Thank you Hansen House and NetGalley for providing me an e-arc in exchange for an honest review. My review is my own and not influenced by others.

This was a really hard read for me. I normally jump at the thought of Pirates in any sort of setting, but I found this story to be slightly lacking.

I was very excited to read this book after i heard about it from a fried on twitter. So i raced to see if i could get the arc after all it was everything i’ve ever wanted in a book it had sapphics and pirates and the plot captured me from the second i read the synopsis. Which is why it’s so disappointing to me that i could not finish the first chapter. The book seemed to be going so well so far and then out of no where comes an attempted rape scene. It completely threw me out of the book and i haven’t been eager to finish it since. If you are considering reading it i do think you should give it a shot but this just wasn’t something i could move past.

Exciting and so fun to read. The creativity behind the world building was so detailed and thorough- I was lost in it from the very beginning of the book. Captain Liana is such a strong and powerful character- not just outwardly but in her internal nature as well, living her life how she feels and believes is best and most genuine to who she is. Will definitely be recommending this book.

The concept was good but the execution was lacking. The blurb spoiled the story and i believe if it didn’t i would’ve enjoyed it more. The plot was far too slow which made it very hard to get into.

As a person who has often sought representation in books and not found it, I absolutely loved the fact that this book openly allows bisexual characters to be in M/F relationships. I also love the supportive adoptive Dad. THANK YOU.

This story follows Captain Liana Foley, who has a mysterious past, as she is blackmailed into attending a ball. At the party she meets and semi-rescues Rhian a Princess with some secrets of her own. The story is a bit slow paced but full of swashbuckling adventure, complex characters and relationships. I enjoyed the world building, especially following Liana as she struggles to prove that a female can be a pirate captain. It means a lot to see a female take on t his role WITHOUT having to pretend she's a man or be embarrassed about she looks or any other of a million male gaze centric things that normally pervade these books.

Well done!

Windfall is an excellent pirate adventure set in the early 1700’s. Captain Liana Foley is the central character who is both a hero and a rogue. She is an enticing yet complex character who easily draws you into her world of piracy. Shawna Barnett builds an interesting world around Liana filled with lands which sound slightly familiar but are not of this world. The care she takes in her world building and filling it with sexually and racially diverse people is commendable.
The story brought me happily back to the days of black and white swashbuckling movies. Mom and I would make popcorn (shaken in a pot and topped with real butter) and curl up on the couch to watch the action packed adventure.
Windfall is an exceptionally well written novel. It is the first in a series which I am so thankful because I do not want to leave these characters behind.

*3.5 stars rounded up
Windfall is a pirate adventure that follows the story of ship Captain, and runaway princess, Liana Foley. I love a good pirate book and Windfall did not disappoint in that regard. The story is exciting, and you can really feel the bond between Liana and her crew. That being said, this story is fairly slow in terms of pacing. I was, however, pleased to see that this book has diversity in terms of both asexuality and bisexuality. Unfortunately, I was somewhat disappointed to find out that the main wlw representation was two women, who were both in relationships with men, pining after one another. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with the love interests in a love triangle being both men and women, I just think that considering some of the harmful bisexual stereotypes that are out there, authors should be careful to avoid playing into them, as it is a slippery slope. That being said, I appreciate that the bisexual lead in Windfall, Liana, does directly address and dismiss some of these stereotypes. This book also actively discusses rape culture, which was nice to see. Overall, this was a good read, it just had a slow start, and personally I was a bit underwhelmed by the wlw romance.

2,5*

Thank you Hansen House and NetGalley for providing me an e-arc in exchange for an honest review. My review is my own and not influenced by others.

I was very curious for this book and maybe that made me expect more from it than I got. The story was slow a lot of times.
The writing style was good so I decided to finish reading this book even thought it couldn’t hold my attention for the most part.

The story was a bit slow in the beginning, and I was about to quit but decided to just read 1 more chapter... that was the chapter where everything took off and I could not put it down! Stay up until 4 AM because I just had to finish it.

