Review: Fable

Fable
By Adrienne Young
Published September 1, 2020 by Wednesday Books

Publisher’s summary:
As the daughter of the most powerful trader in the Narrows, the sea is the only home seventeen-year-old Fable has ever known. It’s been four years since the night she watched her mother drown during an unforgiving storm. The next day her father abandoned her on a legendary island filled with thieves and little food. To survive she must keep to herself, learn to trust no one and rely on the unique skills her mother taught her. The only thing that keeps her going is the goal of getting off the island, finding her father and demanding her rightful place beside him and his crew. To do so Fable enlists the help of a young trader named West to get her off the island and across the Narrows to her father.

But her father’s rivalries and the dangers of his trading enterprise have only multiplied since she last saw him and Fable soon finds that West isn’t who he seems. Together, they will have to survive more than the treacherous storms that haunt the Narrows if they’re going to stay alive.

Welcome to a world made dangerous by the sea and by those who wish to profit from it. Where a young girl must find her place and her family while trying to survive in a world built for men.

 

Fable is the newest book from Adrienne Young, and I think she’s getting better with each book. Although I loved her first two books, this one is even better.

Fable is a young woman who lives alone on a harsh island in the Narrows. Abandoned there by her father four years earlier, she ekes out an existence by diving for gems in coral reefs. She’s fighting to get off the brutal island, and when she has a chance, she takes it, joining the crew of a young man named West. Fable wants to find her father, the most successful (and feared) trader in the Narrows, and demand her inheritance from him.

This book is so gripping and absorbing. I really felt like I was in the story. Young’s writing evokes the island, the sea, life on a ship. The setting felt so real, and I was completely caught up in the story. Fable is a great character. She’s really well drawn. She’s equal parts tough, desperate, and smart, and her story is captivating.

It’s great to see a writer getting better with each book, and I can’t wait to read the sequel.

I received an ARC from the publisher.