Steel

Steel
by Carrie Vaughn

294 pages
Published March 1, 2011


It was a slender length of rusted steel, tapered to a point at one end and jagged at the other, as if it had broken. A thousand people would step over it and think it trash, but not her.
This was the tip of a rapier.

Sixteen-year-old Jill has fought in dozens of fencing tournaments, but she has never held a sharpened blade. When she finds a corroded sword piece on a Caribbean beach, she is instantly intrigued and pockets it as her own personal treasure.
The broken tip holds secrets, though, and it transports Jill through time to the deck of a pirate ship. Stranded in the past and surrounded by strangers, she is forced to sign on as crew. But a pirate's life is bloody and brief, and as Jill learns about the dark magic that brought her there, she forms a desperate scheme to get home—one that risks everything in a duel to the death with a villainous pirate captain.
Time travel, swordplay, and romance combine in an original high-seas adventure from New York Times bestseller Carrie Vaughn.

* * *

Oh. My. Bloody. PIRATES!!!!!

Ships. Adventure. Sword fights. Dark magic. Revenge.

Don't you just love this cover? Of course, I'm a sucker for cool-looking swords. And, in case you couldn't guess, I just adore a good pirate tale.

What makes a good pirate tale? Research. Skill. In my opinion, the best ones are at least based on history, not just a romanticized ideal. This book is, by far, the best pirate adventure I've read in years.

I want to see this become a movie. I want to own this book, instead of just borrow it from the library every couple of weeks, because I am SO going to read it a thousand times.

My one complaint? I WANT MORE.

5/5 stars