboard ship is about to be disturbed when someone from their grandmother’s past returns, with bad news about Mouse and Sparrow’s father, and who Mouse doesn’t trust. It turns out that she doesn’t trust him for good reason and the adventure story kicks into high gear.

31 year old me found elements of the rest of the book slightly predictable. But that’s because I have read a lot of fantasy-adventure novels for children and teenagers (and, frankly, for older readers) and there are a relatively limited number of ways you can pull off some of the reveals without making your reader roll their eyes and complain something is far-fetched. But, mostly, I was hooked and intrigued to find out how Mouse was going to make it out of the situations she ended up in, what was going to happen to her Sea Hawk, and what the future of her world is.

A fresh and engaging mid grade / lower YA novel, Sea boasts some beautiful world builing, a cunning set up and brilliantly drawn characters. Destined to be Captain of the Huntress since before her birth Mouse has a far more complicated adventure ahead of her than anyone anticaped. This is undoubtably a great start to a thrilling new series.

I found this book to be "overwritten" in the couple of chapters I read and found I had no inclination to carry on reading. My colleague agreed with me. I think it was a case of my personal taste and not enjoying the style

However we have been trying to handsell it as other people have given it good reviews and I've said it has an exciting, action-packed first chapter

Do you enjoy dangerous adventures on perilous, icy seas?
Do you like tales of tribes, beasts, tradition and magic?
Do you like reading about epic quests seeped in folklore and myth?

If you do, then you should definitely read this book!

Reading this was like a welcome flashback to my days of reading Philip Pullman. It definitely has the same feel to it.
Maybe it's all the ice, subtle magic and the fact that our main character, Mouse, sort of has her own 'daemon' in the form of her brave sea hawk Thaw-Wielder?

Maybe it's the fact that Mouse is a totally independent, fierce, loyal and brave character?
(How are 13 years olds always this awesome in books?! I'm pretty sure I was pathetic at that age!)

Whatever it is, this book is wonderful.

I felt like I was really there and experiencing everything alongside Mouse.

I got to sail on The Huntress, dive with merwraiths, cross the seas in the belly of a whale and fight fearsome terrodyls!

As the first book in a trilogy I'm so excited to know that soon I'll be able to travel across the land again with Mouse and her friends.
I can't wait for more adventures!

Sea is a captivating and thrilling magical adventure of underwater mystical creatures and fantasy with a twist of magic

Mouse and her brother Sparrow live on The Huntress, a ship which sails the Trianukka waters with their Nan as the captain.

Mouse is taken on an captivating and sometimes dangerous adventure within the seas of Trainukka where they are to find out the mysteries of the tribes.

Sea is aimed at the younger reader, however I did find the style of writing to be a little complex and confusing at times. It took a while for me to get used to the language.
 So I wonder if this may cause a problem for the younger reader to grasp the style.
Once the book gets going it's exciting and your drawn into the magical world of the sea. But it does take a little while to start.

Set to be The Huntress’s Captain one day, Mouse must look after her brother, Sparrow until their Dad returns. But all is not as it should be in Trianukka. The terrodylls should be nesting now, not attacking their ship, the ice is forming too fast and too early, a stranger has boarded the trading ship Mouse calls home instead of her Da, and he's wearing her Da’s seal-skin cloak. And, what is wrong with Sparrow?

From the action-packed beginning, Sea never lets up it pace in this heart-thumping adventure, as we set out on an epic quest with the tenacious Mouse and her Tribe across a fantasy world to rival Narnia and Middle-Earth. Sarah Driver's debut swallowed me whole and didn't spit me out until I'd turned the last page.

The first in The Huntress Saga, can't wait for more!

Great for fans of The Dreamsnatcher, The Hobbit, Northern Lights, Narnia and The Last Wild.

ebook proof courtesy of Egmont Publishing via Netgalley.