Kirkus Review
A fantasy adventure with a sometimes-biting wit. Tress is an ordinary girl with no thirst to see the world. Charlie is the son of the local duke, but he likes stories more than fencing. When the duke realizes the two teenagers are falling in love, he takes Charlie away to find a suitable wife--and returns with a different young man as his heir. Charlie, meanwhile, has been captured by the mysterious Sorceress who rules the Midnight Sea, which leaves Tress with no choice but to go rescue him. To do that, she'll have to get off the barren island she's forbidden to leave, cross the dangerous Verdant Sea, the even more dangerous Crimson Sea, and the totally deadly Midnight Sea, and somehow defeat the unbeatable Sorceress. The seas on Tress' world are dangerous because they're not made of water--they're made of colorful spores that pour down from the world's 12 stationary moons. Verdant spores explode into fast-growing vines if they get wet, which means inhaling them can be deadly. Crimson and midnight spores are worse. Ships protected by spore-killing silver sail these seas, and it's Tress' quest to find a ship and somehow persuade its crew to carry her to a place no ships want to go, to rescue a person nobody cares about but her. Luckily, Tress is kindhearted, resourceful, and curious--which also makes her an appealing heroine. Along her journey, Tress encounters a talking rat, a crew of reluctant pirates, and plenty of danger. Her story is narrated by an unusual cabin boy with a sharp wit. (About one duke, he says, "He'd apparently been quite heroic during those wars; you could tell because a great number of his troops had died, while he lived.") The overall effect is not unlike The Princess Bride, which Sanderson cites as an inspiration. Engrossing worldbuilding, appealing characters, and a sense of humor make this a winning entry in the Sanderson canon. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Tress is a pragmatic girl who lives on an island in a green sea, works as a cleaner, collects cups, and has a good friend in the local lord's son. The lord sees their friendship and announces that the family will be leaving the island to find a wife for his heir. Charlie promises he won't marry anyone else, and that he'll send her a cup at every stop. The cups stop coming; the lord arrives home with an heir who is not his son. Tress finds that Charlie has been taken for ransom and abandoned by his father. She cooks up a plan to leave the island, which goes well until she discovers she's managed to smuggle herself onto a smuggler's ship, which is promptly destroyed by pirates, though not before Tress befriends a talking rat named Huck. She soon finds friends among the pirate crew, and navigates an educational and dangerous journey. Sanderson's storytelling rhythm makes this a fun excursion into an ancillary world of the Cosmere, where a world building whim--in this case, seas made of spores rather than water--grows into a fullfledged adventure. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Mega-best-selling Sanderson raised millions (literally, millions!) on Kickstarter for four standalone fantasy novels; this is the first, so expect devoted fans and curious new readers to be drawn in.
