Hello, lovelies!
This week I’ll review the second book in the Mousai series: Dance Of A Burning Sea by E.J Mellow. I read the first book in the series Song Of The Forever Rains at the beginning of the year and thoroughly enjoyed reading it! Each book in the Mousai series is standalone and tells the story of one of the three sisters. After enjoying the first book, I naturally had to buy the second and third.
So, the premise of Dance Of A Burning Sea is that Niya Bassett is kidnapped by pirates and faces her true identity (being a powerful third of the Mousai) and those of her sisters revealed to the world. Niya is kidnapped by Alõs Ezra, an infamous pirate lord who was once her lover and is used as leverage to remove the bounty off his head and allow him and his crew back in the Thief Kingdom. We follow them on a journey of discovery, pirate adventures, a battle of powers and a story of the enemy to lovers. This book has it all.
To say the book is firey would be an understatement, especially since Niya’s powers are around fire and energy. Niya loves to bet, maybe a little too much! When she is threatened by Alõs Ezra, she makes a binding bet that her sisters will save her within three days. If the bet comes true, she is free, and the identity of the Mousai stays hidden. However, if the bet falls flat, she has to stay on the ship and serve on the Crying Queen boat as a pirate under the control of Captain Alõs for a year. Niya is bound to the Crying Queen for a year because her sisters don’t arrive on time. Niya has a journey of self-discovery and finally learns to reign in her temper, which she’s struggled with for years. On this journey of discovery, she finds out there is more to the Pirate lord than meets the eye. More bets are placed, and more lives are at stake.
This book had a lot of action. I was simply gripped with anticipation! This was a lot spicer than the first book, and the action jumped up many notches. The book is told from two POVs: Niya & Ezras. I liked the contrast between the characters; hearing each of their thoughts as this slow-burn romance took place was delightful to read. I loved how their powers reacted to one another (fire and water).
However, As much as I was happy to have them together in the end, there is a part in the book that made me quite uncomfortable; the idea that Ezra keeps Niya as a pet he can use, so she’s been kidnapped, and he requires her to dance for a crowd of people and lure answers from another person, I feel it was a bit like he could her at his disposal which doesn’t sit right with me. He just expected her to use her body to pleasure others to get answers for him. Yikes. There is an unpleasant scene where Niya is whipped in front of the other pirates as punishment for spelling them. There was a little too much sadistic joy with Alõs. For him to think he went easy on her whilst she’s quite literally bleeding red raw, and scarred for life is quite disgusting. Like from the whole book, those were my only issues. Also, he only slept with her four years ago to steal her secret, which is a huge red flag. I don’t know how she forgave him because if someone used me for a secret and threatened to out my family, I’d have banished all feelings for them then and there.
Otherwise, I lived for the lesbian pirates Kintra and Saffi. The pirate adventures gripped me and were so fun to read. I haven’t read a pirate story forever, so I welcomed this one with open arms. The romance was a hot, slow burn, but it was a good read! I rated the first five stars and rated this one the same. I love the Mousai, three powerful women taking vengeance on the world and being the most powerful. I’m really looking forward to the next book!
So, this book is dark in terms of romance. It’s questionable at times, but the pirate adventures are epic. I enjoyed this one, even if I don’t believe Alõs deserves redemption. The five stars were definitely for Naya, she’s my favourite sister so far, and I’m really looking forward to adequately meeting the third sister Arabessa in Symphony For A Deadly Throne.
Thank you for reading my review, and the next post you'll see on the blog is about my Zadar trip!
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