The Bright and Breaking Sea by Chloe Neill: review

4/5 stars on Goodreads

The Bright and Breaking Sea by Chloe Neill

I love alt-history fantasy, with its the manipulations of familiar to create something new. The Bright and Breaking Sea by Chloe Neill is a great example of that.

The book is set in the alternative early 19th century, right after the first Napoleonic wars. Only, Britain is called the Isles, France is Gallia, Queen Charlotte sits on the throne of the Isles in New London and the invading emperor is called Gerard. There’s equality of sorts. Women and people of colour hold important positions in the army and navy, but there are still haves and have-nots, and the white aristocratic male still gets what he wants. There’s no Christianity but two deities who are credited with bringing magic into the world.

Not everyone is able to manipulate magic though. Kit Brightling is a foundling who is Aligned to sea magic. She’s risen to a captain of her own ship despite her young age, and works directly for the Queen, undertaking daring missions for her—not that anyone knows about it. But this time, she’s forced to take an army fellow—and a Viscount to boot—on her ship, which doesn’t sit well with her. Together they handle mission after mission for the Queen and country, unravelling a plot to bring Gerard back to power. Along the way, they become friends, and there’s even love kindling. But sea is a harsh mistress, and Kit has chosen her.

This was a great book with a lot of swashbuckling action, pirates, sea battles, spies, and even romance, though nothing like in Neill’s urban fantasy books. The alternative details were clever, nautical details rich, the plot was good and well-paced, if slightly simplistic, and there was a lot of action. I liked Kit and how she was allowed to be a formidable captain without constantly reminding the reader that she’s a woman. Grant was a wonderful romantic hero, but he remained sightly distant, as we didn’t get his point of view despite the prologue hinting at it. A great disappointment, really.

With alt-history, it’s pointless to be upset about details that don’t seem historical, but there were a couple of moments that didn’t really work. First, if a person is thrown overboard in a storm, the ship moves so fast that it’s useless to try a rescue, let alone one where the ship instantly stops and remains still while the person is fished up. Second, gold likely is valuable even in this world, so paying a fair to an amusement park with gold coins strikes as really odd, as do paper notes.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed the book and intend to read the next one when it comes out this November.