Adrienne young – OneReadingNurse.com

Thank you so much to Wednesday Books via NetGalley for the early digital copy of Namesake by Adrienne Young! It is always hard to review sequels and such without spoilers so I will just share my general feelings about the book! To recap, here is the review for Fable

Quick Facts:

Title: Namesake
Series: Fable, #2
Author: Adrienne Young
Publisher & Release: Wednesday Books, 3/16/21
Length: 368
Rate & Recommend: 🌟🌟🌟⚡ if you liked the first book

Here is the synopsis from GoodReads:

Trader. Fighter. Survivor.

With the Marigold ship free of her father, Fable and its crew were set to start over. That freedom is short-lived when she becomes a pawn in a notorious thug’s scheme. In order to get to her intended destination she must help him to secure a partnership with Holland, a powerful gem trader who is more than she seems.

As Fable descends deeper into a world of betrayal and deception, she learns that the secrets her mother took to her grave are now putting the people Fable cares about in danger. If Fable is going to save them then she must risk everything, including the boy she loves and the home she has finally found.

Namesake is the second book in the Fable duology. Due to the continuation of the storyline, this can absolutely not be read as a standalone. If you skim my review for book one, you can find most of what I have to say about the world building and characters in general.

There is more action than in Fable. This one was a much quicker read, although at the end of the day, the action fell into anti climax before drifting off to the ending. A few times during the action, Fable would think something like “ok *THIS* is the only way out,” and then she would never explain what *THIS* is and it drove me nuts. Something else would just happen. There is a chance that this will be clamped down in the final book though.

The title? Do you want to know where Namesake fits into the book? Hahahah probably the best storyline, you have to read to find out. The only magic in the whole duology and it’s a great plot line.

Holland is the only new character worth mentioning, and we see a bit more from Zola and Saint as well. I really liked this trio of adversaries. Talking about any more characters may spoil book one. Learning more about West was also good for the story. The Fable and Saint storyline resolved a little bit cleanly for my tastes, and I swear that Fable and West never actually resolved any of the issues they were having. These were big, real, practically unforgivable issues and they just *poof* went away in the next chapter, the same with the issues the crew were having with the situations. *Poof*. The magic of the 7-9 grade level books.

Overall, I do enjoy the story and world Young has built here. It’s a fun, high seas world with a tidy resolution and despite my gripes, they are good for that 12-18 ish age range. Would I recommend the duology? Sure, if you like characters and romantic inklings more than constant action.

In my quest to read more books that I already own, I picked up Fable by Adrienne Young as my second physical book this year! I enjoyed Young’s Sky in the Deep duology quite a bit, and wasn’t disappointed here either

Quick Facts:

Title: Fable
Series: Fable, #1
Author: Adrienne Young
Publisher & Release: Wednesday Books, September 2020
Length: 361
Rate & Recommend: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 yes for YA adventure fans

Here is the synopsis from Amazon:

Welcome to a world made dangerous by the sea and by those who wish to profit from it. Where a young girl must find her place and her family while trying to survive in a world built for men.

As the daughter of the most powerful trader in the Narrows, the sea is the only home seventeen-year-old Fable has ever known. It’s been four years since the night she watched her mother drown during an unforgiving storm. The next day her father abandoned her on a legendary island filled with thieves and little food. To survive she must keep to herself, learn to trust no one and rely on the unique skills her mother taught her. The only thing that keeps her going is the goal of getting off the island, finding her father and demanding her rightful place beside him and his crew. To do so Fable enlists the help of a young trader named West to get her off the island and across the Narrows to her father.

But her father’s rivalries and the dangers of his trading enterprise have only multiplied since she last saw him and Fable soon finds that West isn’t who he seems. Together, they will have to survive more than the treacherous storms that haunt the Narrows if they’re going to stay alive.

Fable takes you on a spectacular journey filled with romance, intrigue and adventure.

Let’s start with The Plot and Story: I liked the story quite a bit. Fable is abandoned by her father after a shipwreck, and has to find her way first back to him, and then to a life of her own. There is plenty of danger and storms on the high seas, as well as tension on the ship to keep things interesting. The reader learns the twists and secrets along the way, as there was no info dump and we learn about the world as Fable sees and remembers it. I was never compelled to keep reading at any point but was never bored either. Young is one of those authors who sacrifices a lot of potential action and exciting events for character time, which caused Fable to lose points from me

The Characters: Like I said, Young spends more time on her characters than anything else, so I will go there next. Thankfully they are good characters.

Fable is a great example of showing, not telling, how bad-ass a character is. She survives on the island of thieves through pure determination and skill, then holds her own on a crew of suspicious traders. We are never told, she just acts, and that is what separates a true leading lady from all the Mary-Sues of the literary world. I like her!

West is a mystery and we get the sense that he still has a lot to uncover. His crew is a great lot once you get to know them, with limited banter but you know they’re a family.

Saint, her father and the most influential of the traders, is also a mystery but he will come back in book two, I’m sure. They had one nice moment towards the end though and I felt almost bad for him! Fable’s scar though- geeeez. At least he did give her the tools to succeed.

The World: The world is called…..oh wait, it’s not. The area of the sea is generally referred to as “The Narrows,” but Young really did not focus on world building. There are multiple regions mentioned with people that may be influential in book two, but the map only shows the places on West’s trade route and the country is given no name. There is so much world building you can do with traders (ask Garth Nix) but Young follows the belief that YA readers want characters, so we don’t get that.

The area/country isn’t given leadership either, in some books featuring traders there is one person at least overseeing things, or the guilds have power. Some powerful trader lady elsewhere is mentioned but not as leadership. There are trading guilds in another area, which I love, but they aren’t expanded on so we don’t know how they run, just that for example,The Merchant’s Guild can revoke trade licenses. Saint is the most prominent trader and has a lot of political influence, and there is an antagonist, Zola, but without much background he just seems like a jaded cartoon villain. There isn’t much on local customs and traditions at all except for the sailor who feeds the birds

Setting: The towns/cities/islands are described pretty well, as well as life on the boat at first anyway, and I think her best world-building came in the descriptions of the seas and the storms. There is one scene where they go underwater, everything is silent and the lightning illuminates bodies and the ship breaking…. ….setting is where the book makes up a lot of brownie points, the ocean and Fable’s memories are well told.

Young still hasn’t learned how to tell time either. Sky in the Deep was notorious for passing time in an impossible manner, and this is no different. A journey that should take a few days happens….oh….lets say they get there in the morning, including a break to drop anchor for a few hours at least. Someone’s severe wounds are healing and apparently it either happens in three days, or more time passes and she doesn’t show it well.

Overall: This is YA, and thr teens probably don’t care if the action is a little bit anticlimactic or just glazed over at times, because the characters kiss instead, right? It was still a good story though and I’ll be reading my ARC of book 2, Nameless, soon due to the cliffhanger at the end! Would recommend for fans of young adult adventures, and books that take place on the seas!