Fran: M is for Massey

Misty Massey has a pirate book, Mad Kestrel, which I read for my "M" book.

It took some time to get into the book.  It started a bit slow, a standard pirate book, full of "color" on ship board.  I liked having a female protagonist in the aggressively male world of pirates.  Things picked up quickly with the appearance of the mysterious stranger (who is clearly not all he seems), the arrest of Capt. Binns and the race for Kestrel to escape the soldiers, an attempted kidnapping, a boat-napping, swords, mutiny, strange packages, etc.

My main complaint is that the world has magic but that the way that the magic is written is overly-downplayed and somewhat tangential to the book.  We're told (on the back cover so it isn't a surprise) that the fearsome group of magic users, the Danisobans, rip children from their parents and raise them as magic users for the king.  Kestrel's parents die getting her away from them and now she hates and fears/denies the magic that is part of her very being.  But we never meet a Danisoban.  And magic use seems quite distant except for Kestrel's extraordinary powers and a few magic items used by the mysterious stranger.  Magic felt tacked on to the main plot line.

But...Good female character, strong and passionate and clever; interesting main characters, a very visual chase as the main activity of the book.  Swashbuckling and fine as a light read.