ARC Review: "The Last Leviathan" by Anacostia Miller (The Guardians of Farlight Isles, #1) ★★★★
ARC Review The Last Leviathan by Anacostia Miller
An epic adventure with pirates, princesses and dragons – what a trio, I was sold the moment I read the blurb! Honestly wow, what a story this was. A great combination of spice and sincerity, with forbidden romance and found family as key tropes.My family was responsible for all the pain inflicted on him. How deep did those wounds go? Is he really the last leviathan? How lonely.
[Contains some spoilers]
PLOT SUMMARY
22-year-old Maeve Cross, princess of Farlight Isles, hates her life: forced to do her father’s bidding and marry a horrible abusive lord and pirate hunter, Nathaniel Pike, in exchange for an army. Resolved to choose her own destiny and belong to nobody, Maeve flees her just-wedded husband and stows away on the pirate ship The Ollipheist.
It is not long before she is found and brought to the captain, the mysterious grumpy but flirtatious Leviathan. Maeve keeps the secret of who she is, scared of being ransomed or, worse, returned back to the monstrous Pike, but discovers Leviathan’s own great secret: that he can shapeshift into a sea dragon, is the last of his family line, and that he has a vendetta against her family, particularly her tyrannical father.
The more she spends time out at sea, the more secrets burst to the surface, and the more time she spends bandying words with Leviathan, the more attracted to each other they get. They decide to hook up to get their longing out their system, which only worsens matters as real feelings emerge. But time is running out, with Nathaniel hot on their heels.
This is told from the first-person past-tense dual POV of Maeve and Leviathan.
OVERALL OPINIONS
Anacostia is a screenwriter with a background in filmmaking, so it is no wonder I felt this could be made into a film. Also, she is a real one for growing up with The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I have a lot of respect for people like that.
This is Book 1 of The Guardians of Farlight Isles series.
I raced through this because it was so good! Anacostia has a way with words that made me want to join in the swashbuckling adventure. Some moments really made me feel like “this needs to be a film”. It was fast-paced and I loved the storyline, how strong Maeve is as a character who only gets stronger as the book goes on, the chemistry between her and Leviathan, the friends made along the way, and the secrets that get revealed though all quite predictable.
I have not properly read a pirate book in a while but pirates have long been a favourite of mine. This is all thanks to OUAT’s Captain Hook and Pirates of the Carribean’s Captain Jack Sparrow – and was I the only one who had a crush on Muppet Treasure Island’s Long John Silver? Anyways, I am so glad I was one of the lucky 30 people out of 149 to win this in a giveaway, because what a find! You could say it was treasure.
On my tbr list of pirate books, I have “Fable” by Adrienne Young (though it is a YA which is hit or miss for me these days, I should still like to have a go – plus the cover is gorgeous), “Second Star to the Left” by Megan van Dyke (a Peter Pan retelling where Tink falls in love with Hook), and “Daughter of the Pirate King” by Tricia Levenseller (YA book I should have read ages ago).
The storyline is similar to The Night Ends with Fire by K.X. Song, another ARC I received coming out July 2nd. The chief similarity is that both main female characters are to be married to abusive husbands but both decide to escape and take fate into their own hands, and get freedom (for Maeve here it is by stowing away on the pirate ship, for Meilin in TNEwF it is by joining the army in her father’s place).
<< Writing >>
I loved the wording/descriptions, in the first chapter especially. Very poetic.
Take the opening lines: “My life ends today.” an interesting choice of words that hooks the reader in and is repeated a few times. This is because the life she has, albeit not a great one already, is not going to be her own when she marries. This depressing imagery is continued as she describes the wedding veil “The cream-hued lace over my face could’ve been a hanging rope. It would probably feel the same.” – here we see she feels that she is going to her death.
There is a good mixture of funny, serious and steamy moments.
The name of the ship is clever as The Ollipheist is akin to the Irish word Oilliphéist meaning sea serpent/monster.
<< Positives >>
🠚 Strong female character. I cannot emphasise this one enough. None of it felt too forced either.
