Ship of Spells by H. Leighton Dickson 
Fantasy
11/04/25 by Entangled: Red Tower Books
ARC

Review by Angela

This is one of those books that sounds absolutely fantastic, where the blurb kind of catches your attention immediately and you just have to snatch it up. This is the tagline at the top of the blurb: “A war-scarred mage. A sentient ship. A secret that could drown empires.” See what I mean? Sentient ships, mages, and drowning empires? Sign me up.

Ship of Spells introduces Ensign Bluemage Honor Renn who’s naval ship is attacked and destroyed, leaving her clinging to the wreckage, knowing she is going to die. But she is rescued by the Touchstone, aka the Ship of Spells, and brought on board. The Touchstone has a motley crew of magic users, a handsome first mate, and a mysterious captain. She doesn’t want to be aboard, especially when she discovers some of the secrets the ship is hiding, and the identity of the captain.

Honor is argumentative, combative, and frankly unlikeable, at first, but I did get where she was coming from and why she acted the way she did. She is soon caught up with the crew, and the arcane magic, or chimeric, that she somehow acquired during the attack on her naval ship, is her biggest asset. Her growing magic will help them achieve their ultimate goal and finish the mission the captain has set out for himself.

This was an interesting read. Just as an FYI this book takes place almost exclusively on a ship, out to sea. There are moments on land, but those are brief. There is also quite a bit of seafaring language that I didn’t always understand, but kind of just went with, but it really does need a glossary for us folks who have no idea what some of these terms mean. The characters, both main and secondary, where well drawn and I enjoyed their backstories and relationships with each other. I did like the action scenes, which were numerous. But, if I’m being completely honest here, at about the 80% mark I was more than ready for everything to wrap up. Even the romance portion of the book felt like it took forever, it got to the point where I had convinced myself that this was full on fantasy with zero romance. I still don’t know how I really feel about the ending.

While I did enjoy this fantasy romance, I wasn’t blown away, but if you enjoy pirate adventures, with magic and sentient ships this may be right up your alley.

Grade- C