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The Pirate & The Princess #1
The Timelight Stone
A female pirate, a lost princess and a mysterious gemstone!
Welcome to the Eurastia, a legendary pirate ship whose captain holds a dark secret. Her name is Yuri, and once, she lived in the future. Unable to return until she rights a terrible wrong, she must redeem herself and fulfill her destiny.
Ten year old Princess Noelle is not from another time, but another place -- a land invaded by evil conquerors who killed her parents and kidnapped her younger brother. The Princess herself is taken hostage until Yuri saves her. It is then that they both learn that Noelle holds the key to Captain Yuri's destiny.
Both Yuri and Noelle want nothing more than to return home. But neither can, until Noelle finds her brother, and Yuri vanquishes the sinister forces that she herself accidentally set in motion.
Welcome to the Eurastia, a legendary pirate ship whose captain holds a dark secret. Her name is Yuri, and once, she lived in the future. Unable to return until she rights a terrible wrong, she must redeem herself and fulfill her destiny.
Ten year old Princess Noelle is not from another time, but another place -- a land invaded by evil conquerors who killed her parents and kidnapped her younger brother. The Princess herself is taken hostage until Yuri saves her. It is then that they both learn that Noelle holds the key to Captain Yuri's destiny.
Both Yuri and Noelle want nothing more than to return home. But neither can, until Noelle finds her brother, and Yuri vanquishes the sinister forces that she herself accidentally set in motion.
110 pages, Paperback
First published October 15, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
January 10, 2014
The Twilight Stone reads very much like an anime... in fact, the narrative would fill perhaps about a half-hour's worth of an anime episode, and almost all scenes could be preserved exactly as they've been described here. It is odd how well a visual art like anime could be translated into a written style... even some images very typical of anime (a ghostly figures from a memory or a dream receding rapidly into the background, which the character chases to no avail) are transcribed here in such a way that makes you realize how culturally specific our narrative tropes really are.
This book is great for a third grader or advanced second grader who is moving from picture books to independent reading of chapter books. It is great to expose children at such a young age to a different genre than they might be used to (although, to be fair, manga is certainly much more mainstream now than it was when I was in elementary school). The illustrations are also quite well done and appear every three or four pages, giving life to characters that are little more than archetypes, although, I'm sure, pleasing to young imaginations who are discovering the joys of long-form narrative for the first time.
This book is great for a third grader or advanced second grader who is moving from picture books to independent reading of chapter books. It is great to expose children at such a young age to a different genre than they might be used to (although, to be fair, manga is certainly much more mainstream now than it was when I was in elementary school). The illustrations are also quite well done and appear every three or four pages, giving life to characters that are little more than archetypes, although, I'm sure, pleasing to young imaginations who are discovering the joys of long-form narrative for the first time.
June 1, 2021
Picked this book up for a few cents as a child, and absolutely loved it. I'm rereading it right now for nostalgia's sake. I tried to pre order the second book in this series over a decade ago, but the publisher had dropped books 2 and 3 and it appears they won't be getting a translation. ;-; According to FredTownWard on Amazon, the original language version of this series is a 10 volume Japanese children's adventure series: Shoujo Kaizoku Yuuri, if you happen to be able to read Japanese.
Read
February 26, 2011loved it
July 19, 2020
Loved it just as much as I did over a decade ago.
Also wow, I forgot just how short chapter books are.
Also wow, I forgot just how short chapter books are.
January 3, 2026
I owe so much to this book, honestly. When I was in the 3rd grade (which was 2009ish), I begged my parents to buy me this from the Scholastic Book Fair because I found the cover art to be utterly captivating. At the time, I didn't know what anime or manga was because it definitely was not mainstream in any way yet, all I knew was that I found the beautiful pirate on the cover very alluring.
I loved this book so much that I even dressed up as a pirate for a book report costume party that we had in 3rd grade. XD It definitely took up a lot of space in my brain.
When I grew up, I ended up selling my original copy during a decluttering spell, as one does. But a lot of time passed and this book remained somewhere in the back of my mind as something very special and precious from my childhood. It took a hot second to find, but a lot of googling and 5$ spent on Pangobooks later and this special, yellowed book from the early 2000s was back in my hands.
