Fiction Reviews
A Pirate’s Life for Tea
(2023/2024) Rebecca Thorne, Tor, £22, hrdbk, 372pp, ISBN 978-1-035-03109-2
This is the second novel in Rebecca Thorne’s cosy fantasy series following the romantic adventures of archmage Kianthe and ex-royal guard Reyna. It was first published in the USA in 2023 and now, 2024, it is out in the British Isles.
The first, Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea, made for a readable but somewhat contrived beginning to their story, heavily inspired as it was by Travis Baldree’s Legends and Lattes, only with tea and books rather than coffee. In contrast, Pirate’s Life essentially abandons the teashop for a bottle of rum, and is all the better for it.
Temporarily free from the travails of running a small business, our heroines are looking for stolen dragon eggs in the riverlands of Shepara, where they hope local lord Arlon’s records will show where they ended up. However, Arlon has problems of his own and jumps at the archmage’s arrival to offer them a deal. Catch notorious river pirate Serina and the information is theirs.
But it doesn’t take long for Kianthe and Reyna to smell a rat in the riverlands. Why does the region have a pirate intercepting grain shipments and redistributing them to the poor, when it’s also Shepara’s breadbasket? Why does Bobbie, the officer in charge of cracking the case, seem so reluctant to bring her childhood friend Serina to justice? What is Lord Arlon really up to? And why does Kianthe not want to return home and introduce Reyna to her parents?
Answers to most of these questions are not long in coming – there is little mystery in Pirate’s Life - but a fair amount of enjoyment can be found in seeing how these problems are ultimately resolved, romantic tension and all.
It does feel like Thorne’s let her hair down and had a lot more fun with her second book, right from the deadpan opening dedication to the online trolls who gave her one star reviews: because the first book ‘had lesbians,’ I doubled the lesbians in this one. Just for you.
While the appealing character work of the debut is again in evidence here, this time Kianthe and Reyna are joined by a stronger supporting cast. The plot too is better: fast-paced, with a more than a modicum of swashbuckling and complimentary notes of comic fantasy (Exhibit A: the Dastardly Pirate Dreggs, a ruffian so smooth they collect their own fan-fiction). And Thorne juggles action, intrigue and interpersonal drama with considerable skill.
To put it another way, Pirate’s Life is almost as much fun to read as, one imagines, it was to write. It is a likeable book that passes the time well without ever seeming to drag. I would hesitate to categorise it as essential reading – unless cosy pirate romantasy is on your literary bingo card – but I also have the sense that Thorne is improving as a writer and is one to watch in this field.
The novel also comes complete with a short standalone piece of erotic fiction featuring Kianthe and Reyna. As Pirate’s Life itself draws a discreet veil over any bedroom activity it makes for a bracing contrast with the main text!
Tim Atkinson
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