Daughter Of The Sea

I've had my copy of Daughter Of The Sea for nearly two and a half years now which makes it one of my two oldest ARCs, both by a good two years over everything else. Oops! I finally got around to reading the novel now because it will be my Oldest ARC entry for the 2018 State Of The ARC Bingo which will start with July's post. I also discovered when putting this review post together that Maggie Freeman was born and grew up in Trinidad so I have been putting off an unusual WorldReads book - without even knowing it!

Daughter Of The Sea is primarily set in Elizabethan era Indonesia and Malaysia and I enjoyed the scenes set in these countries, especially the bustling Malaysian port of Melaka. Freeman manages to bring the town and its people vividly to life and I felt seeing Mary striving to make a success of her life here was the strongest part of the book. Had Freeman chosen to make this the centre of her story, I think it could have well been a high-4 or even a 5-star read. However the narrative is diluted by switching points of view from Mary to her mother, Maria, and occasionally to those of the men who pass through Mary's life.

I was irritated by hugely significant events being briefly glossed over in favour of lengthy 'romantic interludes' that frequently felt shoehorned into the story and did nothing to increase our understanding of Mary. I really didn't need so much bad poetry! I didn't like the sudden change of location from Malaysia to England either. Mary might well have wanted to search for her infamous father, but the abrupt loss of her supprting characters and the bizarre way in which she makes her journey just didn't work for me. I could have done without the impending love-triangle cliffhanger ending too! A shame as the first half of Daughter Of The Sea is pretty good historical fiction, but I thought it ultimately let itself down.