A rollicking, well detailed cross-genre tale, MISTRESS OF THE STONE mixes pirates with werewolves in the Caribbean.
Luisa Tavares is a Portuguese sea-captain's daughter who is sailing at the helm of her own pirate ship, the Coral. Her feminine side is kept well hidden. Every man aboard has sworn an oath to her father to protect her and treat her with respect, and their loyalty is sorely tested when word reaches Luisa that her father has been captured by a mad Frenchman called Luc Saint Saveur and taken to a Caribbean island known as Isla de Sempiterno.
Barely pausing to spit at her English prisoner, Luisa sets course for the island. Her crew includes a fortune-reader and a devoted cabin boy, in a well-characterized set of people. The nautical details are good, if not always attractive, and at this point we first realize that there is something odd about the injured Inglese Xander Daltry. What gives it away... could it be the bag of wolfsbane around his neck, or the speed of his healing from a severe wound?
Some stirring adventures at sea later Luisa and Daltry reach Isla de Sempiterno, where the tone of the story changes. The lush jungle conceals horrors beyond Luisa's imagining as creatures stalk them and the undead rise from the ground. Changing to a wolf form helps Daltry fight off attackers such as gargoyles. By now Daltry has won Luisa's trust and he explains that the moonstone she wears around her neck is the twin of one on the island, and the two must be brought together at the time of the blood moon to save his sister Sybil who is marooned there and cannot leave. His sister helps them, as a practicing herbal witch, but Daltry has neglected to mention that she is also a ghost.
The island is home to villages of two clans: werehyenas and werewolves. Luc Saint Saveur is an alpha werewolf and inevitably he has used Luisa's father to lure the girl there in order to steal her moonstone for his own twisted purposes. The story cannot end well for everyone, and loyalty to Luisa may be the last thing that Daltry needs, but he admires her strength and resourcefulness and is determined to be her mate - if she will permit any man to love her.
I don't normally read horror but I enjoyed this book, and I was able to skip over the few gruesome scenes and concentrate on the adventures, which were ably described with a lot of small details such as a cheeky pet monkey to add to the fun. I'll be looking out for more Maria Zannini, who has written fantasy both urban and medieval.
She was ready for his steel, but not for his flesh. Luísa Tavares has a list of sins the length of the Antilles, but there’s no time to repent for them now. When a pockmarked Frenchman hands her Papa’s ring—still attached to his severed finger—she orders the Coral back to the Caribbean, despite her father’s earlier warning never to return. It’s Luísa’s luckless fate that the only man who can help her is a blasted Inglés pirate hunter who’s more dead than alive and locked in a curse he doesn’t want lifted. Worse, his feral sensuality sparks a hunger she can’t ignore. Xander Daltry hadn’t planned on kidnapping this wild woman—or succumbing to his uncontrollable desire for her. But he needs Luísa and the moonstone she wears around her neck to rescind a witch’s spell. His sister, long dead, and others like her have been cursed to remain in the mortal plane for eternity. Only the stone can set them free. The only way to convince the reluctant pirate queen to help him is to withhold one small bit of the truth. For if she learns who really betrayed her father, the longing in her fiery eyes could easily turn to murderous wrath… Warning: Contains a pirate queen with a sacred gem, a werewolf with an agenda, an island where nothing is as it seems, and a hero with a Jolly Roger that’ll make you purr like a kitten.
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