This book has piracy, royal intrigue, secret pasts, and magic. I am excited to read the sequel when it is released!

https://www.librarything.com/review/202143494

I really loved this story! With pirates and political intrigue, a touch of magic and loads of forgotten family secrets, WINDFALL has lots going on. Add to that a cast of great characters and I was totally hooked.

I especially loved Liana and her various relationships with the Windfall crew.

Most of the negative reviews I’ve seen for WINDFALL mention disappointment in the lack of sapphic relationship, so I thought I’d touch on that as, from the blurb, I had initially expected that too. I think the blurb has done the book (and those readers, I suppose) a disservice. There’s a bit of mutual attraction between Rhian and Liana but both are already in happy relationships. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that rather than Rhian being the co-protagonist with Liana — as the blurb suggests — it’s actually her fiancé and ship’s quartermaster, Ameen, who’s a more central character. Rhian is, I’d say, an interesting and important but secondary character.

That said, WINDFALL is still a totally queer book, Rhian and Liana (and at least one supporting character) are on-page bisexual and Ameen is on-page asexual.

Personally, I really loved the relationship between Liana and Ameen, which has great chemistry. You could really feel how much they cared for each other, how much they’d been through and how the relationship had weathered over time before the story even really started. I was less sold on Rhian’s love interest, but then again, we barely see him, so perhaps he’ll grow on me (as a better option, I’d root for a FFM romance with these characters, but I won’t hold my breath).

I know I’m invested in a book when I get concerned about where and when the sequel is before I’ve even finished the story. I was really disappointed when nothing came up on Goodreads!

Luckily, there’s a snippet in the back from the next book, BETWEEN WIND AND WATER, so I know the adventure’s going to continue and I’ll get to see more of Liana and Ameen and the whatever danger the crew are sailing into next.

I wanted to like this book more than I did. It had everything that I wanted on the blurb, bisexual pirates. However, it fell a little bit short for me.
I wanted more pirate action and that doesn't really happen until a few chapters into the story.

This book for me was a tough read. But it does get better as the story evolves.

The first few chapters offers ballot of information and also asks a lot of questions. None of which at this stage can be answered. Its a little bit a guessing game. But that's what keeps you reading. It is also the reason why I found it initially tough.

My advice is to persevere. It does get better and the story begins to fill out. Everything starts to make sense. I found the ending a little disappointing but then I found out there is a sequel so I guess I'm going to have to read that too.

Yes I would recommend this book. But I reiterate you have to stick at it.

Enjoy!


*ARC provided by publisher via NetGalley*

This book was about bisexual pirates- I was always going to enjoy it. It follows Liana, a pirate captain who is also an exiled Princess, her characterization wasn’t exactly original, but it was enjoyable.
The pacing in the first half of the book was a little slow for me but it did allow the author to bring depth to the primary cast of characters. I liked most of the character cast and those that I didn’t were meant to be disliked in one way or another. I particularly enjoyed Ameen’s character (although a little less in the final chapters but that’s just personal preference) I really appreciated his being asexual as it’s rare to come across a male asexual character in fiction.

The bisexuality aspect of the plot felt a little bit forced for me in places but I’m hoping it will be fleshed out in subsequent novels. I did feel a little cheated that binary gender roles were still a thing in this world, from the blurb and description I wasn’t expecting that, and it did feel like the only reason for it was to set Liana up as ‘different from the other women in her world which was aggravating. The world-building was solid though other than that and I got immersed in it.

Overall, this was a straightforward fantasy adventure novel and I enjoyed it. I’m always here for pirate stories and this was no exception, I’ll be reading the sequel.

incredibly written and truly captivating. i tend to avoid pirate books because they don’t interest me but this one held me captive the entire time i read it. i am well and truly in love with every single character. cannot wait for the sequel i know it won’t disappoint. overall 4.5 stars rounded up to 5

Thank you to NetGalley for providing an e-ARC for my review. Princesses, pirates, and powers?? I was immediately drawn to the synopses of the book when I applied to be an ARC reader. I have to admit, I thought I had the book figured out pretty early on, but Barnett was able to throw in some good twists and turns that kept me guessing as she developed some pretty solid world building. I wanted to love the book, but I don't think I ever got past the point of being committed to finding out what happened to the characters more out of OCD than anything else (I rarely DNF a book). The pacing was probably what frustrated me the most. It could be very slow at some points and extremely exciting (the pace I expect a pirate book to be) at times. And while I enjoyed Liana Foley as a character, it felt like she could have been MORE at times. I was much more drawn to Ameen as a character. There was a disconnect for me in the romance storylines, as well. I appreciated the LBGTQ representation -- specifically bisexual and asexual -- in the characters but no one ever truly COMMITTED to one another and it left me slightly frustrated. I feel like I could be interested in reading Book 2 but that has to do more with the cliffhanger and less to do with enjoying the book as a whole.

CW for this book: Attempted rape, Domestic violence, Torture, Murder

The premise of this book intrigued me so much, and I just knew I had to read this book. This book mainly follows the story of Liana Foley, who's a strong, female pirate captain with a past full of secrets. If that's not enough for you, we also have a princess who's secretly a witch. This story had everything: pirates, magic, royalty, found family, adventure, romance. There was also a good amount of little plot twists, which is a must for me. The side characters piqued my interests a lot, and I just wish I got to see more about them in the book. However, I'm guessing I'll get that as the series continues. I recommend this book to people that loved the Red Queen series because parts of the plot are very similar and I feel like the heroines in both would get along really well.

The one thing that made me not enjoy this book as much as I'd hoped was that the pacing was a little off. Yes, parts of it were very invigorating, but there were some parts that I found quite slow and almost boring. I also did not particularly enjoy the love triangle/square, but I'm not a big fan of them in general so it's probably just my preferences speaking.

Thank you to NetGalley for giving me an arc in exchange for an honest review!

Dnf 20%
The beginning started fairly quickly but then fizzled out by the second chapter.
I thought this was lesbian but both the main characters have boyfriends. That really marked my downfall because the queer relationship was the main reason I wanted to read this. I couldn’t push through the straightness.
The writing style felt a little dull. I couldn’t lose myself in the book like I’d prefer to. For a pirate Liana is extremely generous and it honestly felt weird. A pirate running a soup kitchen just doesn’t fit. Just a bunch of tiny details that piled up to make it impossible to push through.

This book was a ride! I really loved the supporting characters they really had great development. THE ROMANCE was such a slow burn and the charters had great chemistry. The magic incorporated surprisingly well with the pirates which was a real surprise! overall i really enjoyed this book

This book grabbed my attention by the blurb. I think I went in with a lot of expectations: LGBTQ+ Pirates and Princesses, slow-burn romance, pirates, found family. But I don't think it reached them just quite.

The book follows an mc named Liana Foley. I really liked her character. I liked reading about how much she cares for her crew. I felt like she had a good personality that developed throughout the book. Also Rihan, a princess was the love interest. I felt like we didn't get a lot out of their relationship. I felt like the pace of their relationship didn't match up to the pace of the plot. To go with that, I feel as if the pacing was kind of inconsistent and didn't hold my attention.

The plot did a good job and showing off both main and side characters. I loved the strong female mc's. I personally really liked how there were serious topics discussed. It's refreshing to see that in a fantasy novel. I also loved the found family moments scattered throughout this book!

It had a great set-up nonetheless and I feel like as the series progresses, the story and relationships can too.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an e-ARC of Windfall by Shawna Barnett! I enjoyed this book mostly for the plot! It did take me a while to get into and I found it a bit slow in the beginning, mainly because a lot of the characters were being introduced and not much was happening. Once the pace picked up it was a lot more enjoyable and easier to follow the plot.

My problem with the book is that I expected a sapphic pirate story involving a romance between Rhian and Liana. There never is any romantic relationship between the two and they seem to lack chemistry even as friends. In fact, the two women already have relationships throughout the book and are happy in those relationships.

The best part of the book was definitely the plot, the adventure was fun and it was nice to read about pirate life with a woman as the captain. The side characters were really fun too! There’s also ace rep which is always nice to see.
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