Official Review: Vengeance a Pirate's Tale by P. F. Suan

[Heather]

[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Vengeance a Pirate's Tale" by P. F. Suan.]

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1 out of 4 stars

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Vengeance A Pirate’s Tale, by Felipe Fernandez, is a fictional tale about, Felipe (yes the main character has the same name as the author), a supposed decent man turned pirate after his family has been wronged. Felipe has been raised by his mother, his fisherman father, and trained in the sword by his uncle. They live as peaceful of a life as they can in the troubled new colonies of Spain, until they are wrongfully accused of being pirates and Felipe’s father is killed. Felipe then decides to be the pirate he has been accused of being to get vengeance for his father’s wrongful death. Taking place in the new colonies of Spain in the 1600’s, the King’s home on the mainland of Spain, the pirate island of Tortuga, and all of the surrounding seas, it is a story of vengeance, hatred, and greed.

I chose to review this because I love stories that take place in times past, and have enjoyed storylines that include pirates from time to time. And even though I don’t usually go for the whole victim falls for her kidnapper storyline, I wanted to give this a chance, because the idea that this pirate tale might have a little romance in it sounded great. Unfortunately, I was wrong.

For starters, from the very beginning there were just so many mistakes. There were typos. There were grammar errors. An important character’s name was misspelled multiple times. There were many places where a sentence should have ended and a new one begun, but there was no period, no capital letter to denote a new sentence. Words would just go on and on. Comma after comma was missing. And the worst mistake was that a sentence just stopped right in the middle, there was a big space, and then a new sentence started. Half of a sentence was just missing; maybe more. There’s no way to know how much of the story was lost in that gap. I constantly found myself wondering if anyone had proofread it at all before turning into an actual book.

Another thing that bothered me was that there was a fairly long prologue told in first person by Felipe, the main character. He ends by telling the reader that this is his tale, as though he is going to tell it. But then the whole rest of the book is told in third person. He is not telling us the tale at all.

It was being told, though, by someone. In fact, there was a whole lot of telling. It had the feel of a tale being told around a campfire late at night, but it was so long that the listeners would have fallen asleep long before it ended. And being told in this way, it was hard to get lost in the story. I felt always on the outside looking in. And then there was the storyline itself. It was very unbelievable and lacking in problems for the main characters. Yes, at the beginning Felipe’s father is murdered, which sets off the whole thing, but after that, things just work out too well. There was no suspense and tension, no excitement. The characters were undeveloped and acted in ways people wouldn’t act, that made no sense, or were just plain immature. I didn’t connect with them and they weren’t likable. And the violence… I’ve read a lot of books with war and violence, but the violence in this book was described in a graphic, off-putting way. Combined with the multiple descriptions of women’s breasts and occasional vulgar language, it was just too much.

All in all, I can’t say there was anything I enjoyed about this book. It ended rather suddenly, and in a way that made it obvious there will be more to this story in a book to follow, but I have no desire to read more. I was very disappointed and I rate it as 1 out of 4 stars. I would give it 2, just because the storyline may appeal to others more than me, but the complete lack of professionalism in the many, many errors makes it impossible for me to give this more than one star.

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Vengeance a Pirate's Tale
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Like hnardi8's review? Post a comment saying so!

[Lisalovecraft]

I was intrigued by the title of this book, but I don't think I would want to read this. I don't like when events are told instead of shown. A little bit of editing can go a long way! Your review is very entertaining, though!

[HoneyB]

What a pity; the cover looks so pretty.

Question: Who's P.F. Suan?

[Heather]

I was intrigued by the title of this book, but I don't think I would want to read this. I don't like when events are told instead of shown. A little bit of editing can go a long way! Your review is very entertaining, though!

Yeah, some more editing would have been great. And, thank you.

I think it could have been a great story. The idea is there...

-- February 13th, 2015, 3:36 pm --

What a pity; the cover looks so pretty.

Question: Who's P.F. Suan?

I don't know. My book says it's by Felipe Fernandez...