Review by Rose A -- Brandy, Ballad of a Pirate Princess

[Rose A]

[Following is a volunteer review of "Brandy, Ballad of a Pirate Princess" by Dan E. Hendrickson.]

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4 out of 4 stars

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“Brandy, Ballad of a Pirate Princess” by Dan E. Hendrickson is a historical fiction piece set during the early period of Queen Victoria’s reign in the British Jamacain territories. The story follows the titular character, Brandy, as she navigates her life under the nose of the law and her enemies. She starts her life, and our story, raised on board the dreaded ship ‘The Red Witch’ by her pirate parents Eric ‘The Plague’ Erasmus and Katrina ‘The Red Mistress’ Mooney. They live a relatively peaceful life until one day, when Brandy is 15, Brandy and her uncle are forced into hiding. They open a tavern and inn together and spend the next 15 years quietly on the mainland of Jamaica. Everything is going to Brandy’s plan when she meets the handsome John Edwards, first mate of the abolitionist ship ‘The Morning Star’. Will love blossom between them and settle Brandy’s soul? I must recommend you read it yourself and find out.

As far as the positives go, I must say there are many. Hendrickson masterfully crafts this story and transports his readers to the 1800s Caribbean. I was not able to find any major mistakes grammatically as well, which aided in my immersion in the story. The story itself is well written with some obvious plot points, such as the introduction of the handsome love interest, and some very unexpected turn of events in even minor plot points. One of which is the fate of a supporting character’s family which does end up altering the main storyline as well. I have long heard that one should write their supporting characters as if they think the story is about them, and Hendrickson was able to do that effectively throughout. If he were to tell the same story through any number of side character’s eyes, he would have come out with a just as compelling story. ”Brandy, Ballad of a Pirate Princess” has a very interesting flow in the way it was written. Hendrickson made use of headings and subheadings to give the audience insight to how much time has past between scenes and chapters and to show changes in location. I greatly appreciated being able to differentiate all the time skips and different locations and I’m sure doing it through headings made it easier for him to write the scenes too.

While my impression of ”Brandy, Ballad of a Pirate Princess” was positive overall, there were a few negatives I would be remiss to mention. For one, present tense is used consistently throughout the novel. While this is more of an individual nit pick, if you’re anything like me and are used to reading stories in more of a past tense, the transition can be quite jarring. I had to reread parts because of the way Hendrickson insisted on writing in the present tense and it came off as reading strange at times. I will say that you get used to the writing style and it stops being bothersome after a bit though. What I mean is, instead of saying ‘Ralphie lowered his head and turned back toward Katrina’s’, Hendrickson wrote, “Ralphie lowers his head and turns back towards Katrina’s.” Also, there are many instances of long, detailed action sequences which while they are nice to show the fight choreography and such, can be a bit over explained and tedious to read. A few here and there wouldn’t have been so bad but there’s detailed passages for every fight or training scene, of which there are many. For example, he writes this to show a training sequence, “Ralphie engages in a modified training speed and begins to throw a slash that is met by a block from John, then a thrust that is also met by a block from John. When finished with the two attacks, they reverse and John attacks while Ralphie defends.” Again, a small personal negative I found while reading the novel. There is mild cursing as well, which I personally do not take offense to but I can see others frowning upon the use of strong language.

This book is definitely not for children or teens. As I previously stated, there is mild language used throughout the book. While there are only 12 uses of profanity, I would caution sensitive readers. There are a couple ‘B Words’, a lot of ‘Wh words’, and one instance of the ‘N word’ with a hard ‘r’. For that reason I recommend this book for young adults. I believe that Hendrickson had that audience in mind as he wrote ”Brandy, Ballad of a Pirate Princess”, he wrote with higher level vocabulary and writes on serious topics like death, betrayal, and morality. If I had to pick any one group to tell to read this book, I would aim towards college students.

Overall this was a lovely reading experience with only a few minor negatives. Personally I didn’t mind the language usage and I appreciated that Hendrickson didn’t ‘dumb down’ his writing to appeal to a broader audience. I think I would give ”Brandy, Ballad of a Pirate Princess” 4 out of 4 stars. I highly recommend any fellow lovers of historical fiction to give this book a try.

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Brandy, Ballad of a Pirate Princess
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[Dashaina Gibbs]

Thank you for such a detailed review. I liked being forewarned about the present tense style of writing, a pet peeve of mine too, as well as the lengthy fight scene descriptions, which I will probably be inclined to skip or skim. Well done on such great detail.