When you decide to pick up a pirate fiction book, there is an assumption: a well born lady will be captured by the pirates and will fall in love with the captain of the pirate ship. It’s just the way pirate fiction is, whether you like it or not. This book was no different. I struggle to rate this book though because I read all 600 and some pages in only three days and lost sleep over reading this book because I was so into it; however, I did not like the actual story at all. I found the content really boring and ended up skimming most of the book, going from dialogue part to dialogue part. So, let me explain.
On page six (not exact page numbers) the fair maiden gets captured by the pirates. On page 10 she meets the captain, and on page 35 she realizes that she wants to be with him (in one way or another if you get my meaning). However, I have never EVER known an author to drag something out so long. Nothing ever happens between the captain and the high born lady until page 550. So, 500 pages of what the hell, can we please get on with things. Then, when I actually got to the end of the book I was just mad. There were like 30 pages where things actually went properly for the couple. 30 pages people, in a 600 some page book.
I think my point is this, The Pirate Captain has great potential for the typical pirate fiction, but as a reader I was never satisfied. I like a book that makes me really get into wanting something for the characters, but I am not going to put another 700 pages in (the second book) only to see if the couple gets to have another 30 pages of things working out. I personally just do not have the patience for that.
Also, there were two things that continually irritated me about this book. First, there are far too many similarities to characters in Outlander. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE Outlander; but Outlander is Outlander and other books are other books. If I want to read outlander fan fiction I will pick up a book that claims to be that. The pirate captain has a back story that basically mirrors Jamie’s in Outlander. The main character Cait’s husband also has a striking number of similarities to Jamie. Then, Cait herself seems to fit in with a group of men for all the same reasons that Claire in Outlander got along with a group of traveling highland men. Second, there were many, many errors in this book. It was as if the book was never proof read. These are things like “the” instead of “they”. It was never so bad that I didn’t know what the word was supposed to be, but it was frustrating none the less.