Waters of Salt and Sin

The story:
Kinneret Raza is a tough, adventurous, headstrong young woman with the misfortune of being on the lower rung of the caste system her society employs. She is looked down upon by the upper and middle castes, and longs to improve her station in life so she can one day captain her own ship and show her true feelings to her high-caste friend, Calev.
When Kinneret’s little sister is kidnapped, she is forced to make a deal with a dictatorial amir in order to retrieve her. Using all her nautical and salt-witch skills, she must power through a variety of dangers in order to save the only family she has left.


What I loved:
Kinneret is a great main character. She is every inch the adventurer, with enough chutzpah to fill an ocean. It’s very easy to root for her as she battles pirates, classism, and her own desires. She is a heroine that many young readers will love.
Alisha Klapheke does a fantastic job building the world around Kinneret, so much so that we can almost see the story play out inside our heads, like a rollicking adventure movie. It’s a world we want to dip our toes in, and one that will stay with us long after the final page has turned.

What I didn’t love:
That being said, the author does such a thorough job building the world around Kinneret that, on several occasions, the story itself grinds to a halt. There is a fair amount of action and danger in this book, as one would expect, but there are also long stretches of exposition that slow the pace down to a crawl.
The romance in Waters of Salt & Sin, I have to say, breaks no new ground. Low-caste girl, high-cast guy, two kids who clearly love each other but can’t be together because of the rules of society. It’s been done before, and while readers might find the romance element here satisfying, I found it quite predictable.
Honestly, outside of Kinneret (and Odon, who was easily my second-favorite charater), most of the characters lacked depth for me. The villains were as villainous as they needed to be, but I wish there could have been more characters with as much charisma as Kinneret.

My Final Verdict:
Waters of Salt & Sin clocks in at 386 pages, though it feels even longer at times. If you like immersing yourself in a colorful, well-written world, then this might be worth your time (and patience). However, I think about fifty pages worth of extraneous story could have been cut and nothing would have been lost. A marginal thumbs-up for me.

WATERS OF SALT AND SIN is Alisha Klapheke’s first book in her Uncommon World series. It is high fantasy, and the world Klapheke gives the reader is one to rival some of the best in that genre. And the cover—well, the cover is absolutely gorgeous.

In WATERS OF SALT AND SIN, Kinneret Raza is about to turn 18, and her sister Avigail is 14. The girls lost both parents to an illness, and Kinneret has been struggling to keep them alive with her sailing skill combined with her ability to do salt magic. Salt magic allows Kinneret to bend the sea’s currents and winds to her will, and it is forbidden. If she’s caught doing it, she’ll be made an outcast and Avi will be on her own.

As Kinneret begins to feel desperate about their overall situation, a family friend tells her about Ayarazi. Ayarazi is thought to be a mythical land where silver is plentiful, but Kinneret learns that the island is real, and there is a map that will show her the way to it. With silver as the only way to pull herself and Avi (and her first mate, Oron—my favorite character in the book) out of their low-caste life, Kinneret is determined to find the map and then find Ayarazi. With enough silver, Kinneret will not only move herself and her sister to a better caste, she will also put herself in a position to declare her feelings for Calev—her best friend and the young man who holds her heart. Unfortunately, Calev is of a higher caste—he’s the oldest son and apparent heir to the head of Old Farm. Once Kinneret and Calev turn 18, any interaction between them will have to come to a halt as Calev becomes betrothed to someone suitable for his station in life.

The first chapters of WATERS OF SALT AND SIN set the world in which we’ll be immersed: one where higher caste do as they please, lower caste strive to improve their lots, and outcasts struggle to survive. Boats and life on the water play an integral role in the story, and Kinneret’s skills as a boat’s “kaptan” are impressive. Kinneret also has a gift for inspiring allegiance in those with whom she comes in contact, and that gift serves her almost as well as magic throughout the book. My favorite parts of WATERS OF SALT AND SEA focused on those times when Kinneret was at her most confident: managing a boat, acting as a natural leader of men and women, and dealing with one of the many unexpected trials—both large and small—that life brings.

I really liked the world of WATERS OF SALT AND SIN, and it was great to read about a female protagonist with Kinneret’s skills and spunk. I wish her romance with Calev hadn’t been quite so formulaic, and I would have loved for the second half of the book to be as well layered and plotted as the first. That said, the excellent world building at the beginning and the fast pace of the final chapters pull everything together nicely. There are some plot points that don’t make complete sense in the larger context, but the charming cast of characters, the world Klapheke creates, and the promise of more stories about Kinneret and her friends combine to win the day. This is a series I’ll continue to follow, and I really look forward to the second book.

My thanks to the author for an advance copy of the ebook in exchange for my unbiased review.