It sounds silly, but I didn't actually think I'd be able to read it again because I've been having a lot of attention span issues that prevent me from reading books that are only words (hence why I read so much manga) -- when I see just a page full of words, it's like my brain shuts off and my eyes can't handle it. But I made it my goal for this year to remedy this issue by really, really trying to read novels, even if it meant starting simple, and once again Pirate & The Princess called to me from the shelf.
To my surprise, the clock turned on 2026, 17 whole years after I read this for the first time, and I picked up this book and just started reading. I never felt overwhelmed or unable to continue. For the past three days I've just been chipping away at it... until this morning, when I actually finished it. So once again this book has become something important and precious to me, and I'm grateful to it, to Mio Chizuru, and to Seven Seas for publishing something that has made a mark on my reading history once again.
Thanks for reading all that personal stuff! On to the actual review.
I think this book is really good for both kiddos and adults alike because it has this emotional core in it that I find very alluring. The two protagonists, Noelle and Yuri, have faced a shocking level of suffering, and carry big psychological burdens. Noelle lost her entire family and her kingdom too fast to even have a moment to grieve, and Yuri has stopped her own time, sailing the seas in search of ways to undo her grave mistakes.
Even though the writing is simple, I find these struggles really compelling. I think as a kid, I admired Yuri through Noelle's eyes too -- she's so mysterious and beautiful, unfathomably kind, and the type of hero who comes when you call, but she's also quietly filled with pain and sadness. I'm sure as a kid this dichotomy was also very compelling to me, and I still felt pretty captured by it.
In a few words, this book is both magical and deeply human. It combines fantasy and sci-fi elements to create an understandable yet exciting world that is both familiar and unknown to the reader, while still carrying this shockingly emotional core. It has themes about atonement and continuing on after tragedy.
I think the fact that our protagonists are both women also makes it a really important read, because I'm not really sure I had any action-adventure stories like that as a kid. Yuri is very much the biggest badass in this universe, while also being this kind, motherly/sisterly character, and I absolutely adore that! Similarly, Noelle is a princess, but she's surprisingly savvy and scrappy, never letting herself fall behind others despite all the pain she's suffered. Even though they have only a few moments together in this book, I can see the sort of found family that they probably become -- how allowing herself to be loved by Noelle, the owner of the stone that is the heart of Yuri's horrible future mistake, is possibly the very key to her atonement that she's looking for. Again, I find it surprisingly compelling.
This book is written in a way that's very simple and easy to follow, but it also has some really fun descriptive moments. I think both adults and kids will really enjoy it, if you can stand the fact that the rest of the series was never published in English after this. I think the ephemerality of this story and lack of access is also what makes it weirdly compelling to me, it's like this really obscure, special flash in the pan, if that makes sense.
Even if I'm completely speaking from a place of nostalgia and this book objectively isn't as good as I'm making it out to be (hypothetically), I still did enjoy it, honestly! The straightforward writing style made it really easy for me to pick this up morning and night and read a chapter or two. I think this will be a really good steppingstone in my journey to read books again, and even if it's no great feat to anyone else, I'm proud of myself.
Thanks for reading this long-winded review, and I hope that you'll give this book a try if you can get your hands on it!
I loved this book so much that I even dressed up as a pirate for a book report costume party that we had in 3rd grade. XD It definitely took up a lot of space in my brain.
When I grew up, I ended up selling my original copy during a decluttering spell, as one does. But a lot of time passed and this book remained somewhere in the back of my mind as something very special and precious from my childhood. It took a hot second to find, but a lot of googling and 5$ spent on Pangobooks later and this special, yellowed book from the early 2000s was back in my hands.
It sounds silly, but I didn't actually think I'd be able to read it again because I've been having a lot of attention span issues that prevent me from reading books that are only words (hence why I read so much manga) -- when I see just a page full of words, it's like my brain shuts off and my eyes can't handle it. But I made it my goal for this year to remedy this issue by really, really trying to read novels, even if it meant starting simple, and once again Pirate & The Princess called to me from the shelf.
To my surprise, the clock turned on 2026, 17 whole years after I read this for the first time, and I picked up this book and just started reading. I never felt overwhelmed or unable to continue. For the past three days I've just been chipping away at it... until this morning, when I actually finished it. So once again this book has become something important and precious to me, and I'm grateful to it, to Mio Chizuru, and to Seven Seas for publishing something that has made a mark on my reading history once again.
