The Vengeance by Emma Newman takes place (presumably) during the early 18th-century from the Caribbean to pre-revolution France. Newman’s story begins aboard the pirate ship Vengeance with Morgane and her relation Captain Anna-Marie. The Vengeance continually pursues and sacks ships of The Four Chains Company (a fictional East India Company), the Captain seeming to have a personal vendetta against them. After confronting a suspicious Four Chains ship, Morgane is faced with a life-changing revelation which leads her to relinquish her spot in the crew of the Vengeance and venture for the first time to France.
There, Morgane encounters a series of pursuits and kidnappings, and later meets her would-be governess. I enjoyed their dynamic in that even though they come from drastically different worlds, her would-be governess is able to word things and interpret things in a certain way for Morgane to understand. There are some amusing fish out of water (pun??) moments with Morgane which really drive home how utterly ignorant she is about the rest of world after spending pretty much her whole life aboard a ship. While uncovering the mystery of her origin in France, Morgane also falls into a blossoming romance. I personally would have preferred this relationship remained in the solid friend zone as the romance seems very sudden (maybe I just prefer slow, delicious burns!)
The subtitle for The Vengeance is The Vampires of Dumas #1, indicating Newman clearly means to make Morgane’s story a series. That makes sense given all the loose ends at the end of this book. To put it simply, we have more questions at the end than we did at the beginning. We don’t get any actual fantasy/paranormal elements until about 75% into the book, with the final vampire reveal happening just before the end. If you’re looking to dive into a piracy story, this particular book may not provide your fix since The Vengeance is only featured in the first maybe 15% of the book. And if you’re looking for a more historical fantasy/paranormal story, you’ll have to hold out until the end and the next in the series.
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