Book Review: Sea of Ruin

Months ago or maybe even last year I saw a few people raving about Sea of Ruin by Pam Godwin and it sounded so good that I knew I had to add it to my tbr for my “summer of pirates”. There are so many twists in this spicy, dark, pirate romance so I’ll keep my synopsis and review brief!

The novel follows a young woman, Bennett Sharp, who is the pirate captain of Jade. After making port for a short break on land, Bennett is found by Priest Farrell, a notorious pirate known as the King of the Libertines, and an ex of Bennett’s. Wanting to get away from him, she hustles her men back to the ship, but not before Priest takes something valuable of hers to prevent her from leaving him again. Just when Bennett thinks she can handle Priest, her ship is found and about to be attacked by the Royal Navy. Adamant to keep her ship and crew safe, she gives herself up to the Commodore of the Royal Navy ship, Lord Ashley Cutler.

Can Bennett escape custody before the navy brings her to England to be hanged? Will she be able to avoid succumbing to the two men she doesn’t want, but actually really wants so bad?

As mentioned above, there are quite a few twists and turns in this book so I don’t want to give anything away! This is a dark romance with violence and sexual assault so be sure to check the trigger warnings! If you’re wondering how dark/detailed the assault scenes are, I would say they are much less detailed than a book like Hunting Adeline, but they are there. The gore in the violence might be a little more detailed than Haunting Adeline, for reference, but it’s also been a while since I’ve read that so I can’t be certain.

I loved the characters. Bennett is such a fierce fmc. She’s strong, smart, sassy, and beautiful. Priest is a possessive alpha in the best way possible who would do anything for Bennett. Ashley took me a little bit to warm up to (you’ll understand why if you read it) but he grew on me and his love for Bennett was also really evident as time went on. Priest and Ashley were so different, but both described as very hot. Priest was a rugged, hot pirate. Ashley was clean cut, more refined, but extremely good looking and supposedly even more fit than Priest.

I enjoy reading why choose/reverse harem books every once in a while though I’ve only read three others. It’s not my first choice in tropes, but Sea of Ruin was done really well and when you read it you can see why it just works and makes sense for the characters.

Read this if you want a spicy, dark, pirate romance with the why choose (mmf), second chance romance, forced proximity tropes.