Thanks for reading all that personal stuff! On to the actual review.
I think this book is really good for both kiddos and adults alike because it has this emotional core in it that I find very alluring. The two protagonists, Noelle and Yuri, have faced a shocking level of suffering, and carry big psychological burdens. Noelle lost her entire family and her kingdom too fast to even have a moment to grieve, and Yuri has stopped her own time, sailing the seas in search of ways to undo her grave mistakes.
Even though the writing is simple, I find these struggles really compelling. I think as a kid, I admired Yuri through Noelle's eyes too -- she's so mysterious and beautiful, unfathomably kind, and the type of hero who comes when you call, but she's also quietly filled with pain and sadness. I'm sure as a kid this dichotomy was also very compelling to me, and I still felt pretty captured by it.
In a few words, this book is both magical and deeply human. It combines fantasy and sci-fi elements to create an understandable yet exciting world that is both familiar and unknown to the reader, while still carrying this shockingly emotional core. It has themes about atonement and continuing on after tragedy.
I think the fact that our protagonists are both women also makes it a really important read, because I'm not really sure I had any action-adventure stories like that as a kid. Yuri is very much the biggest badass in this universe, while also being this kind, motherly/sisterly character, and I absolutely adore that! Similarly, Noelle is a princess, but she's surprisingly savvy and scrappy, never letting herself fall behind others despite all the pain she's suffered. Even though they have only a few moments together in this book, I can see the sort of found family that they probably become -- how allowing herself to be loved by Noelle, the owner of the stone that is the heart of Yuri's horrible future mistake, is possibly the very key to her atonement that she's looking for. Again, I find it surprisingly compelling.
This book is written in a way that's very simple and easy to follow, but it also has some really fun descriptive moments. I think both adults and kids will really enjoy it, if you can stand the fact that the rest of the series was never published in English after this. I think the ephemerality of this story and lack of access is also what makes it weirdly compelling to me, it's like this really obscure, special flash in the pan, if that makes sense.
Even if I'm completely speaking from a place of nostalgia and this book objectively isn't as good as I'm making it out to be (hypothetically), I still did enjoy it, honestly! The straightforward writing style made it really easy for me to pick this up morning and night and read a chapter or two. I think this will be a really good steppingstone in my journey to read books again, and even if it's no great feat to anyone else, I'm proud of myself.
Thanks for reading this long-winded review, and I hope that you'll give this book a try if you can get your hands on it!
March 5, 2019
Fun story: I owned this book when I was younger and at some point I got rid of it (we moved at least once but maybe twice in the time I would have owned this book, so at some point it hadn't made the pre-move decluttering cut) but the cover art of this book has always remained in my mind. A couple months ago, the memory of this book cover became so strong that I wanted to find this book again, but I didn't know where to start. After some googling, I finally found this book again and bought a used copy off Better World Books.
This book is so much better than I thought it was going to be, and definitely more entertaining than I remember. Despite the plot being fairly straightforward and easy to follow, there's quite a lot at play behind the scenes. But these converging plot points never get too complicated, and the story is easy to read. All of the characters are really great too. Another huge plus of this book is the art style, it's gorgeous and fans of manga will definitely enjoy them.
This book is so much better than I thought it was going to be, and definitely more entertaining than I remember. Despite the plot being fairly straightforward and easy to follow, there's quite a lot at play behind the scenes. But these converging plot points never get too complicated, and the story is easy to read. All of the characters are really great too. Another huge plus of this book is the art style, it's gorgeous and fans of manga will definitely enjoy them.
July 20, 2024
Yuri is a pirate (using the term a bit loosely here, as her pirating is heavy on the helping people in need and light on the more traditional looting and pillaging) who appears to be a teenaged girl, but who has actually lived for centuries.
Noelle is a princess from a conquered kingdom, on the run from the agents of the king who brought about her family’s downfall.
When Yuri rescues Noelle, Yuri intends to find a safe haven for the refugee girl. But Noelle dreams of finding a home as part of Yuri’s crew.
This was a fun, mostly cozy, fairytale with a few science fiction elements and a manga-influenced flavor.
It’s the first book in a series, and is more about establishing the world and characters and setting up future stories that about truly making major plot advancements, but it is an enjoyable first chapter.
