Uncharted

by Alli Temple

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

As a pirate book, this pretty much hit the mark, but the romance aspect of the book was lacking. I wasn’t a big fan of the main character and she felt a bit underdeveloped. The other characters ended up more interesting and carrying the story. There was a heavy amount of focus on the loss of her best friend and her feelings for that friend, but when that aspect came to the forefront of the story it was extremely forgettable. I understand that romance may not be the point of the story, but it was brought up, resolved, and glossed over so casually that it almost felt a little bit pointless.

Full Review with Spoilers

I’m really divided on this book. As a pirate adventure it’s good. I loved the intrigue that the book immediate opens with. The world is set up really well with out that feeling of having too much information being shoved at you all at once. The princes evil plot to marry Georgina and use her humanity to hide behind was well plotted and was genuinely exciting. Georgina herself felt a little bit underdeveloped, especially in terms of her sexuality. There is a lot of emphasis on her preference for women and complete lack of experience early in the book. When things finally become physical between her and her best friend Lou though, it’s given almost zero attention. I was disappointed at the lack of development there. It went from a worry on her mind to happy in a relationship with no in-between. There needed to be more addressing this.

On that note too I did feel like her relationship with Lou went from 0 to 60 with very little actual development. I felt no actual emotion to it and to be honest I don’t think it helped add anything to the story. I just couldn’t see any chemistry between them because that aspect of them got no attention. It felt like them being extremely close best friends friends in the past was constantly being brought up in order to skip any development, like it was intended for us to assume they were close enough. Lou clearly had experience with women and I feel this was a good opportunity to steer the story in a more emotional direction that it just didn’t do.

I did enjoy the secondary characters a lot. Sadly I feel like they had more depth and development than Georgina did and they helped push the plot forward a great deal.

Overall

As an adventure, this book ticks the boxes it needs to, but I can’t really recommend it if you’re looking for a strong romance plot.