🠚 A very wholesome crew. I like that instead of them being mean or condescending everyone is so friendly and it means that Maeve does not feel so lonely anymore. That was a lovely touch. Gunner was my favourite crewmate. It is nice that through this Maeve gets a motherly figure in the form of Seabird, the mother she should have had. She is so lovely!
🠚 The spice! Ooft, it was off the charts. This book was really steamy, oh my goodness. Some of the best I have read in ages. Pirate with a touch of 50 Shades.
<< Negatives >>
🠚 There was not enough action for this book to be as long as it was. I accept this is the case as it is Book 1 of a series, and a starting book is always a lot slower as it introduces the world, themes, people, the overall plot. Are there a few characters I wish we could see the backs of already? Absolutely. I am very eager for Book 2.
🠚 The world-building could do with more depth. Don’t get me wrong there was a lot of information, but I felt pieces of history were missing for example how the elves came to live in certain parts. Ideally, having a prologue/chapter giving a history of the world would help.
🠚 No map! I see she has one on her Instagram account which I hope she will put into her final version of the book.
CHARACTERS
-ˋˏ ꒰ Maeve꒱ ˎˊ-
↳ cue the songs “labour” by Paris Paloma and “Little Girl Gone” by CHINCILLA as her theme music.
I adore Maeve. A fellow short queen at 5ft 2. She stands up for herself, is selfless and learns how to fight back. She asks so many questions all the time, which I relate to. It is nice that Levi ends up indulging them and finds it quite endearing.
“No one will save you.” He was right. I had to do it myself
-ˋˏ ꒰ Leviathan꒱ ˎˊ-
↳ A captain who is a cat person, plays the violin to destress himself, protects, attacks and loves you back? Sign me up! There were a lot of aspects of Levi that I liked: every time he smiled/smirked and we got those dimples, his overall charm, his sexy side. Something about the way he pinches her chin between his thumb and pointer finger did things to me!
I wish we saw more of him acting like a captain, intimidating the crew. I wanted more tension.
I loved seeing his more vulnerable side, how he is so protective over Maeve and hates how people have made her feel like property.
“Captain Leviathan is not a man you lie to. He’s done worse for less.”
PLAYLIST
For Honor & Hoist the Colours - Peyton Parrish | Shiver My Timbers - Muppet Treasure Island | My Jolly Sailor Bold - Ashley Serena | Black Sea - Natasha Blume | labour - Paris Paloma | Little Girl Gone - CHINCILLA
FAV QUOTES
• I hated status. The parties. The complete apathy toward anyone deemed lesser. The obsession with power. It turned men into monsters.
• “Burn in Hell!” “Which one?” he asked, crooking an eyebrow. “If you’re going to threaten me, at least be more specific.”
• “A woman shouldn’t do men’s work.” Watch me.
• Even the goddess of the sea—Cliohde—wouldn’t stand between a leviathan and something they wanted.
• Of course the next woman who got me going would be the heir to a murderer.
• I never fit in at the castle. Not once. But here… it felt right. Like I was among friends. I didn’t feel lonely. I felt accepted.
• The way she looked at everything with a sense of wonderment made her naivety more obvious, but it also made her incredibly endearing.
• “Has anyone ever told you that you have a filthy mouth?”… His eyes glinted deviously, a dimple puncturing his cheek. “Oh, sweetheart, this is tame in comparison to the things I plan on saying to you tonight.”
• “My name.” “Ronin,” “Good girl…Now scream it.” – dayum!
• “Thank you.” “For what, sweetheart?” he asked. “For taking care of me.”
• “What does the handbook say about this?” “There is nothing in the handbook about this!”
• “A Princess rescuing a dragon,” she added, a small giggle following. “Seemed imperative.”
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I received an advanced copy from BookLibrary’s April giveaway in exchange for an honest review and I’d like to thank Anacostia Miller, Hot Tree Publishing, and BookLibrary for the opportunity. This has not affected my opinion in any way.
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