Absolutely great!

The Raven and the Banshee by Carolyn Elizabeth

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


WOW!

As I said before, regard myself a dqughter of the sea.Alexander Kent and Patrick O'Brian are probably the two most knowledgeable writers on naval warfare and sailing ships around and I have read most of their work more than just once.

Ms. Elizabeth's tale is very authentic and a gripping read. The sapphic romance just the kick I needed to crave this book on top of the sefaring theme. As I said, the aspect of life at sea in a sailing vessel of the time are well and authenticly portrayed with just one small glitch that is the number of people involved to sail such a ship. eighty years later 30 something men would have hardly been able to man a cutter, a sloop of war (carrying te mentioned number of guns) would have had a minimum of sixty and a frigate of any navy would have been maned by at lest 300 sailors and anything like 100 marines.

But that kind of authenticity is not really required here, because all the rest is spot on. Both the action, especially the fight of the Banshee and the Serpents Mistress, an the general life are well portrayed. We are talking here the time of two real life female pirates, Mary Reed and Ann Bonney, whose existence is actually pretty much proven. There's much speculation about their sexuality, let's leave that open. But for me as a sapphic reader the romance - of course - is very satisfying, especially as both, Branna and Julia are, as another character said, pretty much equal in peersonal strength.



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