Blog Tour Kickoff & Book Review Swept Up By the Sea

Well, today is the kickoff to my book Ashes Ashes blog tour!  Hooray!  You can enter to win a $25 Amazon gift card by going here

This is going to be fun!

Today I want to tell you about the book Swept Up by the Sea by Tracy and Laura Hickman.  It is billed as a romantic fairy tale and it really was fun.  There was a magical world that still felt familiar, great characters that had me cheering them on in their quest for love and adventure.  It was the kind of book that I would read to my kids under the stars in a tent.  Even the names were fun---pirates like Dead Eye Darrel, Hook Hand Horvath and Cutthroat Karka and a beautiful governor's daughter named Tuppence Magrathia-Paddock.  It was so imaginative, funny, and sort of child-like, yet still engaging enough that even I wanted to turn the page to see what happened!

We first meet Percival Taylor who is about to be married because the Dragon's Bard has arranged a marriage for him to the beautiful Vestia Walters.  But he goes to have his fortune told by Madame Zoltana who tells him that destiny awaits him at sea.  This sounds really great to Percival, so he goes to find his destiny and seek his fortune as a buccaneer.  Unfortunately, no ship seems to want him, and in a twist of fate, he finds himself accidentally protecting one of the most beautiful women he has ever seen---and who mistakes him for a romantic hero named Rodrigan.  Madame Zoltana and the Dragon's Bard step in, each with their own agenda for Percival, but Percival has his own ideas and the adventure begins.

I loved the cast of characters in this book.  Professor Nick-Nack, Adrian, Djara, Captain Swash, the naiads and mermen, Madame Zoltana, and of course our heroes and heroines all worked together to make a captivating book for all ages, really.  The prose was beautiful, the world exciting, and the treasure at the end was worth waiting for.  A fun summer read.

Here's the back copy:

Determined to seek his fortune, Percival Taylor leaves behind his sleepy hometown and sets out to become a legendary pirate. The only problem is, no one at the rough-and-tumble seaport of Blackshore will allow him anywhere near a ship!

Percival must find other means to win the heart of the beautiful Tuppence Magrathia-Paddock, who has mistaken him for a pirate rogue out of one of her romantic books. She is entirely willing to swoon into his arms if he can prove his buccaneer soul—and she will even arrange her own kidnapping to prove it.

Percival eventually find himself captain of a broken-down ship, complete with a crew of reluctant pirates, a jilted fiancee, a reclusive master shipwright, and an old professor with a magical secret that could kill them all. Join the strangest assortment of characters you'll ever meet on the Nine Seas as they set sail for treasure and romance!