Noelle is a princess from a conquered kingdom, on the run from the agents of the king who brought about her family’s downfall.
When Yuri rescues Noelle, Yuri intends to find a safe haven for the refugee girl. But Noelle dreams of finding a home as part of Yuri’s crew.
This was a fun, mostly cozy, fairytale with a few science fiction elements and a manga-influenced flavor.
It’s the first book in a series, and is more about establishing the world and characters and setting up future stories that about truly making major plot advancements, but it is an enjoyable first chapter.
March 28, 2025
I read this with my 9 year old son, it wasn't his favorite, but I felt like it was an interesting read. It really felt at points like it couldn't pick a path. It had a little bit of everything thrown in, and yet it was still a pretty good story, if simply told(which could be from the translation).
November 2, 2020
One of my favorite stories in youth. I've never read book 2 & 3, and it's been something that has burned of curiousity in my mind. I may acquire the other two books to satisfy myself.
October 2, 2024
As good as an adult as it was when I was a kid. Adore this book :)
June 28, 2025
A sweet and interesting little book I stumbled across in a used bookstore. Sad the last of the series looks like it won’t get translated.
April 21, 2022
Cute quick read.
November 12, 2009
It was the best book so far that I have read. It was amazing. Some of the characters are Yuri and Nole.The life of Noles past is bad because her mother is killed and she doesnt know if her brother is killed to. she is going to try and find him
to see if he is alive.
September 24, 2009
This was a very good book. I got it over a year ago when my mom bought it for me, and didn't read it until this week. It is really exciting, and has very good pictures. (It's a book that was translated from a Japanese original version, so the pictures are mostly Manga-like pictures) It's pretty short though, so I got through it quickly. I cannot wait to read the next book!
May 24, 2012
It's a pretty cute read for younger people who are just getting into Japanese writing. The characters aren't anything new-- a young girl trying to prove herself, the stoic, mysterious authority figure, foolish king, evil dude cloaked in black. The concept of the story, though, is a fun mix of sci-fi and fantasy. Easy to get through, nothing too graphic. I liked it. :D
March 24, 2013
I picked up this book on the bargain rack at the book fair and its a pretty interesting little book. It has some fun anime pictures to go along with the novel so its pretty good for elementary age readers. The story itself is a good blend of fantasy and science fiction that both girls and boys would enjoy.
November 23, 2012
It was an amazing book that I would recommend to anyone over 9. It kept me entertained. I read it when I was young and I occasionally look back through it to remember one of my favorite books of the time. I really did enjoy the book very much. :)
March 12, 2014
This book takes me back when I was in elementary. The story of a pirate and the timelight stone... it really just fascinates me.
Magnificent story and recommended for young children who loves the theme of Pirates!!! <3
Magnificent story and recommended for young children who loves the theme of Pirates!!! <3
May 26, 2014
It has been quite some time since I read something that could be classified as a picture book. This was part of my "read all Sara's books" challenge. It was pretty cute and read at a fast pace. Much plot.
August 4, 2015
When I started this book in grade school, I NEVER stopped reading it! I think I read and re-read that book at LEAST 10 times within my entire 4th grade year. So easy to read, very quick, but very enjoyable! Loved every minute of it!
May 12, 2020
This was one of my favorite books when I was in elementary. I remember I used to reread it over and over! I loved all of the characters and I loved the art! The story itself was also very interesting! I wish I knew where my copy went because I would not mind reading this yet again someday!
November 5, 2008
This book is about a Princess and she is captured and her family is dead.
Yuio heres her call for help and....
Yuio heres her call for help and....
January 16, 2009
i liked this book very much but it is probably because it is a fantasy book. this book was very exciting. If you read it you'd want to read the other parts or the series
October 17, 2009
Kind of like reading a cartoon.
July 1, 2011
Yuri and Noelle seem to have a lot in common!
August 22, 2012
Really cute book I liked the story and the story I read this in fourth grade and I still like to read it. It is a nice easy read and I like it alot
February 23, 2013
Kind of a weird book, but an okay one. Not sure if I'd bother reading a sequel, but not a waste of time.
Read
April 11, 2013I love it!
June 11, 2013
This book was amazing. I just read and finished it this morning and I am truly amazed. it is a wonderful tale and I think all you other magic and action lovers will enjoy this book.
Read
November 7, 2011It rocks!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews