Review Detail

‘Blacksouls’ is the sequel to Nicole Castroman’s début novel ‘Blackhearts’. It tells of the story of young ‘Black Beard’ the pirate and the women he loves, Anne. I was able to understand what was happening in ‘Blacksouls’ without having read ‘Blackhearts’ first (although I plan on reading it). If I had known that this series was about ‘Black Beard’ the pirate, I would have begun it sooner. When I was a kid I saw the move ‘Black Beard’s Ghost’ and since then have been fascinated with the pirate.

‘Blackhearts’ and ‘Blacksouls’ take us back to a time when traveling and shipping goods was incredibly dangerous. I’ve been wanting to read a historical fiction that explains some of the perils of travel by sea. Castroman describes in vivid details the ugliness of life aboard a ship in the eighteenth century. Her descriptions were wonderfully detailed and graphic.

I also liked the flow of the switch between ‘Teach’s’ and ‘Anne’s’ POV. I also would have liked to have one edition POV such as ‘Easton’s’ or ‘John’s’.
I loved the characters. I also liked the romance elements of the story which was not at all what I would expect from a novel about pirates.

The prose was super easy to read and colorful. The research done for this book was amazing. I learned so much about seventh century sailing and the details really added a lot to the story.
I flew through the book.
I loved ‘Blacksouls’ and I plan to go back and read ‘Blackhearts’ as well as the third installment in the series. This book was well written, entertaining, educational, and original. I can’t wait to dig into ‘Blackhearts’ the next chance I get.