SEAFIRE by Natalie C. Parker

Caledonia Styx’s family was killed by the bloodthirsty warlord Aric Athair and his viscous army, the Bullets. She and her best friend Pisces are left to fend for themselves. Caledonia becomes the captain of her own ship, the Mors Navis, and acquires a crew of girls like her and Pisces, those who have lost everything because of Aric and the Bullets. The crew’s mission: stay alive and destroy the Bullets and their evil warlord.

But then Pisces survives an attack thanks to help from a Bullet who claims to be a deserter from Aric’s crew. He is taken captive aboard the otherwise all-women-ship while Caledonia decides what to do with him. Is this boy the key to taking down Aric and the Bullets? Or is he an enemy implant who will destroy everything they’ve worked for?

I will be the first to admit. I’m a very hard sell on books set at sea. But when I read the blurb for Seafire I thought, hmmm. Maybe. I had met its author, Natalie C. Parker, at Madcap Retreats along with my Winged Pen pal Julie Artz in March 2017 at a Writing Cross-Culturally workshop. While we were there, Natalie had received the news about her book deal. It was hard to not get caught up in the excitement of the moment. Plus, Seafire has been billed one of this year’s most anticipated fantasies.

So what did this landlubber think?

I loved it. It was exactly the book I needed to read. A powerful sisterhood bent on taking down corruption, no matter what the cost. A book of unity and courage. A book about friendship and family. A book about healing from betrayal and allowing ourselves to trust.

This is exactly the book that today’s teens need to read too. We can all feel small in facing the problems of the world, but when we unite with others to do good we are powerful and mighty.

I recently had dinner with Natalie and had the chance to ask her about the inspiration for the book. Coming from a family of avid boaters, Natalie spent a lot time on the sea. Her dad, who was in the Navy, co-conspired with her on some specific technical details, dreaming up ways to make the fantastical Mors Navis come to life. The book was inspired by the movie Mad Max: Fury Road. Seafire is full of the same wild, thrilling energy from Mad Max but with the female-power of Wonder Woman. I tend to be bored by action scenes, but not in Seafire. I was captivated by the ferocious, unstoppable energy.

Natalie’s descriptive prose is beautiful. The plot’s ripples and waves are in all the right places. The turbulent emotion is real and seductive. And the sisterhood is EVERYTHING. A perfect, inspiring must-read for today’s world.

Seafire hits bookstore shelves on August 28th, 2018 and is available for preorder at your favorite store now! Thanks to EW, there’s a first-chapter preview available here.

Natalie C. Parker wears many hats: author, editor, entrepreneur. In addition to Seafire, she is the author of Southern Gothic duology Beware the Wild (a Junior Library Guild Selection) and Behold the Bones. Her first anthology, Three Sides of a Heart, is an exploration of the love triangle. Parker is the founder of Madcap Retreats, an organization offering a yearly calendar of workshops and retreats for aspiring and established writers. She earned her BA in English literature from the University of Southern Mississippi and her MA in gender studies from the University of Cincinnati. She lives on the Kansas prairie with her wife. Connect with Natalie on her website, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.