With The Bright and Breaking Sea, Chloe Neill (Chicagoland Vampires series) launches a high-stakes-on-the-high-seas historical fantasy series full of political intrigue, naval battles and well-drawn characters.
Neill drops readers directly into the action with a daring escape aided by heroine Captain Kit Brightling's water magic. The world is roughly mapped onto historical Europe during the Napoleonic Wars, complete with a fictional exiled dictator named Gerard. Brightling and her allies hail from the Isles, a fictional Great Britain that appears to have eschewed colonization in favor of international trade and diplomacy. The queen, a Black woman named Charlotte, sends Brightling on a series of missions--to save a spy captured by pirates, to hunt down an enemy ship, and more--in order to thwart Gerard's attempt at a comeback. The action is continuous, with brief stops along the way to repair the ship, re-provision and receive new orders.
As an Aligned person, Kit can tap into the natural magic of the sea. So, when an air-Aligned colleague confirms her sense that something is off, Kit is ordered to solve a mystery only she can: What's happening to the magic? And what does it have to do with Gerard?
While the large cast is a little unwieldy at first, Neill develops her characters well enough that readers will easily be able to tell them apart and appreciate their idiosyncrasies. The Bright and Breaking Sea pits Kit Brightling and her crew against misused magic, cannons and traitors in an adventure that doesn't let up. Readers will be eager for the next installment. --Suzanne Krohn, editor, Love in Panels